Marianna Arzumanova

Director, actress, producer and journalist Marianna Arzumanova was born in Moscow. Both her parents were excellent pianists and she attended piano classes for 8 years at music school in Moscow. Before finishing her high school she moved with her family to Tel Aviv in Israel. Later, she graduated at Russian Academy of Theatre Arts in Moscow (former "GITIS" State institute of Theatre Arts) from acting. She attended the course of master Pavel Chomsky at Theatre Mossovet and after the graduation she also acted in Sergei Vinogradov's Company. During her studies she began her nine years lasting cooperation with the Radio Free Europe as an editor, moderator and an author of various shows. After four years working in Moscow she moved to the headquarters in Prague in 2001. After quitting the field of journalism she fell in love with Argentine tango and after taking several courses including intensive course of Rodolfo Dinzel in Buenos Aires she started to teach it at private academy called Buenos Aires Tango as an official representation of Dinzel International in Czech Republic. From live tango performances it was not a large step back to theatre. The inspiration for her first theatre play came from Argentine tango's pure essence - immigration. The cast of the show grew up within her tango companions and colleagues who had been studying at Marianna's acting courses. The premiere, in her direction, took place at a cozy theatre in outer center of Prague "D21" in 2013. The performance met with a great success and after travelling to several venues in Czech Republic it settled up at the Theatre in Celetna, in the nearby of Old Town Square, where it is being performed until now. Marianna's re-awaken creativity leaded to another original play for her theatre company named 13 Faces of Woman in 2015. The background of an independent journalism and her civil responsibility moved Marianna to present the adaptation of Evgheny Schwartz's timeless allegorical play and political satire - Dragon - in 2017. As she felt comfortable with making her original plays she made another of her ideas come true in 2018. Tract of love described the eternal seeking for a power that's exceeding us and our relation to it. In 2019 a classical J. B. Priestley's psychological detective story Dangerous Corner was presented under her direction quickly followed by the play The Kitchen of Arnold Wesker. Marianna opened her own theater stage in Prague center, "Divadlo MA" with a premiere of a theater adaptation of a novel Address Unknown by Kathrine Kressmann Taylor in 2020. Nowadays her theatre company performs eight plays and there are two more planned to join the repertoire till the end of 2021. Marianna Arzumanova is a well-known Prague-based acting teacher and coach, with a great passion for a psychological theater and a profound knowledge of Stanslavski's system of acting.