50 years of Yerevan Chamber Theater celebrated at star-studded event

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS. Armenian show business stars, socialites and actors shined on the red carpet at the Yerevan Chamber Theater for a celebration of its 50th anniversary of founding.

Actress Luiza Nersisyan, actors Andranik Harutyunyan and Zhora Harutyunyan, TV and media personality Nazeni Hovhannisyan, jazzman Levon “Malkhas” Malkhasyan and many others were among the guests.

The founder and artistic director of the theatre, Ara Yernjakyan, recalls the initial stages of the theatre's establishment and admits that he used to dislike theatre. Most of his family members were mathematicians and his father didn’t want him to do theater. Yernjakyan himself was studying at the Polytechnic Institute, but the then-popular KVN show made him choose a different career.

“The theater had its own form and style from the beginning,” Yernjakyan told ARMENPRESS. “Newcomers either accepted it and became ours or left.”

The manager of the theater is Ara Yernjakyan’s daughter Lusine Yernjakyan. The Chamber Theater is where she grew up, and Lusine Yernjakyan often refers to the theater as her “first home” and not the second one.

According to her, there is an ideal in art that she strives for. "I know that it is possible to achieve the quality, the thought, the idea that my father has about the theater, which is a completely different world, a different mindset, born from the collision of mathematical skills and art. I have never had a problem with being different. I have always wanted to do everything I can to make the performance interesting and preserve the author's signature," Lusine Yernjakyan said.

The Deputy Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sport Ara Khzmalyan was also present at the event.

He praised the theater for “unique intellectual discourse” which successfully went through changes of time.

The celebration also featured the opening of a walk of fame-style Avenue of Stars. The first stars were dedicated to Evgenia Podpomogova and Georgi Amiragyan.

The theater also bestowed the Yerkat Awards to long-time sponsors and supporters of the theater.

Article by Angela Hambardzumyan

Translated by Seda Hakobyan

Photos by Gevorg Perkuperkyan