Stanislavski (his stage name) performed and directed as an amateur until the age of 33, when he co-founded the world-famous Moscow Art Theatre (MAT) company with Vladimir Nemirovich-Danchenko, following a legendary 18-hour discussion. Its influential tours of Europe (1906) and the US (1923-24), and its landmark productions of The Seagull (1898) and Hamlet (1911-12), established his reputation and opened new possibilities for the art of the theatre.