Using Anton Chekhov’s THE SEAGULL, Igor will guide students through his method of script analysis and practical scene study. Actors will be expected to rehearse with their partner and be off-book for the workshop. This is an opportunity to learn from one of America’s most innovative directors, and to approach a traditional play in an unconventional way with a focus on artistic satisfaction for the actor. 

Igor Golyak is the founder and producing artistic director of Arlekin Players Theatre & Zero Gravity (zero-G) Theater Lab in Boston. He most recently adapted and directed a site-specific US premiere of The Dybbuk at The Vilna Shul in Boston, and the New York premiere of Our Class by Tadeusz Slobodzianek at Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), a featured production of the 2024 Under the Radar Festival, which transferred to Classic Stage Company Off-Broadway in September 2024, followed directly by his adaptation of The Merchant of Venice with the same cast. In 2022, Golyak conceived and directed The Orchard starring Mikhail Baryshnikov and Jessica Hecht off-Broadway, which then toured to Boston. 

Golyak is a 2024 Mandel Foundation Fellow. His 2024 Our Class production received four Lucille Lortel Awards: Outstanding Director, Outstanding Revival, Outstanding Ensemble, and Outstanding Scenic Design. Our Class also received a Drama League Awards nomination for Outstanding Revival of a Play. His theater, Arlekin, a company of immigrants, has been invited to perform on famous stages and at world-renowned festivals all over the globe, including in Ukraine, Yerevan, Armenia, New York City, Chicago, Lviv, Monaco, Canada and the UK, as well as the Moscow Art Theatre. Golyak received a master’s degree in directing from the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts in 2004, as well as an acting degree from Moscow’s Schukin Theatre Institute (Vakhtangov Theater).