Versmė 2022

At this year’s “Versmė” festival, we will present four of the most famous, interesting, and prominent contemporary Ukrainian playwrights: Natalya Vorozhbit, Lena Lagushonkova, Maksym Kurochkin, and Pavlo Arie. This selection process took several months, during which we carefully surveyed Ukrainian theater professionals to determine who, in their opinion, could be considered the “golden quartet” of Ukrainian playwriting today. Numerous European theaters are currently organizing readings of plays by Ukrainian playwrights that reflect on the ongoing war, but we have set ourselves a slightly different goal – to review the most interesting works of Ukrainian playwriting created over the past ten years. Therefore, all the plays that Lithuanian audiences will see performed at “Versmė” were written before Russia invaded Ukraine. Some already contain foreshadowing of this war, while others deal with entirely different subjects. We plan to invite the authors as well, if possible, since war has shaped their fates in very different ways: some are on the front lines, while others have become refugees. This series of readings will not be limited to the Lithuanian stage; Ukraine’s Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater is prepared to host a similar series of readings by contemporary Lithuanian authors in Kyiv this season or the next.

Also, this year, at “Versmė,” director Eglė Švedkauskaitė will present the concept for her upcoming play “Fossilia.” During the festival, a creative workshop for translators led by Finnish playwright Elli Salo will be held, along with a presentation of works by playwriting students from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theater.

Marius Ivaškevičius, playwright at the LNDT