A meeting with Viktor Weber, the famous translator, held on 17 October 2023 at the Russian State Art Library (RSAL) was dedicated to the work of the American playwright Don Nigro, for whom our guest was, in fact, a pioneer. Don Nigro, the prolific playwright, was virtually unknown in our country prior to meeting Weber, despite over the past 10–12 years having created about 500 dramatic works. Weber clarified the figure: “Four hundred ninety-eight plays and monologues. I divide Don’s plays into roughly three major groups: about life; stories related to Malvern [Ohio, USA], Don Nigro’s hometown; and in the third group I include historical chronicles whose heroes are not royalty, but celebrities in the world of the arts. In that same group, I also include the extensive Russian cycle, the heroes of those plays are Pushkin, Gogol, Tolstoy, and Chekhov.”
To date, Weber has translated 450 plays by Don Nigro, but his goal is to translate all the existing works by his favorite playwright. Thanks to Viktor Weber, the plays have entered the circulation of modern dramatic works, and his plays have been staged and are being performed to this day in 30 theatres in the Russian Federation.
