In 1950, based on the former Kamerny Theatre, the Pushkin Drama Theatre emerged with a Soviet actor Vasili Vanin at the helm. Vanin, the Stalin Prize three times laureate, declared his allegiance to the Russian classics and contemporary Soviet drama and started out by staging "From a Spark", Shalva Dadiani's 1937 play about the youth of Stalin. It was followed by Stolen Happiness (Ukradennoye stchastye), by Ivan Franko. Highly popular was Vanin's version of Krechinsky's Wedding by Aleksandr Sukhovo-Kobylin in which he played Rasplyuev. This role happened to be Vanin's last: in 1952 he died.
He was succeeded by Boris Babochkin (1952–1953); in this period was the most popular production Shadows after Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin's play directed by Aleksei Dikiy. Then came Iosif Tumanov (1953–1960); his best remembered production was Anton Checkov's Ivanov, starring Boris Ivanov. In 1960 Boris Ravenskikh arrived, formulating his directorial credo as "trying to wake up a poet in every man." Comedy and romanticism became the order of the day: his bright, emotional productions used music to the full effect and is now seen as a reflection of the social optimism brought about by the Sixties Thaw.