Nikita Balieff

Nikita Balieff
Nikita Balieff by Sergis Alberts
Born	1877 Disputed
Died	3 September 1936 New York, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Vaudeville, stage performer, writer, impresario, director

Nikita F. Balieff (1877 – 3 September 1936), was a Jewish Russian Armenian born vaudevillian, stage performer, writer, impresario, and director. He is best known as the creator and master of ceremonies of La Chauve-Souris theater group.

Balieff is believed to have been born in Erzerum, Ottoman Empire in 1876 or 1877, although some sources, including IMDb list his place of birth as Rostov-on-Don, Russia. He left for Moscow in 1906 and took a job at the Moscow Art Theater under Konstantin Stanislavski. After years of only non-speaking roles, and with a desire to perform comedy rather than drama, Balieff co-created (among with Nikolai Tarasov) his own theater group in a basement near the Moscow Art Theater. He named the troupe La Chauve-Souris (French for "bat") after a bat flew up out of the basement door and landed on his hat.

Chauve-Souris enjoyed much success and popularity in Moscow, until the Russian Revolution in 1917. Balieff then went into exile in Paris and began presenting vaudeville shows there with other Russian émigrés. He was noticed by the British theatrical producer Charles B. Cochran, who brought the troupe to London.

In 1922 Chauve-Souris made its first tour to America through an arrangement with the producer Morris Gest. Balieff and his company toured from Washington, D.C. to California for 65 consecutive weeks. Between 1922 and 1929, Balieff returned to America to tour six times, appearing on Broadway in 1922, 1923, 1925, 1927, and 1929, with one final show billed as New Chauve-Souris in 1931. His shows consisted of songs, dances, and sketches, most of which had been originally performed in Russia.