Anton Chekhov wrote The Seagull in October of 1895; the script was published in March of 1896. First produced in St. Petersburg on October 17 of that year, it was a flop about which Chekhov himself wrote: “The audience was bewildered. They acted as if they were ashamed to be in the theatre. The performances were vile and stupid.” Two years later the founders of the Moscow Art Theatre, Vladimir Nemirovich Danchenko and Konstantin Stanislavsky, remounted The Seagull sucessfully, using the script to explore their innovative concepts of naturalistic of “truthful” theatre. The legendary production capped the end of the Moscow Art Theatre’s first season with a stunning success, turning a financially worrisome year into a triumph. Ever since, The Seagull (or as it is known in its original Russian: Chaika) has been the triumphant symbolic empblem of the Moscow Art Theatre. The title image takes pride of place on the Moscow Art Theatre main curtain.