“After the success of The Seagull and Uncle Vanya the theatre felt that it could not do without a new play by Chekhov,” wrote Stanislavski. “The fate of the theatre was in his hands: if he gave us a play we would have another season; if he didn’t the theatre would lose all its prestige.”

The Three Sisters was the first play Chekhov wrote especially for the Art Theatre; actually, on order from it. After a preliminary discussion, Nemirovich-Danchenko went abroad, so that the rehearsals were conducted by Stanislavski alone. His production plan (now in the MAT archives) clearly includes rehearsal changes, since Stanislavski finished it on January 8, 1901, and the first full run-through took place at the end of December, 1900.