[3] Alla's mother, Aleksandra Dmitriyevna Demidova (née Kharchenko) was working at the Economy department of the Moscow University (later at its Cybernetics and economic programming section).

After the graduation she took the examinations at the Boris Shchukin Theatre Institute but failed due to flawed diction [5] and enrolled in the Moscow University's Economy faculty.

[8] It was under the latter's guidance that in 1958 Demidova made her stage debut as Lida Petrusova in Such Kind of Love (Takaya lyubov), an adaptation of Pavel Kohout's play.

[8] While still studying at the Shchukun Institute, Demidova performed in Vakhtangov Theatre's production of Death of Gods (Gibel bogov),[5] in Princess Turandot and in The Cookie ("Stryapukha").

"[11] In 1964 Demidova graduated from the Shchukin Institute, having presented as her diploma work the role of Mrs. Young in Yuri Lyubimov's adaptation of Bertholt Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan.

[10] The leading role in Igor Talankin's Daylight Stars (Dnevnye zvyozdy, 1966), that of Olga Berggolts, proved to be the starting point of Demidova's film career.

I had to play not just an ordinary woman, but a poet, which involved exploring the process of giving birth to poetry, as well as discovering this fine line between my heroine's every day tribulations and the film's sublime philosophical essence," she explained, speaking to the Yunost magazine in 1968.

Some of her roles (like that in Vladimir Basov's War-time thriller The Shield and the Sword) Demidova later dismissed as unworthy of attention, describing others (like that of a comissar in Two Comrades Were Serving) as "curious".

[16] After the success of Hamlet, Demidova started to receive numerous offers, but felt disappointed with the way directors tried to exploit the most obvious aspects of her stage persona.

[16] Demidova played Lizaveta Pavlovna in Andrey Tarkovsky's Mirror (1975), the Magic Woman in Irina Povolotskaya's Scarlet Flower (Alenky tsvetochek, 1977), a fairytale which she "single-handedly transformed into a fable," according to critic A.Smolyakov,[21] and the Duchess of Marlborough in Yuli Karasik's The Glass of Water (1979), alongside Kirill Lavrov's Lord Bolingbroke.

He decided to produce The Cherry Orchard, aiming from the start to come up with something quite different from the old-fashioned textbook Moscow Art Theater version of the Chekhov's classic.

[24] Critics were divided in their assessment of Efros' concept and the quality of the production in general, but even detractors had to agree that what saved the experiment from flopping were Demidova and Vladimir Vysotsky as Lopatin.

[23] Among Demidova's other roles in Taganka of the time were Raskolnikov's mother in Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment (1979) and Marina Mnishek in Pushkin's Boris Godunov (1982), the latter banned by the Ministry of Culture's special decree (and premiered on 12 June 1988).

[26] In the late 1970s Demidova and Vysotsky, both irritated by Lyubimov's artistic dictatorship, gravitated into a tandem (where, as one critic put it, "ice and fire clashed") to experiment with ideas of their own.

[3] "We both were beginning to realize that the time of massive, colourful theatrical shows has come to an end, and the new era of private, chamber theater was approaching," Demidova recalled.

[5] Having in mind the Vysotsky and Demidova's project, Vitaly Vulf translated into Russian Tennessee Williams' Out Cry, a play for two characters, brother and sister.

In Pushkin's The Queen of Spades (directed by Igor Maslennikov, 1982) she not just recited the poem but acted out its characters, "casting a shade of Silver Age over the whole of this three cards' story.

As a major influence she cited Giorgio Strehler, then a Theatre of Nations director, who in May 1987 invited Efros with two of his shows (At the Bottom and Cherry Orchard) to Milan.

[27] It was in her solo stage projects that Demidova managed finally to fulfil what's been left of her potential that Lyubimov and Efros, two renown Russian theater directors failed to notice and use, critic Tatyana Moskvina opined.

[23] With Lyubimov coming back, Demidova returned to Taganka where she performed as Marina Mnishek (Boris Godunov, 1988) and Donna Anna (Feast Amidst Plague, 1989).

In 1993 came out Quartet, a play by Heiner Mueller based on de Laclos' Dangerous Liaisons novel, produced by Demidova in collaboration with the Greek director Theodoros Terzopoulos.

[31] The A Theater's next work (again with Terzopoulos), Mueller's version of Medea, premiered on 29 April 1996; Russian critics saw it as an attempt to create the new style of contemporary tragedy by reviving the "arch-myth, buried in human subconscious."

Premiered at the Moscow Theatrical Olympiad, it featured Demidova as Hamlet (her early tutor Anna Orochko's idea finally realised), as well as Gertrude and Ophelia.

[32] Yuri Lyubimov was supposed to be cast as Tairov, but fell ill, was hospitalized and Mikhail Kozakov came in, making a disappointing substitution, as far as Demidova was concerned.