When we go to the theater, we expect to see the actors taking a bow at the end of the performance. The director sometimes goes out and takes a bow. I bet you’ve probably even seen the writer dragged out on stage to receive applause. The musicians get to take a bow, and they even let the conductor crawl out of the pit to get some love from the audience. Yet, the set designer, who might be the most creative person in the theater because they have to have a great aesthetic sensibility and expert technical ability, doesn’t get that type of recognition.

As part of our continued celebration of all things theatrical, and with a conscious nod to Brecht’s own appreciation of the talented set designers he worked with, like Karl von Appen, Max Gorelik, Caspar Neher, and Teo Otto, we decided to invite our new friend, Oleg Golovko, a gifted set designer living in Germany, to take a well-deserved bow on our platform.

We recently encountered Oleg through his work on  Furcht und Elend des Dritten Reiches at the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe, which premiered in November 2024.

He was trained as both an artist and designer at the I.E. Repin St. Petersburg State Academic Institute of Painting, Sculpture, and Architecture, studying under Eduard Kochergin, as well as in Paris at the Beaux-Arts Institute.

From 2000 to 2003, Golovko was the chief artist of the Altai Regional Drama Theater, and between 2004 and 2006, he held the same position at the Red Torch Theater, designing more than 20 performances.

Over his career, he has designed sets for over 100 productions, including shows for the Bolshoi Theater, the Theater of Nations (Moscow), the Mariinsky Theater, the Bolshoi Drama Theater, the Bryantsev Youth Theater, the Baltic House (St. Petersburg), the Yaroslavl Volkov Theater, the Omsk Academic Drama Theater, the Residenztheater (Munich), the Opernhaus (Wuppertal, Germany), and the Deutsches Theater (Berlin).

Oleg’s work is the epitome of craftsmanship, beauty, and functionality. That’s why we’re happy to share some of his most recent artistic achievements.

“The job of an artist is to invent reality. This is especially evident in theater. I think we view the world through the eyes of numerous inventors…only then we can liberate our fantasy.”—Golovko

Platonow by Anton Tschechow at the Deutsches Theater Berlin (2022)

^{Photos by Arno Declair; Sketches by Golovko}

“I enjoy discovering new possibilities…But everything is dictated by the artistic task.”—Golovko

Iphigenia in Aulis at the The Epidaurus Festival (2024)

^{Photos by Thomas Aurin; Sketches by Golovko}

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