Nikolay Kolyada, a Russian playwright, theatre director, actor and teacher, died on March 2, 2026.
He was 68. Born on December 4, 1957, in Presnogor’kovka in the Kostanay Region of the Kazakh SSR, Soviet Union, he studied theater in Sverdlovsk and writing at the Gorky Literary Institute in Moscow.
Kolyada worked as an actor with the Sverdlovsk Academic Theatre of Drama and later gained international repute for his play “Slingshot.” Theatre critic John Freedman named him among dramatists and directors who helped shape Russia‘s contemporary theatre movement, and The New York Times said his work made Yekaterinburg a center of modern drama.
Nikolay Vladimirovich Kolyada (Russian: Николай Владимирович Коляда; also transliterated as Nikolai Koliada; 4 December 1957 – 2 March 2026) was a Russian actor, theatre director, writer, playwright, and teacher. Theatre critic John Freedman named Kolyada as one of several dramatists and directors who might be designated as “fathers” or “mothers” of Russia’s contemporary theatre movement. (Other contenders mentioned are Aleksei Kazantsev, Elena Gremina, Nadezhda Ptushkina, and Ol’ga Mukhina). The New York Times said that Kolyada’s work has made Yekaterinburg a “center of modern drama”. Kolyada was one of the first Russian playwrights to address homosexuality in his work, especially in Slingshot.