Teatr Semianyki, based in St. Petersburg, is composed of the six original creators of the show bearing the same name. The artists were part of the first graduating class of the School for Theatre and Mime founded by the famed Teatr Licedei. Russia’s premier clowning school, the Teatr Licedei was formed in 1968 by Slava Polunine, who later created Slava’s Snowshow.

“Semianyki: The Family” grew from a smaller sketch the Troupe performed as the end of year creation for the Theatre and Mime School in 2003. The sketch was lengthened and fine-tuned into its current form in front of Saint Petersburg audiences at the Chaplin Club, the small theater where the students of the Licedei perform.

Their success at the renowned Festival of Avignon in 2005 catapulted “Semianyki: The Family” onto the French and international touring circuit where they have been touring successfully ever since.

Program: The Family

Think of the Addams Family meeting Modern Family. “Semianyki: The Family” traces the joys, the craziness, and the survival strategies of a family trapped in its own version of “home sweet home”. Love and Chaos paradoxically intertwine the relationships between the pregnant yet flirtatious mother, the caring yet alcoholic father who alternates on the verge of breaking down or leaving, and their four tender yet unruly kids pushing each other and their parents to the limit. Their zany and comedic domestic power struggle extends into the audience and culminates in an emotional uniting of the family complete with a spectacular paper-flinging finale.

"They tell a story, invent surreal characters tinged with Russian strangeness and universal humor… a remedy to depression, the perfect anti-blues prescription of laughter."

- Paris Capitale

"These clowns do not speak, but we understand them immediately. There is a mix of commedia dell’arte, English burlesque, French mime, all bathed in great Russian humor. Laughter, anger, emotion"

- LE FIGARO