Michael Maddox

Michael Maddox (1747–1822) was an English showman and theatre manager who settled in Russia. After bringing a museum of mechanical curiosities to Russia in 1766, he returned to Moscow and in 1776 joined Prince Pyotr Urusov's theatre company.

When their wooden Znamensky Theatre burned down in 1780, Maddox bought Urusov's share and built the brick Petrovsky Theatre on Petrovka Street, Moscow's first permanent opera house and the direct predecessor of the Bolshoi Theatre. In 1792 financial troubles forced its transfer to the state, and he received a life pension from Empress Maria Feodorovna.