The article reviews the directorial work of a long-time artistic director, the main producer of the National Maria Zankovetska Academic Ukrainian Drama Theatre Fedir Stryhun: traces his activity since 1987, his evolution from actor to a director and 30 years of experience at the Maria Zankovetska Theatre.Fedir Stryhun is an outstanding figure for Ukrainian culture: national artist ofUkraine, laureate of the T. Shevchenko National Award of Ukraine, actor with more than 130 roles in theatre and cinema, has staged over 70 performances, including about 25 works by Ukrainian classics on the Zankovetska stage, as well as numerous works in other theatres of the country. He graduated fromKyiv NationalKarpenko-KaryiUniversity(1957-1961, the course of Professor V. Nelly), and after that he worked as an actor at the Zaporizhzhia Theatre (now – named after V. Magar), since 1965 - actor of Maria Zankovetska Theatre. F.Stryhun had no specialized directing education, but had considerable acting experience, "practical" training with Zankovetska Theatre directors, his authority in the team allowed him to enter the profession, and soon the directing became his main way of creative expression.The analysis of directions of artistic search in F.Stryhun director creation is carried out. According to the dominant qualities, four blocks of productions are singled out: "Hetmanian", in which the director explored the history of Ukrainian state formation ("Haydamaky" by T. Shevchenko, trilogy "Mazepa" by B. Lepkyi, "Andrei" by V.Gerasimchuk, "State treason" by R. Lapika, "Sava Chaly" by I. Karpenko-Karyi, etc.); "Enlightenment", in which we see a tendency to distinction in productions Ukraine as a cultural, ethnic phenomenon, presentation of the best qualities of the Ukrainian nation ("Unfortunate" by I. Karpenko-Karyi, "Natalka-Poltavka" by I. Kotlyarevskyi, "Sharika", "Hutsulka Ksenia" by Ya. Barnich, etc.); "Directorial", the leading quality of which is immersion in the sphere of existence, designing the own model of vision of the universe ("Marusya Churai" by L. Kostenko, "Narodny Malachiy" by M. Kulish, "Jesus, Son of the Living God" by V.Bosovich, etc.). There is also a cohort of entertaining performances in the artist's work, so-called "feeding repertoire", which, despite its intended purpose, fulfilled various functions – the artist in each, even at first glance "frivolous" play – set himself the task of finding a deep essence and important missionary thought.Themes and problems of F.Stryhun's artist search are constantly working on the formation of a nation concept: this is an appeal to the heroic past of the people, the study of the role of the individual in the creation of the Ukrainian statehood, the center of elucidation is the urgent and primordial problems of both the Ukrainian people and humanity in general, the “love story” is also present in every work of the director. According to genre affiliation, performances are often extremely acutely-tragic, or entertaining-comedic. Important features of F.Stryhun's directorial charachter, which are accordant with the Zankivchian tradition: viewer orientation; realization of productions by the understandable theatrical language to the "broad" public; rejection on the stage of obscene language, "rude", immoral theatrical techniques; the presentation of ideals, moral virtues as a model, an unchanging imperative of behavior.