Vera Komissarzhevskaya was born in 1864 into a family of the Mariinsky Theater opera singer. She made her debut as an actress in a Saint Petersburg amateur theater, and in 1896 she began working at the Alexandrinsky Theater and became the first performer of the role of Nina Zarechnaya in Anton Chekhov’s play “The Seagull.” Komissarzhevskaya’s repertory included characters from classical Russian and European plays. The audience favored her performances. However, in 1902, Komissarzhevskaya left the Alexandrinsky Theater in search of new career opportunities.

Two years later, Komissarzhevskaya’s dream of having her own theater came true. Using the money she had earned from her Russian tour, she opened a new Drama Theater in the Passage in Saint Petersburg. The production mostly focused on plays by contemporary writers such as Henrik Ibsen, Maurice Maeterlinck, Alexander Blok, and Leonid Andreev.

For the first few years, Fyodor Komissarzhevsky, Vera Feodorovna’s brother, directed the theater productions and translated plays by foreign authors, such as August Strindberg and Knut Hamsun. The choice of contemporary works was explained by the general trend of democratic theaters to address the most pressing issues of the day.

In 1906, Vsevolod Meyerhold became the new director of the Vera Komissarzhevskaya Drama Theater. The theater moved to Offitserskaya Street, and the first show staged by Meyerhold was based on Henrik Ibsen’s play “Hedda Gabler.” The female lead was performed by Vera Komissarzhevskaya.

The theater critic Konstantin Rudnitsky wrote,

Meyerhold’s “Sister Beatrice” was based on the eponymous play by Maurice Maeterlinck and had Vera Komissarzhevskaya as the female lead. This production became another important milestone: Meyerhold strove to concentrate all the action in the middle of the stage closer to the audience and highlight the musical quality and grace in the actors’ speech and movements.

After Meyerhold moved on to another theater, Komissarzhevskaya continued collaborating with other directors and experimenting with the repertory. In 1910, the actress died unexpectedly while she was on tour.