Italyanskaya street, 19The Komissarzhevskaya Theatre is a theatre in Saint Petersburg named after Vera Komissarzhevskaya. It was founded in 1901 and made stage productions at various locations in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Russia. Vera's brother, Theodore Komisarjevsky, established a studio of his sister's theatre in New York City in 1939. Since 1942, the company is permanently located in St. Petersburg, at 19 Italyanskaya Street in the former "Passage Hall" of the elite department store The Passage. The resident company was named the Komissarzhevskaya Theatre in 1959.
The theatre was opened on October, 18, 1942 as the City Theatre. In autumn 1944 it was renamed into Leningrad Drama Theater. On this stage Alisa Freindlich, Igor Dmitriev started their creative career, young and yet unknown dramatists Daniil Granin and Alexander Galich represented their plays. In 1959 it was named after Vera Komissarzhevskaya.
On October, 18, 1942, during the most severe period of the siege, a new theatre City Theatre was opened with a perfomance of Russian people by Konstantin Simonov. Its troop was formed from artists of Radiocommittee and Drama Theatre named after A. Pushkin and I. Gorin, I. Sonne were directors. Later artists of New Theater for Young Audiences and agitation troop of Red Army joined the main troop. The theater strengthened the moral courage and helped to survive. Leningradites called it Besieged.