Saksahansky's Troupe

Saksahansky's Troupe (Трупа Саксаганського; Trupa Saksahanskoho). A populist-ethnographic touring theater troupe founded in 1890 and led by Panas Saksahansky and Ivan Karpenko-Kary. Originally the Society of Russian and Little Russian Actors, it changed its name many times, finally to the Society of Ukrainian Actors under the directorship of Saksahansky in 1907. Among the actors were Mariia Sadovska-Barilotti (d 1891), Liubov Linytska, Sofiia Tobilevych, O. Shevchenko, Denys Mova (also choir director), P. Vasylkivsky, Rostyslav Chychorsky, Hanna Borysohlibska, Vasyl Rozsudov-Kuliabko, K. Pozniachenko, Vasyl Hrytsai, and Severyn Pankivsky. The repertoire consisted primarily of all 18 Karpenko-Kary plays, some of them premiered by the troupe. Karpenko-Kary, also an actor, was in charge of stage design, costumes, the library, and administration. Other premieres included those of Mykhailo Starytsky's Bohdan Khmel’nyts’kyi, Ivan Franko's Ukradene shchastia (Stolen Happiness), Borys Hrinchenko's Na hromads’kii roboti (Doing Community Work), and Liubov Yanovska's Dzvin do tserkvy sklykaie ... (The Bell Calls to Church ...). Besides Ukraine, the troupe toured Saint Petersburg (1890), the Volga region (1895), the Crimea (1899), Warsaw (1903), Minsk (1908), Bessarabia, Moscow, the Don region, and the Kuban. Karpenko-Kary died in 1907, Saksahansky left the troupe in 1909, and it disbanded in 1910.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 4 (1993).]