Nikita Betekhtin

theatre director

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.

Portfolio

Autofiction play by Alexej Lochmann

Self-Portrait Between Steppe and Forest

Deutsches Theater Berlin, 2024

Director •• Nikita Betekhtin
Ausstattung •• Ramona Hufler
Dramaturgy •• Karla Mäder

„Selbstporträt zwischen Steppe und Wald“ ist ein sehr persönliches Projekt von Alexej Lochmann, präsentiert im Rahmen des einzigartigen Freiboxen-Formats am Deutschen Theater Berlin. Dieses Format bietet Ensemblemitgliedern die Möglichkeit, persönliche Projekte vorzustellen, die sich durch kurze Vorbereitungszeiten, überraschende Inhalte und ästhetische Vielfalt auszeichnen. Lochmanns Geschichte ist besonders berührend angesichts der aktuellen politischen Ereignisse.

Geboren in Qaranghandy, Kasachstan, und aufgewachsen im Hamburg der 90er Jahre, ist Alexej Lochmanns Familie eine Mischung aus russlanddeutschem und ukrainisch-russischem Erbe. Seine Familie musste sich ständig neu erfinden, von Ort zu Ort ziehen und dabei Stücke ihrer alten Heimat mitnehmen. Diese Aufführung erkundet die Zerstreuung einer Familie über verschiedene Länder und Ideologien hinweg, die Ereignisse, die ihre Migrationen verursachten, und ihre kulturellen Besonderheiten. – Wie viele Bäume braucht es eigentlich, bis aus der Steppe ein Wald wird?

Für den Freiboxen-Abend bringt Regisseur Nikita Betekhtin eine einzigartige, in Russland entwickelte Methode mit: „Laborinszenierungen“, bei denen junge Regisseure mit minimalen Ressourcen und kurzer Probenzeit, aber voller Unterstützung des Theaters, ihre Fähigkeiten im Geschichtenerzählen erkunden. Dieser innovative Ansatz passt perfekt zum Geist von Freiboxen und betont Kreativität und Einfallsreichtum.

by Anton Chekhov

The Cherry Orchard

Satu Mare, Teatrul de Nord, 2024

Translation and Stage Version •• Raluca Rădulescu
Director •• Nikita Betekhtin
Set and Costumes •• MO-LU
Set Design Assistant •• Cristian Gătina
Video Design •• Mihail Zaikanov
Dramaturgy Assistant •• Codruța Cadar

"The Cherry Orchard" is one of the most frequently performed plays by Anton Chekhov. As the last play written by the great Russian author before his untimely death, it was first staged 120 years ago in Moscow and has since been translated into dozens of languages and performed in numerous countries. Chekhov described the text as a comedy, a satire on human nature and destiny. It tells the classic story of the illusion of love and the mistakes of youth, of lives wasted in search of an answer to the belated question "What if?"

In our rendition at Teatrul de Nord, the last 20 minutes Chekhov leaves for farewells have been visualized as a gigantic timer counting down on stage—a poignant reminder of the inevitable. These 20 minutes encapsulate everything: a final goodbye to the scent of patchouli, to the room so beloved by their mother, to the garden still haunted by the ghosts of memories. It’s about saying farewell to the hope of happiness, of escaping together from this hell. Just 20 minutes to find one's galoshes and gather belongings.

Nikita Betekhtin's production invites the audience not only to observe the passions and struggles of the characters but also to reflect on their own lives. The story explores the limits of human expectations and the hope for a better future, making Chekhov's characters relevant to our times. The play juxtaposes human aspirations against the vastness of the universe and eternity, highlighting the futility and absurdity of earthly conflicts and passions.

by Anton Chekhov

Seegull

Chișinău, Teatrul Ionescu, 2024

Video by Frol Podlesnyi

Director •• Nikita Betekhtin
Stage and Costume Designer
•• Denis Sazanov
Sound •• Christian Patraș
Video •• Mikhail Zaikanov

"The Seagull" brings before the audience not only the human passion to live life but also to take life as it is – with the struggle, sometimes fierce and harsh, for happiness and love, for attention and admiration from others. With all their might, the characters of the play try to seize their chances, which they perceive as the ultimate gift of fate. The sensation of the horizon of expectation being limited and the hope for tomorrow brings the condition of Chekhov's characters closer to that of contemporary humans.

At the same time, together with his characters, Chekhov highlights the condition of humans faced with the immensity of the universe and eternity, which make earthly struggles and conflicts seem insignificant and petty. In the timeless light of the moon, the daily occurrences, the turmoil, and the passions of characters aware of the inevitability of death and decline become as futile as they are ridiculous.

What does happiness consist of, and what are the stakes in our search for the joy promised by existence? How do we distinguish what is truly important from what is ephemeral?

Horror performance for teenagers based on a play by Alexey Oleinikov

Bakery Plant

The Theatre for Young Audiences of Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoyarsk, 2020

Director •• Nikita Betekhtin
Playwright •• Alexey Oleynikov
Shorthand and costumes •• Denis Sazanov
Composer •• Oleg Krokhalev
Sound designer •• Yan Kuzmichev
Video •• Mikhail Zaikanov
Light •• Nikita Shakarov

“Bread Factory” is a play composed of monologues by high school students. Reflection on past childhood is woven into the fabric of stories about the everyday life of schoolchildren - games, everyday conflicts, love, friendship and enmity. Feeling themselves at the junction of ages, the heroes are trying to understand their place and role in this world. However, gradually more and more infernal absurdity appears in the voices. An ordinary excursion to a bread factory turns into a mystical event — pagan baking of babies or mass sacrifice of children to the inexorable Moloch of social doom.

Maria Kozhina
St. Petersburg theater magazine

•• Fear is something that haunts you and doesn’t allow you to live, but it’s also something that shapes you, adds up to experience, and makes a person individual. The director offers teenagers a conversation in the language of images, which are read through poetic text and visual embodiment. It invites viewers to join the game and not only try to find their place in these stories, but also to share their own fears.••

by Mascha Kontorovich, Krasnoyarsk

Mum, My Arm Was Torn Off

The Theatre for Young Audiences of Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoyarsk, 2020

Director•• Nikita Betekhtin
Stage and Costume Designer•• Nadja Skomorokhova
Lighting Designer•• Nikita Shakarov

The podium, where the heroes can demonstrate current costumes in acid colors that cover their internal complexes and problems, is the only detail of the set design. “When you're 16, you kind of live on the edge. You seem to be constantly either Cobain or Severus Snape. Well... It’s so easy,” - this is how Masha Kantorovich’s play begins, and the excellent actress Elena Kaiser, pronouncing this text, puts on a hat with a unicorn to indicate that she will now play the role of Masha, who will ultimately decide to take the action that was decided in name, but which in the end no one will notice.

This performance is an immersion into a strange world, the personal space of a modern teenage girl. Masha is experiencing an internal conflict caused by the discrepancy between the expectations of others and her own self-image. In a desperate desire to overcome the indifferent attitude of the world, to stand out and become different from everyone else, she decides to lose her hand.

Maria Kozhina
St. Petersburg Theater Magazine

•• Mashka’s peers are space aliens. They parade along the podium stage in shiny futuristic suits, and she, in a simple sweater and a hat with a unicorn, against their background seems too simple and uninteresting. The idea of becoming a model, even without a hand, in a performance arises from the need to fit into this company, to become just as cool and to feel like one of those.••

Heiner Müller

Cement

The Old House Theatre, Novosibirsk, 2020

Director •• Nikita Betekhtin
Costume Designer •• Alexey Lobanov
Stage Designer •• Alexander Mokhov
Lighting Designer •• Ilya Pashnin
Choreography •• Igor Sharoyko
Sound Designer •• Yan Kuzmichev
Media Designer •• Andrei Lokhonin

The performance was one of the most notable Russian premieres of the theatre season 2019-2020 as deemed by the expert council of The Russian National Theatre festival “Golden Mask”. The performance took part in the V Festival “Theatre Biennale. Uroki rezhissury” Gleb Chumalov comes back from The Civil War as if he had been to the land of the dead. He finds his house in ruins, his wife Dasha doesn’t recognize him, nor does he recognize her, and their daughter Niurka is starving in the orphanage. Gleb wants to restore the mechanical body of the cement plant at whatever cost, but to do this, he has to learn to be a machine himself.

Hainer Müller’s play “Cement” is based on the eponymous novel of Fyodor Gladkov. In his unique style, Müller condenses the plot into just a few scenes, linking them them to the myths of Odysseus, Achilles, Prometheus, Sisyphus and other Ancient Greek heroes.

Ksenia Stolnaya, theater critic for Novaya Gazeta

•• Their acting involves a lot of physicality, large gestures everywhere, and yet, remains very focused. With inner strength. Rigorous on the outside. Once in a while, the actors freeze in solemn poses reminding you of the old propaganda posters; 
the words either sound like thunder, or drag – the speech seems structured in a musical, rhythmical way to the very last note. However, the expressiveness and amplifying of the form are not overshadowing the content. It has no soul, but it has will. In an ex- cruciating way, it asks essential questions. Who is the hero today? Who can build a life out of ashes and ruins? Can humans’ desire for destruction be eradicated?••

Heroes Among Us

Center for Theater Arts, Nizhny Novgorod, 2021

Director •• Nikita Betekhtin
Daramaturg •• Sergey Davydov
Choreography •• Sergey Tonyshev
Video •• Mikhail Zaikanov
Producer •• Evgeny Pykhtin

This is the first major project in Nizhny Novgorod that includes the format of a theater for citizens – it involves Nizhny Novgorod residents with different viewing and performing experience, different ages and professions, who have passed a preliminary selection and took part in a three-week laboratory. They act on their own behalf as performers. The monologues of Nizhny Novgorod residents, heroes of our time, who were interviewed by the playwright and director, are performed by professional actors.

The performance won the Grand Prix of the X Russian Theater Festival named after. M. Gorky.

Evgeny Avramenko
St. Petersburg theater magazine

•• The director constructed the performance with mathematical precision, and the audience’s attention is held constantly. Monologues read by the actors skillfully alternate with replicas of Nizhny Novgorod residents - their answers to questions (“what would you like to change in your city?”, “Who do these changes depend on?”, “What do you dream about?”, “What did you miss in own life?”••

Chamber opera by Oleg Krokhalev, based on the story by F. Dostoevsky

Notes from the Underground

Theater of the Nation, Moscow, 2021

Director •• Nikita Betekhtin
Composer •• Oleg Krokhalev
Video •• Mikhail Zaikanov

As part of this musical project, four composers wrote four chamber operas based on the works of Dostoevsky. They were staged on the stage of the New Space of the Theater of Nations by four young directors and performed by the vocal ensemble N’Caged and the Moscow Ensemble of Contemporary Music (MASM). The composers themselves chose the literary material for the operas and thus already at this stage of creativity showed their attitude towards Dostoevsky’s work: there was a combination of plot lines, an emphasis on individual characters and work with the epistolary heritage of the writer.

The performance was awarded the national Golden Mask award as one of the most significant Russian premieres in the 2020/2021 theater season.

Tatiana Yakovleva
reMusic.org Magazine

•• The highest degree of vulnerability and inability to face the rudeness and violence of the outside world, shining with coldish shades of sounds, syllables and words, transformed Dostoevsky’s intense empathy into a mode of new sincerity.••

by Dmitry Bogoslovsky

Catapult

The Theatre for Young Audiences of Krasnoyarsk, Krasnoyarsk, 2021

Director •• Nikita Betekhtin
Playwright •• Dmitry Bogoslavsky
Shorthand and costumes •• Denis Sazanov
Light •• Nikita Shakarov

“Catapult” is a story in two acts about the life of the outwardly adult, but internally immature Vadik, says the announcement on the theater’s website. “You can’t envy the life of the main character, because by the age of forty he found himself “in the air.” Along the way, the financial and criminal problems of the poorest regions of the post-Soviet space are shown. But don’t rush to draw conclusions, the play is not at all about everyday life, and Vadik is not so simple - throughout the story he transforms and matures in the process of finding a decent suit for his son for graduation.

Vadik is one of those who grew up in the early 90s, and hung out there. Vadik’s life is not going well: his wife doesn’t want to let him home after the divorce, his son has nothing to buy a decent suit for prom, once again he couldn’t get a job, and he also got involved in some murky business. Vadik’s whole life is in flux, as if he was launched from a catapult in an amusement park playing with lights without wearing a seat belt.

Theatre productions

•• “The Emigrants” (S. Mrożek)

•• “Sonya” (T. Tolstaya)

•• “Waiting for Godot” (S. Beckett)

•• “The Storm” (A. Ostrovsky)

•• “Peer Gynt” (H. Ibsen)

•• “The Forest” (A. Ostrovsky)

•• “Prank” (V. Alekseev)

•• “As You Like It” (free adaptation of Shakespeare’s play)

•• “Black Box” (P. Pryazhko)

•• “Summer Bees Sting in November, Too” (I. Vyrypaev)

•• “Brothers” (S. Davydov)

•• “The Dog in the Manger” (Lope de Vega)

•• “Christmas” (A. Loskutov)

•• “Gymnastic Goat” (A. Seredin)

•• “Seryozha the dumb” (D. Danilov)

•• “Omon Ra” (V. Pelevin)

•• “Oliver Twist” (Charles Dickens, A. Bookreeva)

•• “Queen Bitch” (A. Ivanov)

•• “Mum, My Arm Was Torn Off” (M. Kontorovich)

•• “Line of the Sun” (I. Vyrypaev)

•• “My Happiness” (A. Chervinsky)

•• “Cement” (H. Müller)
•• “Bakery Plant” (A. Oleinikov)
•• “Catapult” (D. Bogoslavsky)
•• “Heroes Among Us” (S. Davydov)
•• “Hill” (A. Zhitkovsky)
•• “Six Characters in Search of an Author” (L. Pirandello)
•• Opera “Notes from the Underground” (F. Dostoevsky, O. Krokhalev)
•• “Bird Trap” (K. Steshik)
•• “Ronaldo will never catch up with my granny” (S. Davydov)
•• Opera “Ready for Ecstasy” (J. Hodkinson)

Festivals and Grants

Festivals

•• International Theatre Festival “Postefremovskoye space” — “The Storm”

•• International Youth Theatre Festival “Lively Faces” — “The Storm” (“Best Director” Award)

•• IV Moscow Theatre Festival “Moscow Roadside” — “The Storm” (“Best Theatre Show” Award)

•• International Theatre Festival “TACT” — “The Storm”

•• All-Russian Festival of Independent Theatres “Theatre Arrow” — “Christmas”

•• All-Russian Youth Documentary Theatre Festival “Verbatimfest” — “Brothers”

•• International Theatre Festival “TACT” — “Brothers”

•• Out-of-competition program “Mask Plus” in Russian National Theatre award “Golden Mask” — “Mum, My Arm Was Torn Off”

•• International Youth Theatre Festival “Lively Faces” — “Mum, My Arm Was Torn Off” (prizewinner of the festival)

•• Interregional Competition-Festival “Kuzbass-FEST” — “Hill” (“Best Stage Design” and “Best Actress” Awards)

•• Russian Gorky Theatre Festival — “Heroes Among Us” (Evstigneev's Prize)

•• Festival “Theatre Biennale. Uroki rezhissury” — “Cement”

•• “Ready for Ecstasy” (J. Hodkinson) — Stuttgart, ECLAT festival

Grants

•• The State Grant of The Russian Theater Union

•• The Government Grant for Young Workers in Cultural and Artistic Areas

•• Artist Protection Fund fellow