Gabriel Sundukyan National Academic Theatre
Armenia's Mother Theatre, founded in 1921 and housed in a modernist block of 1966.
The company was formed in Yerevan in 1921 and gave its first performance on 25 February 1922 under Levon Kalantar, making it the oldest modern theatre in Armenia; it took the name of Gabriel Sundukyan, the founder of Armenian realist drama, in 1937. Generations of Armenian actors worked here, among them Vahram Papazian and Hrachia Nersisyan, and the director Vardan Ajemian shaped much of the post-war repertoire. Armenians know the house simply as the Mother Theatre.
The present building on Grigor Lusavorich Street opened in 1966 to a design by the architect Rafayel Alaverdyan with the engineer R. Badalyan, a broad modernist block with a colonnaded front and a deep foyer. The repertoire sets Sundukyan, Shirvanzade and other Armenian playwrights beside Shakespeare, Chekhov, Brecht and O'Neill, along with new writing and work for younger audiences on the smaller stage.
Highlights
- Founded in 1921 and known as Armenia's Mother Theatre
- Modernist building of 1966 by Rafayel Alaverdyan
- Armenian classics by Sundukyan and Shirvanzade in repertoire
- Main auditorium and a smaller studio stage
