In 2002 the theatre's director became Sergei Artsibashev (who for ten years has led the Pokrovka Theatre). His first two productions, Gogol’s "Marriage" and "Karamazovs" after Fyodor Dostoyevsky (in V.Malyuagin’s version) proved to be a triumph. In the 2005 premier of "Dead Souls" (representing for the first times both parts of Gogol's classic) Artsybashev played Chichikov.
