Russian theater to premiere play about Elon Musk

The science fiction piece centers on a meeting between the SpaceX CEO and Soviet rocketry pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

The first-ever play featuring Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Russian-Soviet rocket scientist and rocketry pioneer Konstantin Tsiolkovsky will be presented as a staged reading at an international space-themed theatrical festival, TASS has reported, citing the author of the play, Gleb Danilov.

Titled “Elon Musk and Tsiolkovsky” and presented by the local theatre Teatr Sela (Theater of the Village), the play will be performed at the 6th Tsiolkovsky International Space Film Festival. The event is scheduled to take place from April 12 to 16 in the Russian city of Kaluga, where Tsiolkovsky lived for 43 years, until his death in 1935.

”At the heart of the story are two figures from entirely different eras, yet both are deeply connected to space,” Danilov told the agency on Friday. “One is the founding father of astronautics; the other is the founder of a space company. Musk and Tsiolkovsky meet and realize that, despite being very different people, they have much in common.”

According to the play’s director, Danila Drobikov, the genre is science fiction, with the action taking place in Tsiolkovsky’s home, where the two characters encounter one another.

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“The reading will include theatrical elements — actors will rise from their seats to perform key moments, and even sing in character as Tsiolkovsky,” Drobikov said. “We’ll also engage the audience by inviting them to take part in the performance.”

The festival is supported by the Presidential Fund for Cultural Initiatives and a range of public and commercial organizations, including the Russian space agency Roscosmos, the Gagarin State Scientific Research and Testing Cosmonaut Training Center, the Government and Ministry of Culture and Tourism of the Kaluga Region, the Tsiolkovsky State Museum of the History of Cosmonautics, and the Planetarium Association of Russia.

This year’s official selection features feature films, documentaries, animated works, and fulldome films from 25 countries, including China, Israel, India, Latvia, Mexico, Uruguay, the Czech Republic, and South Africa. Out of 2,200 submissions, 100 entries were selected for the competition.

Born in 1857, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is universally recognized as the “father of human spaceflight.” Many of his ideas were far ahead of their time. As early as 1895, he predicted the development and use of artificial satellites.
Just eight years later, he published a mathematical formula—now known as the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation—which describes rocket propulsion in space and remains a foundational tool for aerospace engineers today. He also envisioned how future spacecraft would overcome Earth's gravity, mapped out their flight trajectories, and explained methods for their landing.