The Theatre Times: An 1890s red brick, neo-gothic mansion, situated on a busy intersection of central Moscow, houses one of the largest and richest world collections—including visual art, a library, archives, and more—dedicated to the history of theater. Founded in 1894 by Aleksei Bakhrushin, a Russian entrepreneur, collector, and theater enthusiast, as a small private museum, it evolved in a major museum visited by hundreds of thousands of people every year—the State Central Theatrical Museum (GTsTM after its Russian acronym), named after its founder, A.A. Bakhrushin.
1 comment:
I’ve never really thought about it, but I had never heard of a theatre museum until today. It's so interesting because theatre is inherently something that cannot be preserved and condensed into a walk through exhibit. The best you can do is film it and watch it back in real time. But that format isn't exactly museum friendly. The article said that this museum is not just a collection of theatrical artifacts from the past few centuries. But it really does seem like it is all it is. It shows a collection of costumes, set designs, scripts and playbills. That's not to say this doesn't seem really interesting, especially for those interested in the history of theatre. Honestly, this museum probably did the best they could, or frankly, anyone could do, to present such a nebulous art in the form of walk through exhibits. And I’m thrilled that the history of Russian theatre is preserved in this monument. I would just be interested to see if an exhibit could be created that somehow not only conveys the history, but also captures more of the feeling of live theatre.
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