Nikita Balieff

Nikita Fyodorovich Balieff, born Mkrtich Balyan around 1873 in Erzerum, Ottoman Empire, was a Russian Armenian performer, writer, impresario, and director who became best known as the creator and master of ceremonies of the theatrical troupe La Chauve-Souris. He appeared on Broadway between 1922 and 1934 and also worked as a book writer for the stage.

Balieff left his birthplace for Moscow in 1906, where he joined the Moscow Art Theater under Konstantin Stanislavski. Confined largely to non-speaking roles and drawn more to comedy than drama, he partnered with Nikolai Tarasov to establish his own company in a basement near the Moscow Art Theater. The troupe took its name, La Chauve-Souris — French for "bat" — from an incident in which a bat flew out of the basement door and landed on Balieff's hat. The company built a strong following in Moscow until the Russian Revolution of 1917 forced Balieff into exile in Paris, where he continued presenting vaudeville productions with fellow Russian émigrés. British theatrical producer Charles B. Cochran took notice and brought the troupe to London before its transatlantic expansion.

In 1922, through an arrangement with producer Morris Gest, Chauve-Souris made its first American tour, traveling from Washington, D.C. to California over 65 consecutive weeks. Between 1922 and 1929, Balieff brought the company back to the United States six times, with Broadway appearances in 1922, 1923, 1925, 1927, and 1929. A further production, billed as New Chauve-Souris, followed in 1931. The programs drew on songs, dances, and sketches that had originated in Russia. Among the most popular of these was The Parade of the Wooden Soldiers, set to Leon Jessel's tune "Die Parade der Zinnsoldaten" and built around a legend concerning Tsar Paul I, who allegedly left his parade grounds without issuing a halt order, causing his soldiers to march all the way to Siberia. The act later became part of The Rockettes' repertoire. A filmed version was made using the DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process and premiered on April 15, 1923, at the Rivoli Theater in New York City alongside eighteen other DeForest short films; that film is held in the Maurice Zouary collection at the Library of Congress. In 1927, Balieff appeared on the cover of Time magazine.

A recognizable stage presence, Balieff performed his monologues and introductions in a mixture of Russian, French, English, and slang, accompanied by extensive gesticulation, cultivating a persona of limited English fluency that differed markedly from his actual command of the language in private. His company also toured Europe and South Africa, performing in major capital cities. He was married to Helena Komisarjevska, who was a member of one of his theatrical companies.

In 1934, Balieff mounted a new Chauve-Souris production, which became his final theatrical venture as a creator. That same year he made his last stage appearance in Continental Varieties, a revue at the Helen Hayes Theatre that featured Lucienne Boyer. He also appeared in the Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur film Once in a Blue Moon in 1935.

Balieff died of a kidney ailment on September 3, 1936, at Park West Hospital on West 76th Street in Manhattan, at the age of 63. His funeral was held at the Russian Orthodox Church of Christ the Savior on Madison Avenue, where members of the Russian Opera Company sang and nearly 1,000 people attended, including members of the Russian nobility. He is buried at Mount Olivet Cemetery in Maspeth, Queens, New York. A caricature of Balieff drawn by Alex Gard for Sardi's Restaurant is now housed in the Billy Rose Theatre Division of the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.