In May 2026, New York will host the first festival of staged readings of Ukrainian drama — Ukrainian Drama Showcase, organised by Razom for Ukraine. The event will run from 7 to 10 May at the Flamboyan Theater on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.
The festival will present six powerful stories — contemporary and classical Ukrainian plays translated into English and performed as dynamic staged readings. This is the first initiative of its kind aimed at introducing Ukrainian drama to an international audience.
The programme spans a range of genres and periods: from a dark comedy set in eastern Ukraine to a poetic monologue by a soldier with the callsign “Raccoon,” accompanied by a chorus; from a 19th-century feminist salon debating “pure love” to a documentary theatre collage exploring the gap between official narratives and lived experience.
The festival programme will feature full-length plays (translated by Nina Murray): A Harvest Truce by Serhiy Zhadan, directed by Danilo Gambini; The Blue Rose by Lesya Ukrainka, directed by Rory Pelsue; The Order of Neatly Made Beds by Lena Lahushonkova, directed by Jillian Jetton.
Short plays include: Balance by Alina Sarnatska (translated by the author), directed by Dylan Zwickel; The Chronicles of the Lost Soul by Anna Halas (translated by the author), directed by Lita Lofton; New York, Donetsk, Ukraine: 100° F by Oleksandr Zhuhan (translated by John Freedman in collaboration with Nataliia Bratus), directed by Yibin Wang.