 doing this. We're so thrilled to have you. Thank you for organizing it. And thank you, Alex. All right, guys, I'm going to be here if you have a question, you can message me in the chat. I'm going to go off camera and be muted, but I'm here if you need an hello howl round audience. I'm Barbara Wallace Grossman, professor of theater at Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts. And I'm delighted to welcome you to today's program, which is called Tonight My Heartbeat is uneven artists respond to the war in Ukraine. Our three panelists are Alex Borowensky, artistic director of the pro English theater in Kiev, speaking to us from his theater in Kiev from the bomb shelter in his theater in Kiev. Igor Goliak, the Ukrainian born artistic director of Arlik and players theater, speaking from his theater in Needham, Massachusetts, and John Friedman, writer, translator, and curator of a series of worldwide readings of Ukrainian plays, joining us from his home in Greece. Thank you so much to all of you for being part of this important discussion. I don't have to tell anybody watching this broadcast what we are all riveted by what we've been riveted by for the past month, the carnage unleashed on Ukraine, the brutality of the Russian onslaught, the courage, the heroic efforts of the Ukrainian Ukrainian people to fight back the marauding invaders, and to just make us understand as we watch these horrific images playing across our screens, what is happening in the world today, the genocide is happening yet again. And I think it makes us all feel a sense of helplessness that we can't just press the button and make it stop. And that you wonder, what can we do? What can we do as people? What can we do as artists to respond to such a horrific crisis? Each of our panelists is an artist. Each of our panelists is a courageous human being. And each of our artists has made a decision to make a difference, to act in, in a specific way right now. So I'd like to start with Alex, because he is there in the heart of the horror. And also because the title of this program. Tonight, my heartbeat is uneven comes from your company. So Alex, I wonder if you could just start by telling us how that originated. Hello, Barbara. Hello, everyone. Can you hear me well? Just the other connection here in the shelter. So yeah, we're in Kiev in the bomb shelter slash theater in the very center of Kiev. And it used to be the small independent theaters since 2018, which means a lot of actors who speak English and connect come here pretty much all of them. There are not so many, frankly, in Kiev. And since day one of invasion of Russian swine dogs, that's what we call them here, like we turned it to bomb shelter. Not everybody made it here because it was kind of sudden, I believe this invasion was kind of unexpected on many levels. So some actors made it here, I made it as a director and founder, not all of them. Katya Khosroshna, one of our actresses, she lives in the outskirts of Kiev, and she couldn't leave because it was bombed from the day one. And basically, from that day, she lived in the bomb shelter of her building of her, you know, this residential area. That was heavily shelled and she couldn't leave plus she has a dog to look after and the husband to look after if I may say this. And I was checking on all of my actors, I was checking every day, not to all of them because there are so many. But when I get to Katya, and I texted her, she didn't pick up the phone, which made me really scared because if a person these days in Ukraine doesn't pick up, you know, it's scary. So then she texted me back next day, and she says, Well, I'm in the shelter in the bomb shelter, there's a very bad connection here. And, you know, I asked how you do it. And she said, Well, I wrote the poem. And she sent me the text. And this is the text of this poem, my card today, my heart that is uneven, which frankly, punch the air out of me when I read it, because it's like, you know, you'll see it soon. So then I immediately knew I want to do something about it. And it's our, I guess, third artistic statement that we did. Our first one was very simple, Russian worship, go f a u c k yourself. That's what we said. And that's, you know, the message, but this one is a pure art, because these are not obscenities. This is pure poetry. It's beautiful. So then I asked Alina, my another actress to record it. And she did. And she did it here, which united two actors, both from two different bomb shelters, both related to Pringles Theatre, both Ukrainians. Well, Alex, can I stop you for a minute? Because I'd love to ask Blair Caden from Arlekin to run that video for us so everybody can see us. And then we can pick up after people have. Thanks so much. Today my heartbeat isn't even seems wrong to eat seems wrong to sleep. They came to free us from our freedom. Their means of helping missile hit. Eight years ago, they came from East and world stood watching from aside. And now we have to pay for this for staying ignorant and blind. I've never been a cruel creature. My heart is numb. My head is swell. I'm tired of canceling speeches. Russian warship. Go to hell. My angels way to wake up. And I am blessed to stay alive. Yet, had to learn to say goodbye to those who helped us to survive. No hatred left within myself. There is no sadness and no fear. My body is an empty shell. Turns out I'm not made out of steel. One morning, I woke up to peace. I'll sleep through night. I'll smile through day. Yet, I'll remember all of this. And those who stood for our Ukraine. That's I can understand how watching it, Alex, you would be without words. You said this was the second effort that you made and then there was a third. Could you maybe tell us about that? But then I'd also love to ask you about the humanitarian work that you and your company members are doing during the day out on the street, offering assistance to people who need it. And then at night that you're making art and how it's possible to do both. And just if you could tell us a little bit about what you're doing on a daily and nightly basis. Yeah, for this, I'm actually going to make a little bit of a surprise entrance. And I'm going to invite here Alina, the actress who you just saw in the video. She's with us. She's with us in the shelter. You'll see her and she'll tell you what you do on a daily basis, how we combine art and humanitarian. And you'll see how she has changed or she hasn't changed over the days. Alina, the floor is yours. Hello. Nice to meet you. You too, Alina. Thank you so much. Yeah, so about the humanitarian aid that we're doing daily changes from time to time, like from the period that we have seen the video, we've been doing mostly volunteering what we can in the suburbs of where we are located. And also, when we are able to go to the city and to bring like food or medicine to elderly who are not able to move and who are in need of that. These days, the situation has changed a bit for me personally, because I had an opportunity to reposition myself as a fixer. So I'm working with the international press, and we're actually going to the hotspots to the as far as it is possible for our security to the line of the fire. And we are trying to tell the world with the help of the international different press, what is going on and to film it to have the evidence of the only cruelty that the invaders are doing to our nation, to our infrastructure, our country in general. And also, I'm combining it with one of the things that I'm doing when I have appointments with this press is that we are combining help and volunteering. We're not just there for the news, we're not just there to film people. We always ask if there's anything that we can do right away. And we always try to do it like we bring fresh water, we bring medicine, we bring whatever is needed where we're going, we're going to the hospitals, we're children who are with different diseases are located, we're going to the different military organizations, territorial defense guys, and just to the houses of the people of elderly, who like today we have been to a very painful sight to see because it is it has been occupied by Russian forces for weeks. And now, as they are reversing their direction of movements, the villages are free. And we are able to see with our own eyes what they have done to, to houses to people, only very, very few inhabitants have left or were not able for one reason or another to go to a safe place. And it is, I cannot tell you with words, what we hear, what stories we see with our own eyes. And therefore, this is what we're doing on the daily basis. And night when we come, we're doing different things with art that we can, we combine since we are here with the professional life with camera with guys who can edit and at the same time we're doing content for the YouTube channel as well for the world to see the English speaking content. And we are doing a rehearsing place in parts that have two, one of them is directed by Alex, who you are talking to currently and another is directed by another director, Tiana Sherebka, who we have done the premiere this Sunday on the International Theatre Day, and it was streamed to the Deutsche Theater in Berlin. And yeah, this is what we're doing at night when we're not able by the law to go out by curfew. Sorry, I was just taking myself off mute. That's how do you, how do you find, how do you respond to people who say, making art now is just an escape? You know, how can you take the time to make art with this happening? I mean, I sort of feel you answered it by what you do for the rest of the day. But how do you respond to people who say, you know, arts and escape? Well, for me, art is not an escape. Art is a statement to make our voices sound loud, because not many people, you know, in their everyday life, like recently, there has been the Oscar ceremony on the beginning of our World and Fashion Week, and many people just bluntly don't take time to look at the horrible footage of suffering children, of destroying the houses of all these horrible things that are happening to us currently as we speak. So we are finding our ways to, to, to reach people, to make it understandable for the world what we're going through, because for many people, it is just something that they have seen on the news and went past it and forgot it. And so we are trying our best to, to make it sound loud. Well, it's, it's certainly resonating through the channels that we have access to. And thank you for your courage and your commitment to everything that you're doing. I'd like at this point to just ask Blair to show the photographs we have of people taking shelter in your theater where you are and use that to segue to Igor, because I know Igor, when you saw those pictures, you were profoundly impacted by them. So Blair, could we see them? Yeah. Oh, that's us. Yeah. So that there you are in your, your shelter in the theater. And Igor, can you just share with us how you responded when you saw them for the first time on Facebook? It's, thank you, Alex. Thank you. I'm sorry, I didn't get your name. Yes, yes, yes. Polina is my name. Thank you, Polina. It's so weird to speak after and during and before what what people are actually going through. You know, I have a small, I run a small nonprofit outside of Boston. And we have a black box theater here. And it actually looks very similar to your black box. And I just understood that this black box where I'm sitting right now could be your black box or I could be there. I'm actually originally from Kiev. I immigrated when I was 11. So I could have this this could have been me with you there. And I'm somehow I'm here some for some reason. And but my heart is there. And this these pictures made the connection. And that's all I want to say, because it's completely, I don't know, it's completely irrelevant. What I feel, I think what what a lot of people feel I would say is that as much as we're doing as much as I'm doing, it's it's not enough, of course. And that's what we live with every day. But my heart is with you. And my soul is with you. And I'm with you in that shelter. Thank you very much for these kind words. And I just want to say it is very important to understand that we are we really appreciate and I wouldn't say that it is irrelevant what you feel because for me, the most important thing is that all world unites and empathizes and therefore nothing like that will ever happen again. Because when people understand things like that, even without going through them, even just as you say, your heart is with us. And that means a world to us is tremendous support, because it is crucial to understand that we're not just alone, fighting this war, whole world is, which is saying is fighting for the democracy in any way we can. Because if we would be alone, that would be completely different story. Of course, our military forces and our men who are at the line of fire are brave. And we are super grateful to them to our president, to everything who everyone who is there, giving their lives. But without the support that all of us are giving on different levels, it wouldn't be possible for us to stand. I think it's made us all very cognizant of how fragile democracy is, and how imperiled democracies are throughout the world. And Igor, I can imagine the connection you feel because I'm the granddaughter of people who came from the Ukraine and Poland at the turn of the last century. So it's a very eerie feeling to be seeing what's happening. And also to have that sense of this is where my family came from, far more distantly than Igor's. But that sense of connection that we do feel as people who care deeply and want to help in some way. Igor, can you speak about what you and Arlikan are doing as part of your efforts to contribute? Yeah, fundraising? Fundraising? We started a couple of different, we started one campaign, and we've kind of shifted, we're shifting between fundraising for different organizations. So we started a campaign called Artists for Ukraine. And we have collected, we have collected please for help from different artists presenting, some of them presenting their work doing poetry. Artists from Ukraine, from all over the world, a lot from the United States, some Hollywood actors. And we were fundraising for ANOVA Ukraine, which is a humanitarian aid organization. And we did that for, I don't know, a couple of weeks maybe. And then we started fundraising right now for a hotel in Nipro that hosts refugees as they pass. And we actually, my wife has a personal friend that's there. And we have their pictures on our website on Arlikanplayers.com. And we are sending, there has been a lot of actually response for our small Boston community. There has been a lot of response to both of the organizations and both of the fundraisers. And the next one we're going to do is there's a different organization called Remember Us that we're looking to support as well that sends money directly to people, to actually directly to people that are in dire need in Ukraine, and they get lists of lists of people that are in need from city councils and, and so forth. So this is the only thing, unfortunately, the only thing we're doing. Wouldn't say unfortunately, Igor, we can't thrust ourselves into the center of the battle, we can't be a fixer like you, Alina. But at least we can do something here. And I think that in its own way can have an impact. So don't minimize it. I'd like to just move to John. And John, you really, you're amazing in 2020 in response to the crisis in Belarus, the brutal crackdown because of election protests, you organized a worldwide reading project called insulted Belarus. And now fast forward two years later, because of yet another crisis, a war, Putin's war, you're organizing another series of worldwide readings. This time, obviously, of course, Ukrainian plays. Could you speak to us about number one, the difference between these two projects, and why you are so committed to curating this reading series now, what you will accomplish? Yeah, thank you, Barbara. I will say that I feel as though I have very little to do with it. This is something that history and has brought to me. I just, I just, you know, I'm thinking Bob Dylan's saying I don't write my songs, I just I wait for them to come to me. I feel like these are these things are coming to me. And indeed, the Belarus project came to me by way of Andre Kuretschik, the playwright who wrote a brilliant play called insulted Belarus. And we organized over a year and a half, some 200 readings in 32 countries in 110 theaters on an on astonishing numbers, actually, actually. And, and so I had this large group of people all over the world that were have been working with me for a year and a half. And it was literally just hours after Putin sent troops into Ukraine. I, I immediately started, I thought, What do I do? I'm a writer, what do I do? I'm going to write an article and I sat down to write an article about how this was destroying everything I'd ever worked for. And about five hours later, I get an email from a friend of mine, William Wong in Hong Kong. And he says, John, what do we do? And I thought, Damn, yeah. And I quick finished up my article. I said, Yeah, what do we do? And I said, Well, I'll get some place together, William. And he says, Well, I'm ready to do something as soon as you as soon as you get me a play. So I quick reached out to some friends in the UK, who got me some plays. I quickly sent them out to all of the people I'd been working with for, for a year and a half on the Belarus project, and the people responded virtually instantly. And this is now grown, we now have over, we have over 50 Ukrainian plays that we're offering people that want to do readings. They are translated into at least 10 languages. English being the main one, but there's a lot of languages that we have now Slovak, French, German, Finnish. We have a lot of people all over the world are working with us Chinese, again, Hong Kong. And we now have as of today, we have approximately 100 readings pledged over the next month or two, of which 45 I think have already happened. All of them are including fundraising elements. All of the writers said to us, We do not require fees on Euroriums, as long as there's a fundraising element. And so everybody has been raising funds. Again, William Wong in Hong Kong, who is simply a hero of this world, they raised $16,000 in one night. Philip Arnaud at Center for International Theatre Development, put up a $15,000 commission of plays for writers who are working with the new Theatre of Playwrights in Kiev. Noah Birkstedt Breen at Sputnik Theatre in London told me he says, I went to my bank account, my theater's bank account, and he said I had $1,000 left. And he said, I'm pulling that $1,000 out, and I'm going to pay for a play for by a Ukrainian writer and he emptied out his bank account in order to commission a play from Andriy Bandariyanka in Kiev. And the stories like this go on and on that that people are themselves, they're coming to me, they are coming and asking what can we do? People want to they want to donate money, they want to rate organize readings, they want to do things, they want to be a part of this. And it's pretty astonishing to be a part of to be honest with you. I I think I feel humbled. And by the incredible goodness of at least this group of people I happen to be connected to, I don't know about the rest of the world. But I have, I have a group of over 150 people who boy, I, I would go through thick and thin for them because they do for for us and for other people. And so that's that's that's kind of the, the nitty gritty of I have one more thing I want to say about this that might we, my wife and I extracted her relatives from Nipro. Aksana went to meet them they got out through through Poland. Aksana went and met them drove down here to where we live in Greece. And they are now living here with us in Greece. And for many of the plays that I'm translating now, for this project, I need a Ukrainian partner because I, I speak Russian, I don't speak Ukrainian, I can understand a lot of Ukrainian, I have Polish, but it's not good enough for me to sit down and translate a Ukrainian text on my own, that wouldn't be fair. So my relative, Natalia Bratus, who is here, comes over to here sits down in the in the chair behind me. She holds a text in front of her that is in Ukrainian. She reads it in Russian. I sit here and I type it out in English, ask questions, ask for nuances, and we do this together. And so Natalia Bratus has has gone from being a refugee from Nipro to being a my main partner in translating plays Ukrainian plays into English for the world. And I, I think it's a beautiful little story. It's a little story, but it's a beautiful one. It really is one thing. Sorry, I just wanted to add, John, the way that you've, I really want to kind of point out this, this what has happened, and the way that you've united people for important causes in Eastern Europe, unfortunately, or for, you know, unfortunately, the causes, but fortunately, you've united people is just incredible, the work that you do and, and the integrity that you have with which you, you give out, give out so much so much connection and so much work and so much connection between people is just astounding. And I think, I think, I think the amount of information, the amount of performances and productions of the Belarus crisis and now this war, because of your effort, it's just incredible. And I really want to thank you for it. We know each other, I think just on zoom, but I really want to thank you for for all you're doing. That's, I'm very grateful for that. And I just want to say that I was talking, I was exchanging messages with Andriy Bandaranta in Kiev today. And I told him, I said, I want to bury Putin in Ukrainian place. And so my, my goal is to bury Putin in Ukrainian place. Can I say, John, I missed part of it because electricity went off here in a shelter, but I went back to the to hear the ending. And yeah, that's a tremendous story that you did with Ukrainian place because, well, for me personally, for two reasons. First of all, many people, well, here, us included thought that Ukrainian playwrights are not the best. The Ukrainian playwright is just getting back into its when it was destroyed in 1930s by Soviet KGB and stuff when all the playwrights were shot. So modern playwrights are still not the best and to find those the best and translate them into English. That's a great thing. So that's especially in these times. Another point that I wanted to mention like Ukraine is tremendously united right now. And I missed this part, but I think there was this issue with translation right now. Ukraine created this Ukrainian translation service. And I'm a part of it as well. And they're sitting here, most of them sitting in a shelter. Many of them have nothing to do. Many of them are great translators. So we have around 1500 professional translators ready to cooperate on that. And I guess if there is any further need, they will gladly translate Ukrainian plays because, you know, that's necessary. Thank you. That's, that's wonderful, Alex. Thank you. Yeah, I want to say, I want to say that's you bring up an important topic here that I can actually add something of interest, I believe. You talk about the fact that the reputation of Ukrainian playwrights is not has not been the highest in recent times. You know, I sent I talked on zoom last night with a woman from from Warsaw, who is who runs an avant-garde theater there. And I'm not entirely sure how Oh, it was through Philip Arnaud in the Center for International Theater Development. She got a hold of some of the plays that the short plays that the writers of the theater of playwrights in Kiev had written. And she contacted me and she said, I want to talk to you about these things. She said, I'm an avant-garde theater director, so I'm sick and tired of post dramatic texts. I'm sick and tired of postmodern texts. I can't stand them anymore. She said, there's nothing anybody is writing that the director who is looking forward to the theater of the future can do. And she said, these texts that you have collected by these writers are exactly what I have been looking for. They, they came to me out of the blue, and I am absolutely stunned. She said, the simplicity and the purity and the brevity and the impact that these texts have, she said that is precisely the way I see theater. And I can see new visual approaches. She said, I can see new spatial approaches. And she said, I want to work with these writers, and I want to work with these texts, and we are going to look for a theater of the future in them. So you see, Alex, you know, that I was extremely excited to hear her say that. And it's it's very possible that Ukrainian writers now are going to just forge right ahead of everybody else. It's that's the way history works. History works in strange ways. And it could, it could very well be that this is what we are seeing happening right now as a result of this horrendous historical moment. So, John, if I may, let me ask you, people watching this broadcast, I mean, I'm lucky to be on your list. So I have your emails and thank you, bless you. I'm going to do a reading at Tufts. But if people watching this broadcast want to do a play, want to do a reading, where do they, where do they go? What how, what do they do? How do they Well, you can, as I, as I say to everybody, if you, if you can't find my email on the internet, you're not trying. So let me just say publicly that my email is J F R E E D 16 at gmail.com. You can write to me directly. You can also find me on Facebook. You can, those are the easiest ways probably. And anybody here, if you know anybody else that's in this, this in this discussion, they can all forward to me. So yeah, I want to hear from people. And I want to do as much of this as we can. I feel like, absolutely like, and like other people, I feel that you know, what we're doing is just so minuscule, and you feel so helpless and so hopeless. And yet what you do is you just keep doing, you know, you keep doing it, you just whatever it is you can do, you do it, and you do it more. And so I'm happy, more than happy to help people do more if they want to join us. Thank you so much for reading coming up, right? There's a Wilma reading coming up Wilma Theater online reading that's coming up. Right. Right. In Philadelphia. Yeah. That's gonna be Natasha but it beats bad roads. There's I think this may be on the video compilation that your company made Igor, which I'm going to ask Blair to run in a minute, but there's an actor named Tatiana, who says art isn't an escape. We can fight with what we can do. We need to celebrate life no matter what. And I think there is something about all of these artistic activities that it's not a certainly not a moment of celebration, but of affirmation and defiance. And that's what's come across through the screens. The Ukrainian people that the courage, the defiance, the refusal to just say, we give up. I mean, it's just just the opposite. It's truly inspiring. So actually, Blair, could you run that tape please? It's about three minutes. We dream together. Yesterday, someone sent me pictures that I'm attaching of a black box theater in Kiev, which has turned into a shelter. It looks just like our theater here. This could be us. This is us. I'm sending a message from our theater to your theater, a message of hope. We are with you. We stand with you. We are against Putin's war. We're launching a campaign for Ukraine, a campaign of hope led by artists to provide humanitarian aid in Ukraine. Hi, this is Mark Rokhula, and I'm sending good prayers to the folks in Ukraine fighting for their freedom independence. If there's one thing you could do to help, please go to artists for Ukraine at the Articum Theater website down below and give generously to people who are trying to put their lives back together. Thanks. Hello, beautiful people. I'm Irina Kaptilova. I'm an actress from Ukraine. I have a minute and I would like, before I go to the basement, I would like to share with you one of my favorite Ukrainian poem of Ivan Franco. This poem is about love. Hi, I'm Sarah Rool. I'm a playwright and I'm standing with the people of Ukraine. Hi, this is Jessica Hecht in New York City, sending every ounce of love and strength to the remarkable people of Ukraine. My name is Danny Burstein and I stand with the people of Ukraine. I send them all my love and all my support. Hi there, we are the cast of Come From Away here on Broadway in New York City. To the Ukrainian people, there are no words for what you're going through. Absolutely no words, but we just want you to know that we stand with you and that we hold you in our hearts. And we see you. We see you. Glory to Ukraine. Thank you very much for running that Blair and Igor for making it. I'd like to just continue the conversation if John and Alex and Igor have any questions or comments, questions you want to ask, comments for each other, for our viewers. Just to help people focus on what they can possibly do to be helpful. I would like to ask Alex to tell us something about the shows that he's doing right now. What kind of a, what kind of, your Alina said that you just opened a show on Sunday. What kind of a show could you have opened on Sunday? I want to know what that was and what it was about. Yeah, I mean, from the day two probably we knew that we're going to do theater still here because we are the theater and we got six actors and two directors here. So that should have led us to something, but we couldn't. For like 10 days we couldn't because this amount of news, the death of the people, you know, that wasn't possible. But then we started rehearsals pretty much simultaneously on the same day or like, you know, me and Tanya Shilepko, the other director who started rehearsing two plays. And Tanya was the first. She actually finished her play first. It was a little piece by Harold Pinter, the Nobel laureate Harold Pinter. It's called The New World Order, which is very ironic if you combine the context and it was written in 1991 and it was written after the events of this Gulf War in Iraq and yeah. But of course Tanya rethought it and it's three pages. So technically it led us to 12 minutes performance and it was very skillfully done. Tanya is a great director. It was done with two actors here, live piano musician because we also have some musicians here and one actor who is another shelter in Lviv. So it combines the Zoom performance of an actor and living people here. It's very well done. We got the permission from Harold Pinter Legacy to stream it and perform it for which is very grateful. And we did it here with actually audience. Guys, it was amazing to have like living people watching you and by living people, I mean the other inhabitants of the shelter, but still, you know, it was something incredible. But it's not like, you know, we're not going on a tour these days from one shelter to another. Pretty much. So we basically did the show. We recorded it in a pretty good quality. We have it. I'm not sure if Harold Pinter Legacy will allow us to stream it worldwide again, but we did it. And yes, we did it and we have it. So that's one thing and maybe we'll repeat it. And after the war, we'll definitely do it again. That's one show. And the other one is called I Directed and it's called the Cuckoo Shriek. And it's stage adaptation of a very famous book called The Book Seat. Probably you guys heard it. It's The Book Seat by Marco Zuzack, the Australian writer. Yeah. And if for those who don't know, it's based, it tells us the story of a little German town of Malkin. And this is a story of German town of Malkin from 1939 till 1945. And it's about ordinary people, ordinary German people who, you know, never wanted anything. But then in 1943, they start being bombed by alien forces and how they spend all their nights and days in a bomb shelter and so on. And, you know, you see the parallels while we're doing the story. Yeah. And it's a mono performance with one actress, Annabel. And we actually make it a story in a story. It's been told from a bomb shelter. So for the props, we're using five cans of meat. Actually, the canned meat, because that's what we eat here is days and seven books, because that's what we read. So that's all props for the show. I hope it's going to be good. I think it's going to be good. So you have seven books there in the shelter that you're already... No, we have many more. We actually... Well, there's another story. Annabel is also the publisher. She has the little publishing agency that publish books. And in my theater, in the storage, we had around... Let's put it like 400 books of her publishing agency. And we used it to block the windows from a direct hit of a missile. So basically, these books are now, you know, in the windows like the sandbags we're using the books. But those that we don't put in the windows we use in my show. Well, that's kind of a combination. You know, it's amazing the things you're saying to us in this broadcast. As a matter of fact, with humor even, well, we use some books to block the missiles and the ones... I mean, it's just the conditions that you're dealing with that you're just... I don't want to say thriving under because nobody would have wanted it to happen, but that you are more than making do. You are really just using the moment, using... Which actors always do, but really using it so resourcefully. I mean, it's... You know, you read about the Holocaust and art during the Holocaust, performances during the Holocaust. And you wonder, how can people living in existential situations in times of crisis make art? But you realize, and I also realized I misspoke earlier, the quote from Tatiana about art not being an escape is from one of your actors. And it was on the video that I saw that because Arlekin joined a group of theaters around the world to live stream your play, the Pinter Play, so that people could see it. And hopefully on Facebook and then hopefully to stream more of them so that they'll reach even wider audiences through social media. But it's incredibly... I mean, it's just really amazing. It's really amazing. So I want to say that I highly encourage you to contact the Pinter Legacy people again and ask for permission to post openly on Facebook. And if I really... I just can't imagine that they would refuse permission. I just simply can't imagine that. But if they were to refuse it, if they were to say there's a problem with that, let me know and I will contact a director friend of mine who was a very close friend of Pinter's. She wrote a book about him and her connections with them. We could lean on that. So just keep that in mind. But I just can't imagine that you'd have a problem. And it would be a wonderful thing if you could put that up on open stream on YouTube. We would share that. We would include that as part of our project and I'd push it. Egan would push it. We'd get everybody sharing it. And it would bring a lot of attention to your situation and your situation, your theater and what you're doing deserve that publicity. Thank you very much, John. That's really, really helpful. I do hope there won't be any problem, but it's always good to know. Well, you know, Tania is a big fan of Pinter. She actually staged the birthday party by Pinter and ashes to ashes already. So to know a person who knows a person who's a good friend of Pinter is, again, a blast to us. Yeah. And here's a little story, if I may, to support the point of being brave in the time of duress. It's basically, that's what Ukraine always was. There is the story of 1930s, which I already mentioned. Like they say, OK, Russia attacked Ukraine. Russia was always attacking Ukraine. By this way or the other. In 1930s, there was a tremendous burst of Ukrainian culture. Many playwrights, many people of theater. Among them, there was the best Les Kurbas. Probably you never heard his name, but Les Kurbas is like Ukrainian Stanislavski. He developed the whole principles of theater acting quite different from what Stanislavski was saying. Anyway, Sir Titian, he had his own theater. He started his first theater studio, whatever. Then he was repressed. Russians took him to Siberia, not to Siberia, but to Arkhangelsk region, to one of the camps. Basically a prison, right there for his views and for his support of Ukraine. And in that prison, Les Kurbas started a theater. In the prison, being a prisoner of Russian Empire, Soviet Union, he started a theater and he put several performances. And after that, he was shot. They took him to the woods and they shot, they actually legend says, I don't know if it's true, but I kind of think that it might be. They took him and his good friend, Kulish, Mekola Kulish, who is a playwright. They put them together and shot them with one bullet to save the bullet. Like, you know, and it was 1930s. So what Russians do now is kind of not surprising to me. And how Ukrainians we have is kind of not surprising to me also. Thank you, Alex. Thank you so much. Igor, any thoughts about what Arlekin might do next in terms of either plays that you would stream or play. I know you've got a very exciting project not really related to Ukraine now going about to happen in New York but anything that would be tied more to the current situation. We're hoping to continue to support this theater company and stream their productions. We're hoping to continue our fundraising efforts. We've been fairly successful with those, and we've found a lot of support. Next to the exciting upcoming project, you know, the world has changed so much. And the project of the play that I'm doing of Broadway is The Cherry Orchard. And it's an interesting time to do a show about the loss of the world, right? The Cherry Orchard is a loss of the world, loss of Russia, loss of the world. And also in a way it's almost like a loss of Chekhov for the world. Because right now, and we've discussed this with John a little bit right now, doing Chekhov it's very difficult. I think Putin not only bombed Ukraine, he also bombed Chekhov. So I think my production will definitely be affected by it. There's definitely going to be themes of what is happening in the world and how... I remember a lecture by Anatoly Smiliansky and he was talking about, and this was like 20 years ago, he was talking about this play and he's saying that there is a horror that enters. For some reason I remember this phrase, it's probably a translation of something that he read. And he said, like, the horror enters. And from all of that lecture, I specifically remember those words. And in this play and in today's world, the horror enters and sweeps these people. And this is what my play is going to be about as well. I'd like to jump in with a question for you, if I may. Your actors are such fine actors and the readings that you guys did of the Belarus plays were, you know, they were just really superb. And excuse me, we do have some really short pieces. There are some plays that are like two and a half pages between two and a half and four pages. They're just the kind of things that your actors could knock off falling asleep at night before they go to bed or even before they have their coffee in the morning. And you could put those things up as videos and I would love to do that. I would love to have the take of your theater on at least a couple of these really short plays. I realize you're extremely busy, but I'm just going to reach out and mention that you might not have thought about it because these texts, most of them really are very short. It would take very, very little work. You put Blair behind the camera, put Sarah on lights and one of your actors reading the text and you're going to have it. Thank you, John. Yes, absolutely. I'm very interested. John, are these the plays that came on the recent list that I think you sent out yesterday that there's a list. Yeah, they've been. Yes, most of these are new in the last couple of days. Because they came to me over the last week and then we were getting them translated. So yeah, they are there are 12 to 14 brand new texts that are anywhere between 1,000 words and 3,400 words very short. You know, they're bite sized and and yet, and yet they are so powerful that as I say, you know, my colleague in Warsaw said, I see in these texts. I see a potential theater of the future because these are unlike anything I've ever read before. So, yeah. They're worth seeing because I started going down the list looking for anything under 3400 your 3400 words. On the right hand side of the list. Yeah, yeah, go down. Would you think it would be a value for student actors. Would you want us to absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I mean, I'm not crazy about these these kinds of words and these kinds of things I'm very old fashioned. I'm almost an old man myself and I'm very old fashioned but I there's here's one thing I've never interested in whatever goes viral whatever goes viral I paint no attention. But I want this to go viral. I want Ukrainian place to go viral. I want I want Ukrainian plays all over everybody. I want them in their eyes and in their ears and in their hearts. I just feel as though it's it's something that we can do. It's something that everybody can do. I mean your students can do it. The egos actors can do it everybody can their their it's doable. And there it is and once you've done it gets out there, and it is now working, and it is now reaching people, and it is now having an effect on people, and it is supporting the writers, and is supporting everybody in Ukraine is who said looks up and says oh my goodness. As as Alex was saying you know the Ukrainian playwriting is has not had a great reputation for a long time. Well, that's going to change. We've talked about it already but I just, I'm just repeating it in case somebody needs to hear it again. That's going to change. This is going to change that and and I feel as though that's a way that we can all try to help. The words start failing you know you get to the you get to the punchline and the words just. That's right. Honestly, John what you've just said, you know, the fire, the passion, the vision, the sense of urgency, the desire to connect that's really what the heart of theater is, and to bring the world's focus to the atrocities that are being created on a daily basis and the courage of the people who are resisting and fighting back so you know the more that we can help put it out there. The better it, it can be eventually I'm being reminded by Sarah thank you Sarah that people who are watching, you can find information you can find pro English theater. And the world wide play reading project on the web and on Facebook, and you can also donate directly to pro English theater on their website to support humanitarian aid and art in Kiev so there are easily reachable places where you can donate and know that your donation will be put to very good So we're just about out of time. Do any of you have one final comment that you would like to make before we sign off with a very moving video. Alex we read Alex please. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, I have several initiatives but I really want to speak about this one that was never on my mind until our conference today. Because that's surprising like this meeting is not only you know to express what we all feel but to create something new and the collaboration. So I was thinking, we are here in a bomb shelter. Yeah, we work on our shows, but we have two directors can pretty much direct. Why don't we direct a Ukrainian play translated into English with some American actors down there. Me and Tanya can pretty much well direct over zoom. We already did it with some of the actors we have to cause many of our actors. So this is the type of collaboration that will tighten you know the links and American actors down there Ukrainian play in English Ukrainian actor here. That could be the product that shows solid air and I'm very interested now like you know I love today. So that the collaboration I would really love to do on our side you know. It's going to be fantastic. I hope I will get I will get your email, Alex, and we will be in touch about this. Yeah, it's it would be exciting would really be exciting. At this point, need to wrap us up because we are almost out of time. And so again, I just profound gratitude and thank you to Alex to Igor to john to the producing team at how around how how this very hard to say howl round to the pro English company to our licking players company, and especially to Sarah Stackhouse and Blair Caddon for their support with this program. So, I just would like to say, courage blessings onward, and let's make a collaboration very very exciting. So, thank you so much Alex for bringing the reality of what is happening to us, but not just the horrific aspects of it but the courageous response to it, and the artistic response to it, which I think everybody is so eager to hear So to end this program, we're going to show a video of actor Pavel Piscun, singing the Ukrainian national anthem from his shelter in the Ukraine. So again, thank you to everybody for watching us. There will be no conversation after the video that will take you out and just enjoy the rest of your day or night. Thank you everyone. Thank you so much. In the end, we will be able to play, play together, sing together, support each other, we do everything we can to protect our parents, to protect our people, our children, our brothers from the Armed Forces of Ukraine. God is with us. He will help us. We will definitely be able to win the franchise.