Endless February

On February 23^rd, the night before Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, a group of Ukrainian and Dutch actors give a human face to the war. They test new short plays written by Victor Storozhenko and Nina Zakhazenko, both still based in Ukraine. After the staged reading they engage in conversation with the audience.

The short plays by Zakhazenko are logically structured and depict a society that experiences collective trauma and that seeks ways to overcome the consequences of this injury. Storozhenko’s short play The 300th tells his personal story as a military hero. In February 2022 he joined the legion ‘Svoboda’, which is fighting alongside the armed forces of Ukraine. He fought at the forefront, got wounded and was presented an award by president Zelensky.

‘Endless February’ is the first of three stage readings followed by a discussion. The purpose of this series is to acquaint the Dutch audience and theatre community with contemporary Ukrainian dramaturgy. All the proceeds from tickets sales go to the production of the next two editions in April and June.

About the actors

Alesia Andrushevska is a Ukrainian theatre and film actress who left Ukraine after the Russian invasion. She is a member of the National Union of Theatre Workers of Ukraine. She currently performs in Women in Troy, as told by our mothers by Tiago Rodrigues/Dood Paard.

Iana Gudzenko studied Drama Theatre in Kyiv (Master’s degree). She was rewarded with a scholarship from the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture and got education as a Director of Music Theatre in GITIS Russian Institute of Theatre Art. In 2013, she got a special prize for youth director’s debut by the Theatre Member’s Association of Ukraine, for the performance Hamlet: death machine.

Oksana Borbat was a leading actress at the Wild Theater in Ukraine from 2016 to 2019. When the war broke out, she moved to Amsterdam. Here Oksana unites friends in Ukrainian theatre. She directer a children’s play that premiered in Amstelveen in 2022.

Maria Pashkurova-Petrenko studied to become a theatre artist at Dnipro theatre and Art College. She has been an actor of the Dnipro Theatre Believe! since 2005. As a production designer, she staged 14 plays in various theatres in Ukraine.

Sonya Pasechnyk, Tymur Haltsev, Eugenia Maliukova, Mariia Kryvoshapova, Valeria Iskenderova and Nikita Pavlenko are six teenagers from Ukraine. They have been living in Zaandam since the start of the war. With the help of drama teacher Iana Gudzenko, and text writer Nina Zakhozhenko, they have created a play ” I’Ok”.

Aleksej Ovsiannikov is a Dutch-Ukrainian actor. He graduated from the Mime School (Academy of Theatre and Dance) in Amsterdam in 2021, with Annihilation – I reduce to nothing which toured in the Netherlands afterwards. He performed in plays by Boukje Schweigmann, Karina Holla, Wild Vlees, Dries Verhoeven, Marcello de Evelien and Davy Pieters, among others.

Gillis Biesheuvel is a Dutch actor and theatre maker. He graduated at Toneelschool Arnhem in 1995. From 1998 to 2018, he was part of the theatre company Dood Paard, which he created over 40 performances with, including Othello and Macbain. He is currently working independently and collaborates regularly with Sarah Moeremans. Besides his work as an actor, he writes and translates texts for theatre and teaches at drama schools.