Viktor Ryzhakov takes charge of the Sovremennik theatre after the death of Galina Volchek, who led the troupe for almost half a century and enjoyed absolute authority. For the theatre’s first new production, the new artistic director chooses a play about a family whose members have ceased to understand each other. While working on the play, the director and actors become more and more like the characters in the future production, and find it increasingly difficult to find mutual understanding within their “theatrical family.”
Viktor Anatolyevich Ryzhakov (Russian: Ви́ктор Анато́льевич Рыжако́в; born 25 May, 1960; Khabarovsk) is a Russian theater director, filmmaker and actor. From 1995 to 2001, he was the artistic director of the Drama and Comedy Theater in Kamchatka, where he created the first Russian board of trustees at the state theater. From 2013 to 2020 - director of the Vs. Meyerhold Theater and Cultural Center. Since 2020 - artistic director of the Moscow Theater "Sovremennik". Director of performances based on the plays of Ivan Vyrypaev: "Oxygen", "Genesis No. 2", "Valentine's Day" (Saratov Drama Theater), "The City where I am", "July", "Sunny Line", "Drunk", "Iranian Conference". Conducts master classes on the topic "The Stanislavsky System and Modern Theater" in Germany, Poland, the USA, Hungary. He lectures and conducts classes on directing and acting skills with graduate students of Harvard University (an educational program at the Chekhov Moscow Art Theater), the Novosibirsk Theater Institute, Higher Production Courses (VGIK), RSUH. At Russian and foreign theater festivals, he conducts master classes on the topic "Working with text in modern theater".