The new, 257th season, has opened at the Alexandrinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg.

      The season promises a plenty of openings, premieres, and anniversaries. The historic building designed by Carlo Rossi will celebrate its 180th anniversary in November 2012. To mark the date, Liturgy ZERO will premiere on November 10 and 11: this is a stage adaptation of Fyodor Dostoevsky' store, The Gambler. The story was considered the most topical of all Dostoevsky's work. It celebrates not only the opening of the theatre's building, but Dostoevsky's jubilee, too. 

      Another play, based on the stories by Dostoevsky, staged by Irina Keruchenko, Kama Ginkas's student, will premiere before the end of September. However, the most awaited premiere of 257th season is the Monologues in the Tsar's Foyer, starring Nikolai Marton, one of the oldest and longest-serving actors at the Alexandrinsky Theatre. The premiere celebrates Marton's 50-year stage service, however, ten monologues will take the present-day count of 90 different stage roles to a hundred. All monologues belong to the characters previously absent from Marton's repertoire. The play is directed by Polina Nevedomskaya.

      Founded in 1756, Alexandrinsky Theatre has always been the cradle of innovation where many new methods were first tested and applied. To build up on this legacy, a new building of Alexandrinsky Theatre will open in spring 2013. The building was conceived to serve not only as a performance space, but a theatrical, experimental, and educational centre. The new premises will host an Internet-theatre and become Russia's first and Europe's only theatrical institution to educate and bring up a new generation of stage specialists who "systematically use contemporary and innovative technologies" in their work.

      The final premiere of 257th season is also scheduled for spring. "Nevsky Prospect" is a joint directorial effort of Valery Fokin and a group of young stage directors at revisiting Nikolai Gogol's eponymous masterpiece and the famous central street in Petersburg. While Fokin takes overall responsibility for the result and for remaining faithful to Gogol's text, in particular, the young generation gets a carte-blanche at creating their own physiological essays.