Alexander Adashev


Alexander Ivanovich Platonov was a Russian and Soviet stage actor and reader in drama, better known under his stage name Adashev and associated with the Moscow Art Theatre, in 1898-1913.

Biography

Among his best-received parts there were those of Bassanio, the Messenger, Orcino, Alyoshka, Molchalin, Grandfather and Zemlyanika, of which he was the first performer at MAT.
In 1906 he became the head of the Adashev Drama Courses. Soon the courses became immensely popular and acquired the status of a preliminary school for actors willing to join MAT. Its alumni included Evgeny Vakhtangov, Serafima Birman, Vladimir Gotovtsev and Maria Durasova.
The courses folded in 1913 in a huge raw when most of the students and tutors quit, and Adashev, accused with "violating the norms of morality", was forced to leave Moscow. He spent the rest of his life working in the Russian province, out of spotlight. In 1923-1927 he read drama at the Kiev Russian Drama Theatre.