really believed in the possibility of achieving what I wanted and acted energetically, I always succeeded and never regretted going my own way", she wrote. Career She enrolled briefly into the Maly Theatre's drama school, although she dropped out one month later. With the help of her reluctant mother, Olga enrolled at the Philharmonic School, where she was taught by the future co-founder of the Moscow Art Theatre, Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko. Nemirovich introduced Knipper and fellow student Vsevolod Meyerhold (who would later become one of the most prominent figures of Russian theatre after the Revolution) to Constantin Stanislavski. Told in strict confidence, Nemirovich confessed to Knipper and Meierhold that he and Stanislavski were planning the creation of a new theatre company. Nemirovich assured the two actors that they would be invited to join this company and to help lead it to greatness. After many weeks, enough capital was finally secured to found the new company. The company gathered in Pushkino, where Stanislavski addressed Knipper and the other members, telling them that he hoped they had all come to dedicate their lives to creating the "first rational, moral, and universally accessible theatre in Russia." Chekhov While rehearsing for The Seagull on 9 September, Olga's 30th birthday, she met Russia's most eligible literary bachelor and playwright of The Seagull, Anton Chekhov, then 38. Knipper and Chekhov exchanged telegrams and letters for the next few years, while Olga became more familiar with Chekhov's younger sister, Masha. Random letters of teasing and playfulness became letters of love and deep remorse that they lived so far apart from each other. Olga's true colors shone throughout her letters of correspondence. Her ill-moods, volatile tempers, combined with her sporadic high spirits, kept Chekhov on his toes. In the winter of 1900, Chekhov returned from Yalta and headed to Moscow, with a new play that he had written with a 'dear actress' in mind. "What a part I’ve got for you in Three Sisters. Give me ten rubles and you can have it, otherwise I’ll give it to another actress", Chekhov wrote to Olga. Many similarities existed between Olga Knipper and the character Chekhov wrote for her in Three Sisters, Masha. Knipper was to play the middle of three sisters and one brother. The only married sibling of the foursome and "the most original and talented of the three sisters. To portray a young woman of culture and refinement,