Rimas Tuminas Lithuanian director Date of Birth: 20.01.1952 Country: Lithuania

Biography of Rimas Tuminas

Rimas Tuminas is a Lithuanian director, laureate of the State Prize of Russia (1999), and the artistic director of the State Academic Vakhtangov Theatre since 2007. He was born on January 20, 1952, in Kelme, Lithuania. Tuminas studied at the Lithuanian Conservatory from 1970 to 1974. He later graduated from the directing department of GITIS (I. Tumanov's course).

Tuminas made his debut at the Drama Theatre of the Lithuanian SSR with a production of "January" based on a play by Y. Radichkov. His first Moscow production was "Melody for a Peacock" by O. Zagradnik in the Stanislavsky Drama Theatre in 1979. From 1979 to 1990, he worked as a director, and from 1994 to 1999, he was the chief director of the State Academic Drama Theatre of Lithuania. In 1990, he founded and became the head of the Small Drama Theatre of Vilnius. In 2007, Tuminas accepted the offer from the Federal Agency for Culture and Cinematography to become the artistic director of the Moscow Vakhtangov Theatre.

Throughout his career, Tuminas has directed numerous notable productions, including Anton Chekhov's "The Cherry Orchard" (1990), Bertolt Brecht's "Galileo" (1991), Chekhov's "Uncle Vanya" (1992), "The Seagull" (1993), and "Smile Upon Us, Lord" by G. Kanovich (1994). He has also directed Jean-Baptiste Moliere's "Don Juan" (1995), Mikhail Lermontov's "Masquerade" (1997), Sophocles' "Oedipus Rex" (1998), William Shakespeare's "Richard III" (1999), and Friedrich Schiller's "Mary Stuart" (2000), among others.

Tuminas has received various awards for his work, including the State Prize of Russia in 1999 and the Golden Mask Award.