CITY GARAGE THEATRE
GHOST LAND: A New PLay About the War in Ukraine
BY ANDRIY BONDARENKO
September 8 - October 15, 2023
Preview: Friday, September 8 at 8PM
Opening Night: SATURday, September 9 at 8PM
q&A with the Playwright: following the 4pm Show on Sunday, September 10
q&A with the Cast + CREW: following the 4pm Show on Sunday, October 1
City Garage Announces the World Premiere of “Ghost Land,”
by Ukrainian playwright Andriy Bondarenko
Translated by John Freedman with Vladyslav Hetmanenko
Playwright to be present for opening weekend
City Garage is excited to announce that Ukrainian playwright Andriy Bondarenko will be flying from Ukraine to join us for the opening weekend of the world premiere of his new play “Ghost Land,” and will be here in LA September 5th through September 11th.
“Ghost Land” is a new work commissioned by and written for City Garage about the war in Ukraine by Andriy Bondarenko. Since Russia’s brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February of 2022, the world has watched in admiration at the toughness, resilience, and fierce determination of the Ukrainian people as they fight for their very existence in the face of this senseless and barbaric attack. Bondarenko’s play is an opportunity for an American audience to get a glimpse of what this experience feels like for the people of Ukraine and to ask ourselves how we might react should we find ourselves in the nightmarish situation they are currently enduring.
The Stories:
The play is made up of three, interconnected stories: a soldier dealing with combat trauma; a family trapped in the war zone whose home is invaded by a pair of Russian soldiers; and the third, a girl who survives a Russian torture cellar. The brutal reality of the war is mixed with fictional and even mystical ideas about suffering, violence, idealism, and the hunger for peace. True to the Ukrainian literary tradition of writers from Gogol to today, the play, despite its grim material, works in a dream-like, hallucinatory way that is poetic, powerful, blackly comic, and hauntingly beautiful.
“Andriy is a playwright, but also a philosopher and poet — his plays sear the heart with vivid insights about what it means to live in contemporary Ukraine, trying to find identity and meaning when the country is under attack by a neo-imperial neighbor.”
—Noah Birksted-Breen, Artistic Director, Sputnik Theatre, London
About the Playwright:
Andriy Bondarenko is a playwright, journalist, and culturologist, who holds a PhD in Philosophy. He was a co-founder of the Theater of Playwrights in Kyiv and has been a participant in the ongoing Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings, a project curated by John Freedman. Bondarenko is the literary secretary of the Lviv Puppet Theater (Ukraine) and the author of numerous plays shortlisted at major Ukrainian Drama festivals and presented in many European cities. Major productions have been Atomic Mermaid, neue Buhne Senftenberg Theatre, Germany (2023); Ultima Thule, Koleso Theatre, Kyiv (2023); Lviv Tango, Maria Zankovetska Theater, Lviv (2023); Survivor Syndrome, HarMyDer Theater, Lutsk (2022); Fox, Dark as a Light Night, one of a two-part production entitled, The Light from Below: Stories from Ukrainian Basements, Barons Court Theatre, London (2022); and Asshole, Golden Gates theater, Kyiv (2020). Bondarenko directed the film short, Night with Natalia (2017), which was presented at film festivals in Kyiv and Prague.
About the Translators:
John Freedman Translator. John is a writer and translator originally from the L.A. area, who, after working 30 years in Russia, now lives on the island of Crete in Greece. He lived in Moscow from 1988 to 2018, where he was the theatre critic of The Moscow Times (1992-2015). His play Dancing, Not Dead was winner of the Internationalists Global Play Contest (2011); his short play Five Funny Tales from the Heart of Buenos Aires (2013) has been performed in NYC, Chattanooga, and Edinburgh. He has translated over 100 plays and dramatic texts, of which productions have been mounted on four continents. He is the author and/or compiler of about a dozen books, including Silence’s Roar: The Life and Drama of Nikolai Erdman (1992), Provoking Theater: Kama Ginkas Directs (2003), and A Dictionary of Emotions in a Time of War: 20 Short Works by Ukrainian Playwrights (2023). He is the curator of two Worldwide Readings projects: Insulted. Belarus (2020 to present) and Ukrainian Play Readings (2022 to present).
Vladyslav Hetmanenko Translator. Vladyslav is a Ukrainian citizen currently living in temporary exile with his mother and grandmother on the island of Crete. At the age of 14, he is an expert chess player, and is always one of the best soccer players on the field, even when playing with adults. During his first year in Greece he attended a Greek middle school in person, while maintaining his studies online at his hometown school in the city of Dnipro.
About the Project:
This piece grew out of the relationship that developed between Bondarenko and City Garage through two readings that City Garage presented in May of 2022 and March of 2023 as part of the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings Project as curated by John Freedman. Along with short works by other Ukrainian playwrights, City Garage presented Bondarenko’s Survivor Syndrome and Snuff Films. Impressed by the power of his writing and the audience response, City Garage proposed, through Bondarenko’s US Publisher, Nina Kamberos of Laertes Press, the commissioning of a new work about the war written for City Garage to be presented as a world premiere in the fall of 2023. The translation, by John Freedman with Vladyslav Hetmanenko was commissioned by Egret Acting Editions, of Laertes Press, and will be published this fall. www.laertesbooks.org egret@laertesbooks.org
Interviews & In-Person Q&A:
The playwright will be in Los Angeles for the opening weekend and will engage in a Q&A with the audience after the Sunday, September 10th performance at 4:00pm. He is available for advance interviews through Zoom and, in person, while he is Los Angeles September 5th through 11th.
There will be an additional Q&A with cast and crew after the 4:00pm show, Sunday October 1st.
Summary Information:
Production Title: Ghost Land
Author: Andriy Bondarenko
Translated by: John Freedman with Vladyslav Hetmanenko
Director: Frédérique Michel
Producer/Production Designer: Charles A. Duncombe
Preview: Friday, September 8, 2023 8:00pm
Opening: Saturday, September 9, 2023 8;00pm
Performances: Fridays, Saturdays, 8:00pm; Sundays 4:00pm
Closes: Sunday, October 15, 2023
Tickets: General Admission $30; Students/Seniors w/ID $25
Sundays, “Pay-What-You-Can” at the door (or full price for advance reservations)
City Garage Theatre, Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Ave., #T1, Santa Monica, CA 90404
(310) 453-9939 | charles@citygarage.org