Production Details

Pop-Up Theatre presents the English language premiere of its barbed tribute to one of Russia's most respected icons -- Leo Tolstoy. This site-oriented performance takes as its point of departure the beginning of a declaration of love that Tolstoy wrote to his beloved Sophia Bers in chalk on a card table and which she had to decipher. "Your youth and the need for happiness remind me too vividly of my old age and the impossibility of happiness." This scene was later reproduced by Tolstoy in the novel Anna Karenina, with an explanation from Levin and Kitty. For the San Francisco version, Pop-Up founder and director, Semion Aleksandrovskiy works in collaboration (via zoom) with intrepid Bay Area actors and members of Shotgun Theatre, Megan Trout and Caleb Cabrera.

One of the ongoing conundrums for the “New Drama” movement in Russia is how to create work that speaks to critical contemporary issues while still being reliant on money from the government. From a pragmatic perspective, Pop-Up Theatre was founded to be an independent company that could exist without the strictures of State funding. Artistically, the mission of Pop-Up Theatre is to not only create new performances, but to expand the very meaning of the word "theatre", to go beyond, destroy boundaries, explore reality and become an object and subject of study in of itself.

Artist Biographies

Semion Aleksandrovskiy (Director)
Semion Aleksandrovskiy works in the realm of documentary theatre. He is one of the leaders of modern theatre directing and the New Drama movement. He founded Pop-Up Theatre in 2015. Semion graduated in 2007 from the directing department of the St. Petersburg Theatre Arts Academy, Studio of People's Artist of Russia under the tutelage of Lev Dodin.

Megan Trout (Actor)
Megan is a voiceover and theater artist in the Bay Area. She is an artistic company member of the Shotgun Players (Berkeley, CA) and has worked with the following Bay Area theater companies: Aurora Theatre Company, Central Works, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Word For Word, Marin Theater Company, The Magic Theatre, Just Theater and The O'Neill Foundation. She narrates audiobooks with Simon & Schuster, Hachette Book Group, Deyan Audio and Bee Audio. Megan has trained with Voice One, Real Voice LA, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, The Moscow Art Theatre School and holds a degree in Theater Arts from San Francisco State University.

Caleb Cabrera (Actor)
Caleb Cabrera is a San Francisco-based Bay Area actor. He graduated from San Francisco State University with a B.A. in Drama - Performance and from Cosumnes River College with an A.A. in Film & Media Studies. Past credits include; Firstness (BAFTII), Out (Pixar Animation Studios), Transfers (Crowded Fire), Women Laughing Alone with Salad, The Events, Grand Concourse, Hamlet (Shotgun Players), The Eva Trilogy (Magic Theatre), My Mañana Comes (Marin Theatre Company), Into the Beautiful North, Totem & Taboo (Central Works), This Is All I Need (Mugwumpin). He is grateful to be part of this piece; his first in-person project since before the pandemic.

Phil Lowery (Production Assistant)
Phil Lowery works around the Bay Area theatre scene as a director, stage manager, production manager, educator, actor and sometime free-lance janitor or bookkeeper. He has appeared on the stages of Central Works Ensemble, Shotgun Players, Lamplighters Music Theatre, and San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, and has been directing operas, operettas and musicals since the mid-1990s for companies such as Berkeley Opera, Pocket Opera, Lyric Theatre of San Jose, and Lamplighters Music Theatre, where he is also on staff as Production Coordinator.

James Mayagoitia (Assistant Stage Manager)
James is thrilled to be back in theatre as the ASM for this roller-coaster Russian-American collaborative project. Previous credits include Ray of Light Theatre's The Rocky Horror Show (Phantom), award-winning Heathers (Boy 1) and The Wild Party (Oscar D’Armano)! Other favorite credits include one of the Hedwigs in Hedwig and The Angry Inch (Boxcar Theatre), Paul in A Chorus Line (SFSU), and Associate Pastor u/s in The Christians (SF Playhouse). James is also a classically trained singer, director, and teaching artist; and holds a BA in Drama (Magna Cum Laude) from San Francisco State University.