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Ukrainian Voices
City Garage Theatre reads war-time works by playwrights in Ukraine By Bridgette M. Redman hile Ukrainian playwright Andrii Bondarenko says the primary help that Ukraine needs are heavy weapons, there are other things that people in Los Angeles can do to help Ukrainians in their resistance against the Russian invasion. John Freedman, an American journalist who worked for many years in Moscow as an arts writer, is now organizing Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings that showcase the work of contemporary Ukrainian playwrights—all plays that have been written since Feb. 24 of this year when the invasion began. They promote the work of playwrights who are speaking out against the war. There will be more than 100 readings of 68 plays being read in 18 different countries by more than 50 theater companies. The first local reading took
PHOTOS COURTESY OF CITY GARAGE THEATRE
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On May 15 at 4 p.m., City Garage Theatre will present an afternoon of readings as part of the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings project, which is using the work of Ukrainian playwrights to raise humanitarian aid for the people of Ukraine.
place at the Ghost Road Theater Company on April 27 and the next one is at City Garage Theatre at 4 p.m., May 15 at their space in Bergamot Station. City Garage’s artistic director, Frédérique Michel, and executive director, Charles A. Duncombe, wanted to find a way to help the Ukrainian people. Since the pandemic started, they’ve produced “Animal Farm,” a podcast in which Steven Leigh Morris discusses theater and politics with guests. In a recent episode, he hosted Freedman, who had written for the Moscow Times and whose wife is a Russian actress. The week before that he hosted Bondarenko. “John Freedman’s translated a great many of the plays,” Duncombe said. “There’s some 68 plays, I think, at this point. He’s pretty much spearheaded the project.” The six plays being read on
May 15 are: • “A Dictionary of Emotions in War Time” by Elena Astaseva, translated from the Russian by Freedman • “The Russian Soldier” by Ihor Bilyts, translated by Freedman • “Survivor’s Syndrome Bondarenko,” translated from the Ukrainian by Freedman with Natalia Bratus • “Call Them by Their Names” by Tetyana Kitsenko, translated from the Ukrainian by Freedman with Bratus • “Relocation” by Maksym Kurochkin, translated from the Russian by Freedman • “My Tara” by Liudmyla Tymoshenko, translated from the Ukrainian by Freedman Freedman helped City Garage select the plays. Bondarenko has written multiple plays, including a different one that was read at the Ghost Road readings. “Andrii Bondarenko is one of
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