Both 7 PM performances are currently sold out, only ADA seating available. Please email boxoffice@baryshnikovarts.org to be added to the waitlist. Seats are available for the 2 PM performance on December 16.
Lead Producer: Olga Burkovskaya
Sound Designer: Denis Zabiyaka
Choreographer: Sam Pratt
Starring acclaimed actor Andrey Burkovskiy, Alpha Centauri is a one-man show based on real events from the early years of the Soviet space program. In 1961, Yuri Gagarin succeeded in becoming the first human being sent into space. But behind that famous victory were other men whose names almost disappeared from history. For decades, many of their stories remained classified or forgotten. Alpha Centauri tells the story of these men—the people who almost became heroes.
But there is another story happening at the same time. The performer comes onstage to tell us about a spectacular theatrical production he once imagined making about them: a huge production with an orchestra, actors, monumental sets, video, machinery, and entire distant planets appearing onstage. That production does not exist. Instead, there is an actor, an empty stage, and an audience.
Alpha Centauri is not ultimately a play about space. It is a play about failure, memory, compassion, and the extraordinary human ability to build a new future from the ruins of the one that never came to be.
All details subject to change.
Andrey Burkovskiy (Performer) is an award-winning New York–based actor, producer, and acting teacher whose work spans theatre, film, and television in the U.S. and Europe. A graduate of the Moscow Art Theatre School and a former leading actor of the Moscow Art Theatre, he has built an extensive career performing in both classical and contemporary repertoire.
Recent theatre credits include Him in Delirium (Arlekin Players Theatre; Calderwood Pavilion in Boston and The Space at Irondale in New York); MC in Seagull: True Story at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club and The Public Theater in New York, and at Marylebone Theatre in London; Menachem in Our Class (BAM and Classic Stage Company; Lucille Lortel Award-winning production); and Khonen in The Dybbuk (Arlekin Players Theatre; Elliot Norton Award-winning production).
His additional stage credits include Verner in The Sun Line, Golubkov in The Flight, the Mayor in The Government Inspector, Benua in Fishman, Howard in 350 Central Park West, Leo in Leading Ladies, Miklas in Mephisto, the Waiter in Out of Order, and Bengalsky in The Master and Margarita at the Moscow Art Theatre.
His film credits include Limonov: The Ballad (Cannes Film Festival), Tchaikovsky’s Wife (Cannes Film Festival), Doctor Lisa (Netflix), The Conquest of Siberia (Amazon Prime), A Clown Story, Deadly Illusions, The Sober Cab, Milk, and Sun Line. Television credits include Call DiCaprio!, Nina, Amore More, Mediator, An Hour Before Dawn, A Good Man, Passengers, Frozen Ground, and Kitchen.
Burkovskiy is also the co-founder and artistic director of Andrey Burkovskiy Acting School, where he develops new work and trains actors in New York.
Alexander Plotnikov (Playwright) is a playwright, theatre director, and writer. Originally from Moscow and currently based in Germany, he studied screenwriting at VGIK under Rustam Ibragimbekov and acting and directing under Kama Ginkas.
As a playwright and theatre artist, Plotnikov works at the intersection of documentary theatre, poetic writing, and contemporary performance. His work explores memory, historical trauma, displacement, and the relationship between individual lives and larger historical narratives.
His recent international productions include LOTMAN at R.A.A.A.M. Theatre in Narva, Estonia; DE creation at Théâtre Nouvelle Génération in Lyon, France; The Sergei Parajanov Free Auction and Twenty Days Without War at Ilkhom Theatre in Tashkent; and The Rape of Nanking with FULCRO Theatre in Montenegro. His work has also been presented at the Sens Interdits Festival in Lyon and the VOICES Festival in Berlin.
In 2025, Alpha Centauri was published as Plotnikov’s debut book, Alpha Centauri: A Documentary Poem About Cosmonauts Who Never Went to Space. The book has been presented in Tel Aviv, Paris, Berlin, Yerevan, Tbilisi, and Tashkent. Plotnikov continues to develop his work internationally, bringing together documentary research, literature, and contemporary theatre.
Viktor Ryzhakov (Director) is an award-winning theatre and film director, educator, and one of the leading figures in contemporary theatre. He graduated from the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute and completed postgraduate studies at the Russian Academy of Theatre Arts (GITIS).
From 1991 to 2004, Ryzhakov worked at the Moscow Theatre for Young Audiences, where he studied under the distinguished directors Henrietta Yanovskaya and Kama Ginkas. From 1995 to 2001, he served as Artistic and Managing Director of the Kamchatka Drama and Comedy Theatre.
Between 2002 and 2020, Ryzhakov directed the international Alexander Volodin Theatre Festival Five Evenings in St. Petersburg. From 2010 to 2020, he served as Artistic and Managing Director of the Vsevolod Meyerhold Center in Moscow, and from 2020 to 2022, as Artistic Director of Moscow’s legendary Sovremennik Theatre.
Since 2001, Ryzhakov has been a professor at the Moscow Art Theatre School, where he has led both acting and directing programs and trained generations of theatre artists. He regularly conducts directing and playwriting laboratories, gives lectures internationally, and speaks on Stanislavski’s legacy at conferences and symposia, including Theatre of the 21st Century: Stanislavski Continues.
Ryzhakov has directed productions in Germany, Hungary, Spain, Poland, Estonia, and other countries. His work has been presented at major international festivals in Scotland, Germany, France, Austria, the United States, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria, Finland, Georgia, Romania, and beyond.
He has directed at many of the leading theaters in Moscow and St. Petersburg, including the Chekhov Moscow Art Theatre, the Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater, the Pyotr Fomenko Workshop Theatre, Sovremennik Theatre, the Alexandrinsky Theatre, the Theatre of Nations, the Satirikon Theatre, and the Theatre on Liteyny.
Ryzhakov’s work has received wide professional recognition. He is a recipient of the International Stanislavsky Award, a multiple winner of the Golden Mask National Theatre Award, and the holder of several international distinctions, including the Silver Cross of the Republic of Hungary. As a professor, director, and educator, he has had a lasting influence on generations of actors, directors, and theater artists.
