Penza Drama Theatre

The Drama Theatre in Penza appeared thanks to the Empress Catherine the Great. The empress, being a well-educated woman, wrote the play ‘Liar’, and that play was staged for the first time in Penza, on the 24th of November 1793, on the Empress’s birthday. The tradition of small household theatres had exited in the Penza region before that, but since that moment the history of the official theatre company began.
In 1793 the large stone building was erected, and in the first half of the following century Penza became the theatrical centre of the province, holding the third place after Moscow and St. Petersburg.
At the beginning of the 20th c the theatre acquired a new stage, so the performances went on the ‘summer’ and ‘winter’ stages. The ‘summer’ stage was the wooden platform in the popular city partk, the ‘winter’ stage remained in the old building.
In 1920 the theatre was named after the outstanding political figure A.V. Lunacharsky.
In 2010, after a destructive fire, the theatre company had a new magnificent building in the city centre. At the moment, this building is one of the most state-of-the-art theatre buildings in the country with the capacity of 900 visitors in the main hall and 100 visitors in the small hall.