Ilkhom Theatre

ABOUT THE THEATRE
The Ilkhom Theatre, one of the first professional, non-state-supported theatres in the history of the former Soviet Union, was founded in 1976 by Mark Weil and a group of his students at the Tashkent Institute of Theatre and Art. The young theatre's first production was «Maskharaboz-76», a piece based on the principles of traditional street theatre. However, as a playhouse with its own style and personality, it was Weil's production of Alexander Vampilov's “Duck Hunting” that truly gave the group its start. Although it so happened that this was not the first-ever production of this play which went on to become recognized as one of the major works of Soviet drama, Weil was the first director to begin rehearsing it. Subsequently, the theatre frequently staged unknown or little-known works, including plays by Vampilov, Sergei Zlotnikov, Lyudmila Razumovskaya, Alexei Shipenko and others. By the middle of the 1980s, Ilkhom had become a well-known and popular theatre. At this time the troupe began experimenting with non-verbal works, in effect, experiencing a rebirth in a new form. Those actors who performed in such productions as “Ragtime for Clowns“, “Clomadeus” and „Petrushka” brought a new level of energy and sensibility to the theatre's work.
In September of 2007, Mark Weil was murdered outside his apartment in Tashkent.
Today his theatre bears the name of the Mark Weil Theatre. It consists of the playhouse and a training center, a school of dramatic art, which was founded by Weil in 1989. In essence, this date can be considered the starting point of the theatre's third major period.

In October 2008, Weil's former student Anton Pakhomov staged “Clay Letters, Floating Apples“, a parable by Yevgeny Abdullaev. The critics of Tashkent have already crowned this production as the season's finest premiere. In truth, the Mark Weil Theatre continues to live an
active creative life. Its contemporary repertoire is as varied and vibrant as it ever was in the early days. Among its offerings are “Free Novel,“ a provocative diptych based on Alexander Pushkin's “Eugene Onegin“ that takes its title from Pushkin's own description of his novel-in-verse; a multimedia mystery-play titled „Imitating the Koran”; a dramatization of early Anton Chekhov stories called „Doctor Chekhov's Laboratory”; and Alexei Kazantsev's „Brothers and Liza”.
The Mark Weil Theatre is a frequent participant in international theatre projects. Traveling far and wide over the last 16 years, the theatre has participated in more than 32 international festivals in 21 countries. Some of the counties visited include Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Norway, Ireland, Yugoslavia, the United States, Russia, Japan and Finland. In this time, the theatre has undertaken 16 separate tours.