Designer, director. Principal director and principal designer of Tomsk Theatre of Puppet and Actor "Skomorokh"(since 2015).
Winner of the National Theatre Award THE GOLDEN MASK (production Athanatomania, nomination: Best Design, 2005). Sergei’s production Neighbors was named the best puppet production of 2009. He has worked in puppet theatres across Russia.
Ivannikov’s favorite puppet system is the mimicking puppet with alive hands; three actors in the black cabinet operate it, which demands from the performers a special feeling of partnership. Sergei is director-pacifist, who in his productions – no matter whether it is Pushkin’s fairy tale, known by young audiences by heart, or Arrabal’s rarely staged absurdist play Picnic – does not get tired of repeating that every personal human sin is inevitably bringing closer the world catastrophe, both ecological and humanitarian.