Kudashov Ruslan

Kudashov Ruslan

Head of the Directing for Puppet Theatre studio

Ruslan Kudashov has participated and won awards in many international festivals. He is the recipient of the medal “For services to the Fatherland,” as well as a laureate of the Golden Mask, the highest theatre award in Russia, the Golden Spotlight, St. Petersburg’s highest theatre award, an Arlekin, the highest national award for theatre geared toward children and teenagers, and many others.

Ruslan Kudashov has directed more than 30 productions in different cities (Riga, Belostok, Brest, Petrozavodsk, Yaroslavl, Plovdiv) and countries (Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Bulgaria).

A key part of Ruslan Kudashov’s work involves his studio at the Bolshoi Puppet Theatre, as it is made up of actors he taught at the Institute. As students they were taught to be universal actors – they have not only mastered various systems of puppetry, but feel at home in dramatic or movement-based productions. One of the most important tasks during their training was the development of an actor’s way of thinking; that they train not just as actors, but as puppeteers in the original meaning of the word: as actors, directors, designers and engineers rolled into one. Since this young generation joined the ranks of the Bolshoi Puppet Theatre, we have seen the theatre present an endless series of theatrical experiments that combine the most diverse of genres and performance techniques. The studio currently has 14 eclectic shows in its repertoire.