about eng — Nikita Betekhin

Nikita Betekhtin, born in 1988 in the West Siberian city of Tyumen, has been living in Berlin since 2022. As a fellow of the New York-based Artist Protection Fund, which provides scholarships to artists persecuted in their home countries, he has secured a residency at the Deutsches Theater this season. Due to his anti-war stance, Nikita Betekhtin was forced to leave his homeland and is now preparing to establish himself as a director outside of Russia.

Nikita Betekhtin studied directing at the GITIS Institute in Moscow and completed a second master's degree in Cultural Management in 2021 through a program at the University of Manchester and the Higher School of Economics and Social Sciences in Moscow. In 2016, he received a scholarship from the state union of Russian theater workers, in 2019, he was awarded a scholarship for young theater and art professionals by the Russian Federation, and in 2021, he received the Evgeny Evstigneev Prize.

From 2019 to 2021, Nikita Betekhtin held the position of resident director at the Youth Theater in Krasnoyarsk.

As a director, Betekhtin has already gained immense professional experience: he has directed 22 "labor pieces" (projects sketched out in shortened rehearsal times, which play a significant role in fostering young talent in the Russian theater system) as well as 32 full-length productions performed at various theaters, including the Theatre of Nations and the Meyerhold Center in Moscow, the Old House in Novosibirsk, the Vene Teater in Tallinn, and the Teatrul de Nord in Satu Mare, Romania.

From 2016 to 2022, he taught at various educational institutions: the Gogol School in Moscow, an educational project affiliated with the then-operational Gogol Center. The Gogol Center was one of the most progressive theater houses in Moscow and, like the Meyerhold Center, was closed after the start of the war. He also worked as a guest lecturer in directing at the Siberian Federal University in Krasnoyarsk and in the master's program at GITIS in Moscow.

After arriving in Germany, Nikita Betekhtin worked last season as a director at "Musik der Jahrhunderte" in Stuttgart, collaborating with composer Julia Hodgkinson and bringing her chamber opera "Ready for Ecstasy" to the stage as part of the Eklat Festival.

In the current season, he is intensively learning German and gaining comprehensive, hands-on insight into the functioning of the German-speaking theater system at the Deutsches Theater. Additionally, he will direct Chekhov's "The Seagull" at the Ionesco Theater in Chisinau, Moldova, in January and February, and "The Cherry Orchard" at the Teatrul de Nord in Satu Mare, Romania, in April and May.