Habima Theatre

Habima National Theatre ( _he. הבימה - התיאטרון הלאומי, lit. "the stage"), located in Tel Aviv, is Israel's national theatre and one of the first Hebrew language theatres.

The company was founded in 1918 by Nahum Zemach in Moscow under the auspices of the Moscow Art Theatre, with patronage from Stanislavski who arranged for the mainly Polish actors to be trained by Yevgeny Vakhtangov. The People's Commissar of Nationalities Affairs, Joseph Stalin, also authorized the theatre's creation. In 1926 the theatre left the Soviet Union and toured several years before coming to Tel Aviv in 1928. At that time Habima invited director Aleksei Dikiy from the Moscow Art Theatre. Dikiy directed two successful plays for Habima: one was "Der Oytser" (The Treasure), a play in Yiddish by Sholom Aleichem, that premiered on December 29, 1928, the second was "The Crown", a play by David Calderon, that premiered on May 23, 1929 in Tel Aviv. With the success of Dikiy's directorship in the season of 1928/29, Habima gained reputation as a national Jewish theatre with a permanent repertoire and stage in Tel Aviv.

The image of actress Hana Rovina starring as Leah'le in the historical Habima production of S. Ansky's "The Dybbuk" (performed by Habima in the Hebrew-language translation by Hayyim Nahman Bialik) is a cultural icon that to many represents Jewish and Israeli theatre.Since 1958 Habima has been officially considered the national theater of Israel. Habima employs 80 actors and another 120 work at the complex. The current general director of the theatre is Yaakov Agmon.

The theatre is currently undergoing massive renovations from the foundations up.

Other meanings:
*The name "Habima" was also used by Solomon Stramer's Yiddish theater troupe in Cluj, Transylvania, Romania in the 1920s.

External links

* [http://www.habima.co.il/ Official site]
* [http://www.telavivcity.com/habima Habima at (unofficial)telavivcity.com]