The Cherry Orchard The Cherry Orchard The Cherry Orchard () is the last play by Russian playwright Anton Chekhov. Written in 1903, it was first published by "Znaniye" (Book Two, 1904), and came out as a separate edition later that year in Saint Petersburg, via A.F. Marks Publishers. It opened at the Moscow Art Theatre on 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Konstantin Stanislavski. Chekhov described the play as a comedy, with some elements of farce, though Stanislavski treated it as a tragedy. Since its first production, directors have contended with its dual nature. It is often identified as one of
Ann Dunnigan plays: "Ivanov", "The Seagull", "Uncle Vanya", "Three Sisters", and "The Cherry Orchard"; each of these translations has been performed onstage. Dunnigan went on to translate Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoy, and Ilya Tolstoy in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Her translations have served as the basis for numerous scholars' comments and analyses of Russian literature. Tennessee Williams regarded her rendering of "The Seagull" to be the best available in English, and made it the principal reference for his 1981 adaptation, "The Notebook of Trigorin". Dunnigan's rendering of "War and Peace" (New American Library, 1968) was the first American English