Join us for a reading of short plays written by Ukrainian theatre artists in response to the war with Russia. The evening is part of an international effort to support Ukraine and the artists whose lives have been upended and destroyed. Heartbreaking, eye-opening, honest and beautiful, these testimonies vividly explore the playwrights’ personal experiences since February 24, when the most recent invasion began.  

The plays, which will be read by local actor luminaries  Sean San José, Rosie Hallett and Rinabeth Apostol, are Elena Astaseva’s A Dictionary of Emotions in Wartime, Andrii Bondarenko’s Peace and Tranquility and Pavlo Arie’s Diary of Survival. Carey Perloff, Artistic Director Emerita of American Conservatory Theater, directs and will introduce the program. Arik Luck, Cantor at Congregation Emanu-El, will offer Ukrainian songs in musical counterpoint.  

Partner

Event Details

More about Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings. 

Free of charge. If you would like to make a gift, we recommend the following: 

To support organizations that help people affected by the war 

• Episcopal Relief & Development Ukraine Crisis Response  
• Voices of Children 

To support Ukrainian artists 

• betterplace.org: The Feeling of War – Worldwide Reading Project 
• Ukrainian Emergency Performing Arts Fund 
• Docudays UA Support of the Film Community in Ukraine 
• Goethe Institut Support for Artists and Cultural Workers from Ukraine 
• Museum of Contemporary Art Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund 
• Kyiv Biennial Emergency Support Initiative 

About the Guests and Readings

Andrii Bondarenko – is a playwright, director, culturologist-researcher, Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), head of the literary and dramatic section of the Lviv Puppet Theater. 
Mostly he has been working as a journalist, in particular as a cultural observer. Also worked as a researcher at the Center for Urban History of Central and Eastern Europe (Lviv). Currently he is the head of the literary and dramatic department (dramaturg) at the Lviv Puppet Theater. Curator of the stage story circle “Drama Atelier.” Author of numerous plays that have participated in major drama festivals in Ukraine. Numerous plays have been staged in Lviv, Kyiv, and Zaporizhia. Director of the short film “Night with Natalia” (2017). 

I wrote this play in the first days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It was born out of a rhetorical question that pulsed deep in my head – why is all that happening to us? When I tried to make sense of it, the answer came quickly – because this horror actually has been haunting me and my family for centuries. It always was near, some way or another, sleeping or awake.  

Bondarenko, Andrii, Peace And Tranquillity. Translated by John Farndon. A monologue that is probably more in a male voice than a female one, but either is possible. The script is seven A4 pages. Written 2022, during war. 2,000 words. 

The monologue is written like an essay or diary entry and discusses how the author, born in 1978, had not understood that older family members lived through war and misery without end; it had been a mistake to believe that peace and tranquillity is a human right and a Ukrainian right. The monologue ends with the following words: “Where does the privilege of having peace and tranquillity come from? I do not know. If Ukraine survives, maybe I will have an answer to this question. Right now, I do not know. I stand now in some darkness, next to my sister and brother, next to friends, next to my deceased mother, grandmother, grandfather, great-grandfather and great-grandmother, next to all Ukrainians who died in this and other wars and during periods of peace and tranquility. “They don’t know, and I don’t know. We just stare at the black darkness in front of us. The light of the house where we were born (is) consumed by flames which do not illuminate the darkness in any way. How can we finally dispel this darkness? Can we?” 

Arie, Pavlo, Diary of Survival of a Civilian Urbanite in Conditions of War. Translated by John Freedman with Natalia Bratus. A monologue delivered as a day-to-day diary. Written 2022, during war. 7,500 words+/-. 

The narrator, a playwright, describes his day-to-day life in Kyiv beginning with the first day of the way on February 24, 2022, his initial desire to evacuate falling by the wayside as he increasingly sees his presence in the city as a necessary antidote to the hostilities. He attempts to stay in touch with friends, but this becomes harder as life in the Ukrainian capital becomes more dangerous. Still, he ultimately refuses to hide in bomb shelters and, with pride, takes walks to see his closed theater where a poster announcing “tonight’s” performance of his play hangs in limbo indefinitely. 

Elena Astaseva was born in 1973 in Kherson, Ukraine, where she still lives and works today. She studied at the Kiev Institute of Culture, worked as a librarian, bookseller and copywriter. She wrote short stories and plays that were shortlisted several times for the Ukrainian festival “The Week of Current Plays” and performed in theaters in Kherson and Kyiv. She is one of the founders of the Theater of Authors in Kyiv. 

Astaseva, Elena, A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War. Translated by John Freedman. A monologue. Written 2022, during war. 2,560 words. 

A narrator goes through the words describing emotions that have continually visited her ever since the war began: Fear, hunger, cleaning, betrayal, hatred, love, guilt and conversations with Russian friends vs. conversations with Ukrainian friends. 

“Russian soldiers have occupied my city. The people of Kherson want to live in Ukraine, we are not happy with the Russian tanks on our streets. The city is running out of food and medicine and it is impossible to leave. We are waiting for it that the Ukrainian army will liberate us and I really hope that by the time you hear my play it will have happened What Russia has done is a crime I wrote my play to tell you the truth, to tell you the truth to show how we felt when the war started.”