The Three Sisters Characters

Head in the CloudsAt twenty, Irina is the youngest Prozorov sister, and when the play starts, she even acts kind of like a kid to underscore that whole youngest thing. She bears a close resemblance...

Masha is the middle Prozorov sister. If you've read The Seagull recently, you'll remember that it also features a Masha who wears black and is married to a dull-as-dishwater schoolteacher. Fun...

Olga the CaretakerOlga is the eldest Prozorov sister. She's kind of like Varya in The Cherry Orchard. She takes care of the house, her sisters, and the servants. As a high school teacher, she's cle...

Andrey is the only son in the Prozorov family. Because of the whole universal belief that men represent the future, this means that at the beginning of the play everyone is super pumped on him. Jus...

Vershinin is the commanding officer of the army base—the position that the Prozorov's daddy-o used to hold—and he's also Masha's love interest. He's philosophical by nature and loves to talk. L...

The baron is a first lieutenant and Irina's love interest. Well, actually, she's his love interest. Practical, cheerful, and loyal—though not the ripest berry in the bunch, looks-wise—the baron...

As a simultaneous prelude and aside, there's a doctor in nearly every Chekhov, and a fair bunch in his stories, too. Chekhov himself was trained as a doctor, and starting writing short, funny stori...

Natasha is Andrey's crush, turned fiancée, turned wife, turned worst enemy. Intimidated by the Prozorov girls, she's shy at first. Especially when they start mocking her fashion sense. But after g...

Kulygin is an ignorant but pretentious schoolteacher, very much like Medvedenko in The Seagull, if you're up to date on your Chekhov—and like his seagoing buddy, he's also married to a woman name...

Solyony is a captain in the army. He's kind of a perplexing character, always saying nasty things about eating babies and drinking cockroach juice. Yes, that kind of fella. The thing is, he's awkwa...

The old janitor at the County Council. He delivers documents to Andrey and lends a (deaf) ear to the guy's troubles. Not the biggest character of the bunch, but he's a good example of the old-schoo...

The Prozorovs' eighty-year-old nurse, and the battleground for Olga and Natasha. Natasha wants to kick the woman out because she's a bit too doddering to work all that well; Olga calls her "Nana" a...

These are officers who round out the company when the Prozorovs have a party. Don't remember them too well? That's okay. They're pretty much just there to fill up the stage so it actually looks lik...