NATALYA BORTKO, The play "Barbara"

Graduated from the Theatrical Academy in Kiev.
Script writer of TV films "Without family" (after the novel by Malo), "Dog's heart" (after the novel by Bulgakov).
Together with her husband V.Bortko she wrote the script for full-length film "Good luck, gentlemen!"
Started to write plays in 1984.
The play "Barbara" was written in 1994. Restless, unrealizable wishes, yearing for ideal make heroes act extraordinarily. Barbara is an unacknowledged actress. Marina is a student. Their meeting and original friendship help them to meet their wishes. Love helps creative work and creative work brings new feelings into love.
The third hero Anton thought that truth was very far from everyday life. But suddenly he understood that he was mistaken.
Language of the heroes sometimes very ordinary, sometimes very pompous reflects conditions of their souls that live in the irrational world.

OLEG ERNEV, "Payment for Transportation"

This novel is a philosophical-art parable.
After the carcrash, two heroes found themselves in some other reality. They can't go away. Some strange strong power of a boatman stops them for indeterminate time. Strange life after deathstarted. And again, as in former life, the main hero has to go through fear, despair, hesitation, love. Loss of love and wife makes him act. He chose freedom. He killed a boat-man.
But his freedom becomes dependance. He has to take place of the boat-man. He has to transport people's souls across the river.

ANDREY ZINCHUK, The play "The 31 of December"

Changed several professions. Worked as an odd-job man, reporter of "The Latest News" on Leningrad Radio, technician, engineer, editor.
Graduated from the State Academy of Cinematography in 1986 as a script writer. Together with friends established "BOREAS" publishing house.
The action of the play "The 31 of December" takes place in a small town. The only season there is winter. Every day all town people have to celebrate "New Year". Because New Year has no end. Nobody knows who did that, nobody knows how long it lasts...
The main heroes of the play try to find the "Master". The "Master" really did all that and he can't understand, why people don't like their life.
Of course the story has the happy end. Moral of this fairy-tale is:
-=life can't be everlasting holiday, even if this is holiday;
-=life can't be fat and satiated;
-=life must be free.

SERGEY NOSOV, The comedy "Berendey"

"Berendey" is an original comedy about the adventure of two young avanturists from Russia in one of the European countries.
The main hero got political acylum posed as berendeypeople, that extincted as long ago as XIII century. He has just met his friend, whom he invited into that country, promissing unbelievable things. Having no money for fare, he nevertheless tries to take his friend from one town to another. Two friends have to get out of the train on every other station. The action of the play takes place on the platforms of those stations. The play is written in the genre of "strange comedy".
Sergey Nosov was born in 1957. Two books of novels and short stories written by Nosov were published in St.Petersburg"Below, under the stars" (1990) and "Monument to the one, who is guilty of everything" (1994).
Participated in the poetical anthology "Late poets of St.Petersburg". Four plays from seven written by Nosov were staged on "Radio Russia".
Nosov considers himself a postabsurdist.

ALEXANDER OBRAZTSOV, The comedy "Magnetic fields"

Yunona, an excited young woman in a light-blue wedding-dress has just left her hair-dresser and is walking towards Moscowsky Prospekt to get a taxi. Her bridegroom, the giant of bodybuilding Pirogov, her family and numerous guests are already waiting for her in the Wedding Palace.
Daniel, an intelectual with an indefinite profession, very kind-hearted and responsible and due to this most unlucky is going from the bakery home to his wife Vera a sarcastic clever and nice-looking woman.
They stop. When Yunona tries to run to Moscowsky Prospekt she falls down in three meters from Danielan invisible resilient wall stops her. The same happens to Daniel. They are in the ring of "magnetic fields". "Magnetic fields" can be interpreted as a metaphor, the nature's promtor literallyas a joke of Supreme Powers. Nevertheless, Yunona and Daniel can not leave each other.
We meet Yunona and Daniel in a month after the wedding in her flat. They are still inseparable. Pirogov sleeps in the next room. He is not a bridegroom already but not a husband yet.
The playwright Alexander Obraztsov is the author of more than 50 plays. 20 of them were staged and published in Moscow, St.Petersburg, Tbilisi, Zurich, Bratislava and other cities. Twice he was awarded with the first prize in All-Russia radio plays competitions.

IGOR SHPRITS, The comedy "At the bottom"

Combining pleasure and useplay-writing and research work - Igor Shprits has already written seven plays: three comedies and four non-comedies. Two of them were staged and two - published. The rest are humbly waiting for their lot. What are the main themes such a playwright can write about? Simple things mainly. Happinnes, where are you'! Is it possible for husband and wife to be friends? Where and when is the end of a man?
Is there life on Mars? And if life is there who needs it? So the number of questions is endless. Igor Shprits is going to devote the rest of his life to finding answers.
"At the bottom" is the remake of the famous play by Gorky but the acion is taking place in the old communal flat in St.Petersburg in our days. Any society has the bottom and any of us in this or that way belongs to this "bottom". There is nothing tragical in this : life is life. The play is the winner of the All-Russia Competition of Playwrights in 1995.

STANISLAV SHULYAK, The play "The Job's book"

Stanislav Shulyak was born in 1960. He started with small aphoristic forms when he was 18 and gradually getting over to big prosaic works. These works traditional (at first sight) stories and plays do not contain global catastrophies. There is only one theme in all of them: horror of simple human existence.
The main character of the play "The Job's book" Aphanasy Kudesov says: "Stunned with the uselessness of colourless existence I sometimes experienced doubts in life itself". And "doubts in life" one way or another influence all his activities or better to sayinactivities. He is a writer and he works on a topic very far from "mass culture". While he faces obstacleshe works a lot. When nothing inferferes with his work Kudasov immediately stops. Nothing special in that: the creative crisis also belongs to the creative process. When he, the author, is alienated from the results of his work, he stays indifferent. When he is expected to be outspoken he is evasive. Being alone he writes a pathetic and slightly helpless appeal 'to all who are still alive", traditional mythology, habitual moral values are no longer guiding lines for the character of the play (may be, for modern cousciousness on the whole) and their existence can be likened to the march of the blind in the Bible.
What has it all to do with Job? Of course, Job is just a pretext. He is an archetype, he is the standard of righteousness (so unattainble that righteousness itself seems to be very close to heresy). And he was one of those first who managed to cheat the Creator.