Vassa

Anna Barkan is a Russian Acting Teacher and Director, who studied at the prestigious Vakhtangov Theatre School in Moscow and at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in London. She also holds an MA in Actor Training & Coaching from the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, where her research included working with International multilingual casts. Anna’s practice is rooted in the Stanislavsky System and the Michael Chekhov technique. 

For over 20 years, Anna worked as an actor on stage, film and TV in Russia and the UK and formed CHAIKA Theatre company where she directed and produced premieres of lesser-known Russian classics in original translations. She is also a co-founder of The Drama Academy which specialised in theatre for young actors aged 8 to 18 in the UK, USA and Russia, and has taught and directed productions at LAMDA across a number of courses.

Alexei Maximovich Peshkov (1868–1936), primarily known as Maxim Gorky, was a Russian and Soviet writer, a founder of the socialist realism literary method, and a political activist. He was also a five-time nominee for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Gorky's works include: The Lower Depths (1902), Twenty-six Men and a Girl (1899), The Song of the Stormy Petrel (1901), My Childhood (1913–1914), Mother (1906), Summerfolk (1904) and Children of the Sun (1905).

Mike Bartlett is a multi-award-winning writer for both stage and screen.

Theatre includes: Juniper Blood (Donmar Warehouse, 2025); Unicorn (West End, 2025); Scandaltown (Lyric Hammersmith, 2022); The 47th (Old Vic, London, 2022); Mrs Delgado (Old Fire Station, Oxford, 2021); Snowflake (Old Fire Station, Oxford, 2018); Albion (Almeida Theatre, London, 2017); Wild (Hampstead Theatre, 2016); Game (Almeida, 2015); King Charles III (Almeida Theatre and West End, 2014); An Intervention (Paines Plough/Watford, 2014); Bull (Sheffield Theatres, 2013); Medea (Headlong, 2012); Chariots of Fire (Hampstead Theatre, 2012); 13 (National Theatre, London, 2011); Decade (Headlong, 2011); Earthquakes in London (Headlong & National Theatre, 2010); Love, Love, Love (Paines Plough & Plymouth Theatre Royal, 2010); Cock (Royal Court, 2009; West End, 2022); Contractions (Royal Court Theatre, London, 2008); Artefacts (Bush Theatre & Nabokov, 2008); and My Child (Royal Court, 2007).

Television includes: Life, Doctor Foster, King Charles III, Sticks and Stones, Trauma and Press. 

Contains themes of assault, child loss, murder, death, mental illness due to guilt and suicide. Explicit language used throughout. Contains depictions of rape.

This is an amateur production presented by arrangement with Nick Hern Books.

LAMDA is a two-minute walk from Barons Court Station or a ten-minute walk from either West Kensington or Hammersmith Station. 

Please note: Our nearest station, Barons Court, is undergoing refurbishment works throughout 2026. Find out more.