Poltava Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater [Полтавський український музично-драматичний театр ім. М. Гоголя; Poltavskyi ukrainskyi muzychno-dramatychnyi teatr im. M. Hoholia]. A theater founded in Poltava in 1936 on the basis of the former Kharkiv Komsomol Ukrainian Music and Drama Theater, which itself emerged from an opera studio. Its first artistic director was V. Skliarenko, and among the actors were Yelysaveta Khutorna, Ye. Zolotarenko, Valentyna Varetska, and P. Kolesnyk. During the Second World War the theater was located in Zirianovsk, in Kazahkstan; it returned to Poltava in 1944. In 1969 the theater celebrated the bicentenary of Ivan Kotliarevsky's birth by staging an adaptation of his Eneïda (Aeneid). Current artistic director is Oleksii Kolomiitsev.

[This article was updated in 2013.]