The article explores the transformations that have taken place, towards the establishment of socialism, in women’s identities in Bulgaria, by studying the social universe of the comedy. At a time of rupture with the art of ‘bourgeois’ and with the supposedly mild morals of the arts, the actors were entrusted with unprecedented social tasks while meeting the expectations of old and new audiences. The invention of these roles is more in a decline than in the disappearance of sensitivities and the arts of pre-communist behaviour. This article, by refusing to apply for a contrast between project and socialist ‘reality’, finally shows that gender identities were publicised through generational and social frameworks. Actresses in Search of Roles. Gendered Identities and the dramatic Arts in Socialist Bulgaria (1944-1954) — By studying the social universe of some of its actresses, this article explores the transformations that occurred with regard to women’s identities in Bulgaria, following the establishment of the Socialist regime. At a time when “bourgeois” ways of acting and the alleged loose morality of these “muses of the arts” were being denounced, reports were also loaded with unspecified social objectives, what was meant to meet both old and new audiences. Rather than the disappearance of pre-Communist AESTHETICS and art forms, these new theoretical roles beginning a kind of turning within. How to identify the existence of an opposition between the Socialist project and its reality, this article reveals that gender identities were filtered through diverse generational and social frames. Building a Socialist Theatre: mission-based art — nationalisation as a sign of professionalisation — a renegotiated profession, profession and social condition — The (dis) continuities of the policy of the repertoire de la seduction bourgeoise à l’emancipation socialist? — Female representation (s) — From individual charism to collective work — Artists in the city or the reshaping of biographies