Alexei Lelyavsky is a director and teacher, since 1998 – the Artistic Director of the Belarusian State Puppet Theatre (Minsk). He is an Honored Artist of the Republic of Belarus and winner of numerous international theatre prizes and festival awards, including the Russian National Theatre Award THE GOLDEN MASK.
Lelyavsky graduated from the Belarusian Institute of Performing and Visual Arts (today it is the Belarusian State Academy of Arts). In 1979−1982 he worked as a director and literary assistant to the Principal Director of the Belarusian Puppet Theatre, in 1982−1986 – as the Principal Director of Mogilev Puppet Theatre.
In 1989−2006 Lelyavsky was Associate Professor at the Belarusian Academy of Arts. The young generation of Belarusian puppeteers is represented primarily by his students. He leads international artistic workshops of puppet theatre in Belgium, Finland, Poland, Germany, and Iran.
Alexei has staged over 90 productions around the world. He is one of those directors, whose name is associated with the new stage of the development of puppet theatre in Belarus, with its appearance on the international level. He describes his works as “the aesthetics of total theatre”, combining the methods and means of expression of puppet theatre per se with live actors openly operating the puppets on stage, as well as with elements of musical and movement-based art. His productions embody the element of ludic theatre and grotesque, permeated with dark humor and skepticism.
Since 2013, Alexei Lelyavsky has collaborated with St. Petersburg theatre Karlsson Haus. There are three productions directed by him in the repertoire: Odyssey (by K. Norrevig, based on Homer, 2014), Vanya, a fairy tale for adults “about the mysterious Russian soul” (2015, winner of THE GOLDEN MASK in the categories Best Director and Best Actor), Biography (based on The Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen, 2016). At the moment he is working on a production of Hamlet which is scheduled to open this fall.