Vsevolod Meyerhold was tortured, his wife was murdered, and he was executed on 2 February 1940.
22 Facts About Vsevolod Meyerhold
2.
Vsevolod Meyerhold was torn between studying theatre or a career as a violinist.
3.
Vsevolod Meyerhold began acting in 1896 as a student of the Moscow Philharmonic Dramatic School under the guidance of Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, co-founder with Konstantin Stanislavsky of the Moscow Art Theatre.
4.
At the MAT, Vsevolod Meyerhold played 18 roles, such as Vasiliy Shuiskiy in Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich and Ivan the Terrible in The Death of Ivan the Terrible.
5.
In 1898, in the first successful production of Chekhov's first play, The Seagull, Vsevolod Meyerhold played the lead male role, opposite Chekhov's future wife, Olga Knipper.
6.
Vsevolod Meyerhold was invited back to the MAT around this time to pursue his experimental ideas.
7.
Vsevolod Meyerhold introduced classical plays in an innovative manner, and staged works of controversial contemporary authors like Fyodor Sologub, Zinaida Gippius, and Alexander Blok.
8.
Vsevolod Meyerhold became an official of the Theatre Division of the Commissariat of Education and Enlightenment.
9.
Vsevolod Meyerhold came down with tuberculosis in May 1919 and had to leave for the south.
10.
Vsevolod Meyerhold confronted the principles of theatrical academism, claiming that they are incapable of finding a common language with the new reality.
11.
The actors participating in Vsevolod Meyerhold's productions acted according to the principle of biomechanics, the system of actor training that was later taught in a special school created by Vsevolod Meyerhold.
12.
Vsevolod Meyerhold's acting technique had fundamental principles at odds with the American method actor's conception.
13.
Vsevolod Meyerhold had actors focus on learning gestures and movements as a way of expressing emotion physically.
14.
Vsevolod Meyerhold developed a number of body expressions that his actors would use to portray specific emotions and characters.
15.
Vsevolod Meyerhold gave initial boosts to the stage careers of some of the most distinguished comic actors of the USSR, including Sergey Martinson, Igor Ilyinsky and Erast Garin.
16.
Vsevolod Meyerhold gave a start to his one time assistant of "The Queen of Spades" Matvey Dubrovin, who later created his own theater in Leningrad.
17.
The God-like, incomparable Vsevolod Meyerhold, I beheld him then for the first time and I was to worship him all my life.
18.
Vsevolod Meyerhold cast actors based on what they looked like and their expression, and followed Meyerhold's stylized acting methods.
19.
Vsevolod Meyerhold's speech was not reported in the Soviet press, giving rise to a report that he had declared, defiantly:.
20.
Vsevolod Meyerhold was sentenced to death by firing squad on 1 February 1940, and executed the next day.
21.
Vsevolod Meyerhold married his first wife, Olga Munt, in 1896 and together they had three daughters.
22.
Vsevolod Meyerhold later met the actress Zinaida Reich when she began studying with him.