Lviv First Ukrainian Theater for Children and Youth

Lviv First Ukrainian Theater for Children and Youth (Перший український театр для дітей і юнацтва; Pershyi ukrainskyi teatr dlia ditei i iunatstva). Founded in Kharkiv in 1920 as the Fairy-Tale Theater (Russian), from 1921 it was called the Kharkiv First State Children’s Theater (bilingual from 1925), and in 1944 it was transferred to Lviv where it fuctioned under the name Lviv Young Spectator's Theater. In 1945 the director, Volodymyr Skliarenko, staged Yurii Kostiuk’s Taras Shevchenko. From Ukrainian classics the theater staged Ivan Franko’s Uchytel’ (The Teacher) in 1956. In 1990 the theater assumed its present name while one part of the troupe under the leadership of Ya. Fedoryshyn split to create a new group that later became the Lviv Academic Resurrection Theater.

The theater’s repertoire for children has included an adaptation of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Anatolii Shyian’s Kotyhoroshko (The Pea Roller) and Letiuchyi korabel’ (The Flying Ship). Its contemporary Ukrainian repertoire included Myroslav Irchan’s Rodyna shchitkariv (The Family of Brush Makers), Volodymyr Gzhytsky’s Po zori (At Dawn), and P. Lubensky’s Neskorena poltavchanka (The Undefeated Girl from Poltava). It has also staged the Russian plays Nedorosl' (The Minor) by D. Fonvizin and Revizor (The Inspector General) by Nikolai Gogol. In 1982 the director, V. Kozmenko-Delinde, staged an experimental production of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The theater's artistic directors have been Vasyl Kharchenko, Serhii Danchenko, and Oleksii Ripko, and the stage designers, Borys Kosariev and I. Deshko.

[This article was updated in 2016.]