The Leningrad Theatre of the Young Spectator was founded in 1922 in an abandoned school house. The “found” space used there was shaped to encourage thrust staging with room for 500 to 600 seats. This seating arrangement worked so well for 50 years that when the founder, Alexander Bryantzev planned the new building, he asked for, and received, a thrust stage and seating for 1,000 children. No one is very far from the stage, however, and the house feels intimate.