Maria Astrova papers

1941-1970

Maria Astrova, also known as Marie or Masha Solomonik, was an actress who studied with Stanislavki, toured Europe, then came to New York in 1940, where she and her husband Alexandre Solomonik were central figures in the Theatre of Russian Drama, a troupe which performed in Russian. During her time with the Moscow Art Theatre in the 1920s, Maria Astrova toured Europe as a member of the Prague Troupe. She left in 1930 to settle in Paris, and married Alexandre Solomonik there the following year. She continued acting with a troupe in Paris until she and her husband moved to Brussels. As the war approached, the couple moved to London, then emigrated to the United States in 1940. During the 1940s Maria Astrova and her husband staged Russian drama in New York, Astrova as an actress and Alexander Solomonik as producer and chief financial backer of the Theatre of Russian Drama. The Maria Astrova papers consist primarily of newspaper clippings from Russian language newspapers of the 1940s and 1950s, mostly Russky Golos as well as the Novoye Russkoye Slovo, in which the productions and activities of the Theatre of Russian Drama are described. In addition to the newspaper clippings, there are two programs from performances of works by Gogol, MARRIAGE (1944) and THE INSPECTOR GENERAL (1949), featuring Maria Astrova. Aside from one 1970 clipping, all other news material dates from between 1941 and 1952. There is one brief letter in Russian, dated 1952, from Vladimir Zelitsky, director of the Theatre of Russian Drama. There is a booklet dated 1946 with text in Russian and a number of pictures of dancers. There is also a watercolor of three costume designs, with two swatches of fabric attached.