Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling and Hans Christian Anderson are just a few of the great Western writers who dominate St Petersburg's theaters.
Where Russian pieces appear, classics of the 19th century feature heavily. A production of Griboyedov's satire on love and morality, "Woe From Wit," ("Gorye ot uma") from 1824 is in the offing. Or, if reading Dostoevsky's novels in Russian sounds like a daunting task, they may be more accessible in the stage productions of them planned this season
But be warned. It would be worth taking a picnic if you buy tickets to "The Devils" ("Byesi"). It is in fact three plays which take up nine hours on a Saturday or a Sunday.
Going back even further in time, William Shakespeare is ubiquitous on the St Petersburg stage. Strange as it may seem, those who have a reasonable knowledge of colloquial Russian will find it easier to get to grips with Shakespeare plays in translation than in the original Elizabethan English.
Shakespeare addicts will be more than satisfied this season by productions of "Macbeth" ("Makbet"), "The Taming Of The Shrew" ("Ukroshcheniye stroptivoy"), "Twelfth Night" ("Dvenadtsataya noch"), "Hamlet" ("Gamlet"), "Romeo And Juliet" ("Romeo i Dzhulyetta") and "As You Like It" ("Kak vam eto nravitsya").
Although contemporary Russian works are thin on the ground, 1960s Soviet satire is presented in the form of "Chonkin," from Vladimir Voinovich's work "The Life And Unusual Adventures Of The Soldier Ivan Chonkin." Voinovich consistently wrote in defense of human rights and soon after he emigrated to West Germany in 1980 he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship.
Also coming is "Claustrophobia," an improvisation inspired by Russian 20th-century prose by writers such as Vladimir Sorokin, Venedikt Yerefeyev and Ludmilla Ulitskaya. The troupe from the Maly Dramatichesky Teatr is currently performing this production in Belgrade at the international drama festival there.
Foreign plays sweep the field in the children's theaters too. Russian schoolchildren are brought up on Oscar Wilde's fairy stories and are better acquainted with them than Wilde's present-day compatriots.
Britons and other westerners whose education is lacking in this area should know that Wilde's "The Star-Boy" ("Zvezdny Malchik") is the tale of a family of poor woodcutters who find a baby in the forest. When he gets older he believes that he is special, the son of a star, but pride comes before a fall in this allegory.
St Petersburg's coming season will see numerous children's productions. One of the most successful children's venues so far this year has been the Kukolny Skazki theater (Puppet Fairytales), which consistently filled all its seats.
The Marionette Theater is also very popular and has the cheapest tickets in town at 2,000 roubles each (50 cents). At 76 it is one of the oldest professional puppet theaters in Russia. Nowadays the marionettes are made of papier mache but historic wooden puppets dating back to the 1920s can be seen on stage in a production called "And The Circus Again!" ("I snova tsirk!"). The latest creations perform in Kipling's "The Cat That Walked By Himself" ("Koshka, kotoraya gulyala sama po sebye").
Yet another 19th-century fairy story can be seen at the Children's Drama Theater on the Neva, Andersen's "Thumbelina" ("Dyuymovochka").
As can be expected, the new season will not be without its problems. All St Petersburg theaters are funded by local government money but actors can earn much more by going on tour. The result has been that some troupes spend almost all their time abroad. The ballet on ice, for instance, is rarely seen in St Petersburg.
In addition theaters have been trying to sustain large numbers of non-essential administrative staff and too many actors. There will inevitably be cuts in the near future. The chief director of the Theater of Musical Comedy, Tatyana Kazakova, admitted that it had no need of its 50 performers for such a small stage and that the optimal number was 35.
"Woe From Wit" at the Teatr Yunikh Zritelyey (Theater of Young Spectators) has alone cost the city almost half a billion roubles ($115,000). The theater is now producing very few productions, while others like the Molodyozhny (Youth) Theater are experiencing sharp falls in audience numbers.
For the moment, though, St Petersburg still preserves the ambitious repertoire system which is a thing of the past in Western Europe. The choice is enormous, ticket prices low, and given the universality of some of the productions language should not necessarily be a barrier.
In any case there is always opera and ballet. Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Puccini and Prokofiev need no introduction. Their works are regularly performed at the Mariinsky and Mussorgsky theaters of opera and ballet. If all else fails you can always opt for an evening of Glenn Miller music called "The Road to New York" ("Doroga v Nyu-York").
For performance details, look each week in the schedules on page 2 of Prospects, the St Petersburg Press culture and life-style guide.