St. Petersburg Hand Plastic Theater "Hand Made"

In 1998, on the basis of the Russian-Buryat studio “Ulger”, the teacher of St. Petersburg State Pedagogical Institute A. Knyazkov put on a full-length play in the genre of hand plastic “The Game in 44 Hands” ^[2] . In 1999, the performance became a laureate of the KUKART International Festival (St. Petersburg) and was invited to the main stage of the St. Petersburg Maly Drama Theater , where there were 3 seasons.

In 2003, with the students of the next stream, in the experience of the Ulger studio, A. Knyazkov created the second performance “Fun for an hour” (the modern full name of the performance is “Time for fun, or fun for an hour”) ^[3] , director and teacher of St. Petersburg State Polytechnic Institute Svetlana Ozerskaya staged a children's play “Circus in the palm of his hand” ^[4] - this was the basis of the repertoire of the future theater.

After graduating from the actors of the theater academy, it was decided to create an independent theater from the existing troupe , and on July 13, 2007 - the official date of the founding of the Hand Made Theater. The theater does not have its own theater venue and plays performances on the stages of various theaters in St. Petersburg, the Leningrad Region and Moscow, travels to cities in Russia and abroad.

The name of the theater “Hand Made” comes from the English phrase “hand made”, literally meaning “made by hands, handmade.”

The logo of the theater is a round clock with 11 pairs of hands, walking around the circumference of the dial, and two white hands-arrows. This watch is taken from the play of the theater “Time for fun, or fun - the hour”, where the clock mechanism comes to life with the help of the actors.

The theater works in a symbiosis of the genres of puppet theater , pantomime , choreography , shadow theater and drama theater . The main expressive means of the theater were hands as the most developed and effective organ instruments with unique motor skills. With the help of the hands of the theater, symbols, static and dynamic figures are lined up: people, animals, birds, insects, buildings, world attractions , natural monuments , modes of transport , countries, etc.

The image can be both flat and three-dimensional, reminiscent of 3D computer graphics ^[5] .

Using hands, animated portraits are drawn. Theater actors collect words and phrases using their hands in both Cyrillic , Latin letters and hieroglyphs . An auxiliary expressive means is the use of ultraviolet lamps . The theater also uses in some of its works additional props : hoops, bamboo sticks, plastic frames, shadow dolls.

• “Time for fun, or fun - an hour” (2006)
• “Circus in the palm of your hand” (2006)
• Viva Italia (2010) ^[6]
• Smikhalkovka (2013) ^[7]
• The Little Mermaid (2014) ^[8]
• Thumbelina (2014)

• Anna Ilyushchenko
• Alexander Loskutov
• Alena Stipanova
• Artyom Frank
• Ekaterina Loskutova
• Maria Anisimova
• Sergey Okunev
• Kristina Samoilova
• Galia Abushaeva
• Nikolay Ogarkov

In 2011, the theater took part in 2 rounds of the TV show of talents of the First Channel “Minute of Glory” with the numbers “St. Petersburg” to the music of P. Tchaikovsky and “La'mour” to the song “Une Vie D'amour” performed by Charles Aznavour and Mireille Mathieu . ^[9]

• The theater toured in 18 countries: USA , Japan , South Korea , Great Britain , Netherlands , Norway , Denmark , Serbia , Germany , France , Poland , Bulgaria , Italy , Spain , Finland , Lithuania , Latvia , Ukraine .
   

  Dragon created for the play “Time for fun” in Tokyo
• In 2010, the theater was invited to participate in the Venice Carnival , for which the performance “Viva Italia” was staged. ^[ten]
• In 2012, the theater took part in the largest international Edinburgh Theater Festival "FRINGE" in the UK ^[11]
• In 2013, to the centenary of Sergei Mikhalkov , the performance “Smikhalkovka” was staged according to the writer's work, the theater tours with a performance as part of the program of the Russian Cultural Foundation . ^[12]
• In 2014, the theater took part in the Cultural Olympiad in the framework of the Winter Olympic Games 2014 and the 2014 Winter Paralympic Games in Sochi. ^[13]

• http://www.handmadetheatre.ru
• https://vk.com/teatr_ruk