ABSTRACT
Instructional units too were formed, a producer, a choreographer, and a chorus-master, to visit and advise amateur groups in the Red Army and the clubs that were to be found wherever members of any of the forces had a few hours’ leisure. The brigades were such favorites that as the first months passed it became clear that much more was needed. Concert parties were regrouped into companies, capable of taking entire works to the fronts, whether classic or contemporary. If that was the effect of an ad hoc company drawn from several theatres, people can imagine the effect of one composed of fine artists used to playing to each other. And there was hardly a first-class theatre in the Soviet Union which did not organise a similar front-line brigade. From the actresses’ angle, too, those Maly tours had a wider importance than just personal sensations. The Vahtangov Theatre had the honour of being first central theatre whose brigade visited Front.
