1. CaseWesternreserveUniversity//ClevelandPlayHoUseMFaaCtingPrograM
10
Russia arrived to the 20th century on the brink
of monumental change. Serfdom was out,
capitalism was in, and it seemed, as The Three
Sisters’ Baron Tuzenbach says, that, “A new age
[was] dawning … a powerful,health-giving storm
[was] gathering.”
The Three Sisters’ Prozorov siblings are Russian
nobles. Forty years prior to the setting of the play,
the nobility held all the country’s land and wealth.
Serfs, who were essentially slaves, tended to the
nobility’s large estates. However soon after
Alexander II became tsar in 1855, this long-
standing social order changed.While maintaining
autocratic rule, Alexander II implemented social
and political reforms that began to permanently
shift power in Russia, the most notable reform
being the emancipation of the serfs in 1861.
Education and participation in local govern-
ment were made available to former serfs through
the Ministry of National Education and district
Zemstvos —councils for local self-government,of
which Andrei Prozorov is a member. The nobility
lost their exclusive influence in these spheres.
Even so, peasants were mostly without land and
means to support themselves. They either worked
in industrialized Moscow slums or eked out a liv-
ing in the provinces, where The Three Sisters is set.
Left-wing terrorists assassinated Alexander II
in 1881, kicking off decades of reactionary repres-
sion. In the early 1900s, Russia is at peace, but the
future Bolsheviks plan their Second Congress
where they will gain political traction. Nicholas II
will soon oversee tremendous bloodshed from
war,pogroms and suppression,paving the way for
the Revolution of 1917 and rendering Tuzenbach’s
declaration that “in twenty-five or thirty years,
every man will have to work” eerily prophetic.
— Maddie Gaw, CPH artistic apprentice
the calm BeFore a GrowING storm
The Announcement of the Emancipation
Manifesto of 1861 by Boris Kustodiev.
c a s e
w e s t e r n
r e s e r v e
u n i v e r s i t y //
c l e v e l a n d
p l a y h o u s e
M F A A c t i n g
p r o g r A M
the
three
sistersby Anton Chekhov // directed by ron wilson
november 12 - 22 //
the helen at pl ayhousesquare
![CaseWesternreserveUniversity//ClevelandPlayHoUseMFaaCtingPrograM
10
Russia arrived to the 20th century on the brink
of monumental change. Serfdom was out,
capitalism was in, and it seemed, as The Three
Sisters’ Baron Tuzenbach says, that, “A new age
[was] dawning … a powerful,health-giving storm
[was] gathering.”
The Three Sisters’ Prozorov siblings are Russian
nobles. Forty years prior to the setting of the play,
the nobility held all the country’s land and wealth.
Serfs, who were essentially slaves, tended to the
nobility’s large estates. However soon after
Alexander II became tsar in 1855, this long-
standing social order changed.While maintaining
autocratic rule, Alexander II implemented social
and political reforms that began to permanently
shift power in Russia, the most notable reform
being the emancipation of the serfs in 1861.
Education and participation in local govern-
ment were made available to former serfs through
the Ministry of National Education and district
Zemstvos —councils for local self-government,of
which Andrei Prozorov is a member. The nobility
lost their exclusive influence in these spheres.
Even so, peasants were mostly without land and
means to support themselves. They either worked
in industrialized Moscow slums or eked out a liv-
ing in the provinces, where The Three Sisters is set.
Left-wing terrorists assassinated Alexander II
in 1881, kicking off decades of reactionary repres-
sion. In the early 1900s, Russia is at peace, but the
future Bolsheviks plan their Second Congress
where they will gain political traction. Nicholas II
will soon oversee tremendous bloodshed from
war,pogroms and suppression,paving the way for
the Revolution of 1917 and rendering Tuzenbach’s
declaration that “in twenty-five or thirty years,
every man will have to work” eerily prophetic.
— Maddie Gaw, CPH artistic apprentice
the calm BeFore a GrowING storm
The Announcement of the Emancipation
Manifesto of 1861 by Boris Kustodiev.
c a s e
w e s t e r n
r e s e r v e
u n i v e r s i t y //
c l e v e l a n d
p l a y h o u s e
M F A A c t i n g
p r o g r A M
the
three
sistersby Anton Chekhov // directed by ron wilson
november 12 - 22 //
the helen at pl ayhousesquare](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/40b03b91-56f4-4c78-bedf-5bc3f618d079-150627131340-lva1-app6891/85/portfolio3sisters-1-320.jpg)
