The Cherry Orchard the debut of "The Cherry Orchard" by the Moscow Art Theatre on 17 January 1904 (Stanislavski's birthday) was a resounding theatrical success and the play was almost immediately presented in many of the important provincial cities. This success was not confined only to Russia, as the play was soon seen abroad with great acclaim as well. Shortly after the play's debut, Chekhov departed for Germany due to his worsening health, and by July 1904 he was dead. The modest and newly urbanized audiences attending pre-revolutionary performances at S. V. Panin's People's House in Saint Petersburg reportedly cheered as the cherry
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