Episode 355 - Young Playwrights Ukraine

Little Known Facts with Ilana Levine

In the fall and winter of 2021/2022 Laura Cahill taught screenwriting to 8 young acting students

from Kyiv on Zoom in English. Their last class was February 6th, 2022. The war started 18 days

later. Most of the students fled their homes.

Laura reunited with her students and started teaching them playwriting.

On May 1st, she started teaching a second playwriting class that had been advertised on a a

Telegram channel for art programs for Ukrainian Youth. It was supposed to last four weeks.

Most of those students were still in Ukraine, but some had fled.

The May class went so well, they decided to keep going, so on June 1st, the two classes came

together and formed Young Playwrights Ukraine.

On July 24th, six months after the war started, they had a reading of 18 short works with

professional actors on Zoom for an audience. The cast included noted actors David Morse,

Cara Buono, Ann Dowd, Kevin Corrigan, Misha Brooks, Bridgette Lundy-Paine, Ivanna Sakhno,

Stefanie Lavie Owens, Oona Laurence and others.

The plays were subsequently produced by Orion Theater in Stockholm Sweden, directed by

Lars Rudolfsson, who had been in the audience on July 24th. The plays opened on March 20th,

2023, to outstanding reviews and ran for 30 performances. Laura and ten of the playwrights met

in person for the first time in Sweden for the opening night.

The collection is soon to be published by Smith&Kraus

Young Playwrights Ukraine continues to meet every Saturday and Sunday to write. They’re

currently working with professional mentors including Theresa Rebeck, Peter Hedges,

Jacquelyn Reingold, Kate Robin, Alexis Scheer, as well as Will Arbery, Stephen Belber, Erin

Cressida Wilson, Keith Bunin, Jessica Goldberg and Suzanne Heathecoate on a collection of

ten minute plays that tell their stories of living with war.

Aside from the mentors, they have special talks with professional artists like filmmaker Mary

Harron, TV creator Michelle King, Juilliard professor Kathleen McNenny, casting director Rob

Decina, Playwright/TV writer Aurin Squire and others.

Writers and directors offering help with this project include Warren Leight, Matthew Carnahan,

Mark Brokaw, Paul McCrane, Whitney White, Lila Neubauer and more.

The Young Playwrights Ukraine Festival of Ten Minute Plays is set for August 20th on Zoom.

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