History
The theater that would come to be known as the Natalya Sats Musical Theater was opened in a former movie house as the "Moscow Children's Theater" in 1921.
It had its origins in a series of touring productions staged in 1918 by the Soviet Commissariat for Education. Prior to this time, few adult actors specialized in children's roles, but after the October Revolution Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Krupskaya began to champion theater for children. She was joined by such luminaries as Constantin Stanislavski. Natalya Sats, the 15 year-old daughter of Moscow Art Theatre Composer Ilya Sats, was called on to direct performances in Petrograd, Saratov and Moscow.
The first performance Sats organized, "David," was staged in June 1918 and 350 children attended. The Moscow venture evolved into The First State Children's Theater.
In 1936, the troupe moved out of the former movie house into a large theater on Sverdlov Square near the Bolshoi Theater. At this time the Soviet government changed the troupe's name to "Central Children's Theater." Here Sats pioneered a combination of music, dance, acrobatics, drama and multimedia. Known as "synthesized theater," it has become the dominant style of children's theater.
Natalya Sats directorship was cut short in 1937. Sats was condemned as the mistress of Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, one of the eight top Red Army commanders purged by Stalin in 1937. The attendance of the American ambassador at a performance also contributed to her arrest. She spent the next five years in Siberian labor camps. Her name was not cleared until two years after Joseph Stalin's death.
"It was her strong will, courage and innate feeling of dignity that helped her to survive through all the hardships," the Itar-Tass news agency wrote in 1993, when reporting on the theater pioneer's death at the age of 90.
The theatre that bears her name was founded in 1965, and developed a strong repertoire from close work with contemporary composers. Sats' ambition was both to create new productions specifically aimed at a younger audience, and to present the classics in a way that made them accessible to children.
In 1979, the Children's Musical Theater moved into the Palace of Children's Opera, which was designed especially for the company.
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