Natalie Krag does, after all, make things happen. In a matter of months she managed to help set up the local 30-person office of the advertising firm Saatchi and Saatchi, all the while overseeing the production of a London play.
Krag, a Canadian who acquired a British accent after a long stint in London, is client services director at Saatchi and Saatchi. She arrived in Moscow this summer on what was to be a two-month project to open an office. Krag then planned to return to England.
But after finding Moscow "a positive surprise" and being grabbed by the idea of producing Damon Runyon's "Guys and Dolls," which her production company, Camelot Productions, already put on in London in 1993, Krag decided to stay for "a year or so."
Admittedly the real challenge for the strawberry-blond Krag, who is 33 and looks 23, is to find a venue for the production -- "ideally the Bolshoi."
"It would be my dream to put it on one dark night at the Bolshoi as a gala event, but I realize it's unlikely, " she conceded. "But then there is the Maly," she added, undaunted. A Bolshoi spokesman declined to comment on a project that had not been proposed.
And, of course, there are sponsors with deep pockets yet to be found, which Krag hopes to do by mid-December.
"We just have to charm our way into huge amounts of money," she said blithely. "We are going to target companies aimed at children's products."
Camelot Productions -- a small London-based theater and film production company, which Krag heads -- has donated proceeds from productions to Britain's National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. With her planned Moscow production, Krag said she hopes to channel proceeds to local charities such as NAN, No to Alcoholism and Drug Addiction.
There are also actors and actresses and directors and technical people who must be recruited. With friends and acquaintances in the business back in London, that might not be too difficult.
"The professionals will shepherd the amateurs," said Krag, explaining she hopes to develop a creative potpourri.
She maintained that Moscow's foreign community would be a source of talent for such a production, which would be in English.
"There are plenty of closeted thespians here," she declared, convinced that enough people will be interested. "This is a great cultural center."
But the most compelling reason for putting on the musical -- apart from the fact that she is a Runyon fan, is the subject matter itself.
"It's such great material," she said. "Moscow is the perfect place to put on a play about gangsters, because there are tons of gangsters around here."
For the time being, the "happily divorced" Krag seems to be more worried about surviving in this city than anything else. She has already armed herself with what she regards as the appropriate weapon for Moscow of the '90s: her grandmother's hat pin, which she said she will jab into the flesh of any aggressor.
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