She trained as an actress in St Petersburg and married the music critic Iosif Levenson.

[1] She had made a name for herself at the Maly Theatre in Moscow, where she organized concerts to gather funds for exiles in Siberia.

[2] Brenko paid much higher salaries, insisted on new scenery and three week rehearsals for productions that included works by William Shakespeare and Aleksandr Ostrovsky.

[1] Brenko shared management decisions with the actors Modest Pisarev and Vasily Andreyev-Burlak, although she had the final say.

In 1917, Brenko not only embraced the October Revolution but enlisted, at the age of 69, in the Red Army and performed, together with some of the actors in her troupe, at battle fronts.