A Dictionary of Emotions in War Time
Call Them By Their Names
The Peed-Upon Armored Personnel
| Ukraine
Playwrights: Elena Astasyeva, Tetyana Kitsenko, Oksana Gritsenko
Translators: John Freedman, John Freedman/Natalia Bratus, John Freedman/Natalia Bratus
Director: Warner Crocker
Partner:
Synopsis: Three voices from the War in Ukraine meld together chronicling thoughts, emotions, and horror from the war in Ukraine as it begins and changes the world. Call Them By Their Names by Tetyan Kitsenko, The Peed Upon Armored Personnel Carrier by Oskana Gritsenko, and A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War by Elena Astasyeva immediately transport us to the moments that changed their world and ours in an instant and presage a rupture that will take generations to heal.
Elena Astaseva was born in the city of Kherson (Ukraine), which she considers her hometown to this day, although she currently is in exile outside of Ukraine. She studied at the Kiev Institute of Culture. Worked as a librarian, bookseller, copywriter. She is the author of stories and a number of plays that were repeatedly shortlisted for the Ukrainian Contemporary Play Week festival and were staged in the theaters of Kherson and Kyiv. A founding member of the Theater of Playwrights in Kyiv, her short play A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War has been presented, read, performed and filmed in a dozen countries since it was written in March 2022.
Tetiana Kytsenko is a playwright and screenwriter. She specializes in social and psychological drama. She has won numerous awards at Ukrainian Contemporary Play Week (Kyiv, 2011, 2012, 2013), the DramaUA festival (Lviv, 2012), and the Coronation of the Word competition (Kyiv, 2015). She has participated at the festival SPECIFIC (Brno, Czech Republic, 2014) and the Wilder Osten. Ereignis Ukraine project (Magdeburg, Germany, 2016). She was awarded the Grand Prix of the Free Theater competition (London-Minsk, 2016), and was curator of the following events: To Document!; Drama Of Freedom; and Insight Contemporary Drama (Kharkiv). She was author and curator of the socio-artistic Lifelong Importance project (2018-19). She is a member of the Board of the Theater Platform NGO (Kyiv), and a member of the Supervisory Board of the Union of Theater Actors.
Oksana Grytsenko is a Ukrainian playwright and screenwriter. She wrote her first play, Saniok, in 2019 following completion of courses in dramatic writing conducted by Maksym Kurochkin and Anastasiia Kosodii. This play was shortlisted at the Ukrainian Contemporary Play Week in 2019, and had a staged reading at Lesia Ukrainka Drama Theater in Lviv. Her second play, Don Juan from Zhashkiv, was shortlisted at Contemporary Play Week in 2020. Based on this play, Grytsenko created a screenplay for a feature film with the same name. The film was produced by Kristi Films and was funded by Ukraine’s State Film Agency. The release of the film was scheduled for December 2022. Grytsenko is a co-founder of Kyiv’s Theater of Playwrights. Before starting her artistic career, Grytsenko worked as a journalist for about 20 years, covering the Russian invasion of Georgia, Ukraine’s EuroMaidan Revolution, Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and Russia’s war against Ukraine. She has worked for Ukrainian and foreign publications, including the Kyiv Post, AFP, the Guardian, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Marie Claire, Ukraine Verstehen, Huck Magazine, Nikkei and the Wall Street Journal.
Warner Crocker (Director) is delighted to return to one of his favorite gigs, The International Voices Project. Before returning to Chicago in 2013 he served as the Artistic Director of Wayside Theatre in Virginia for 15 seasons. Before that stint on the East Coast he worked for 20 years in Chicago Theatre as Artistic Director for Absolute Theatre Company, New Tuners Theatre, and Pegasus Players, and also directed for other Chicago theatres. He has produced and directed more plays than he can count, is the author of several, and has won a few awards along the way. Recent regional and Chicago directing gigs include The Play That Goes Wrong; Shear Madness; Peter Pan, the US premiere of Diamonds and Divas; Junk; Pinocchio; Bunny Bunny Gilda Radner, A Sort of Love Story; The Bridges of Madison County; Mama Won’t Fly; Boing Boing; Barnum; The Seven-Percent Solution, and The Man Who Murdered Sherlock Holmes.