Yulita Ran

Yulita Ran (real name: Yulia Taranenko) was born in Kharkiv in 1977. She is a writer, playwright, screenwriter, theatre director, curator of art projects, and cultural manager. Her work spans across children’s, teenage, and adult audiences, with a strong focus on documentary and post-documentary theatre, baby theatre, inclusive and interactive theatre, and theatre pedagogy. She began her career in print media and television, working as a journalist, scriptwriter, and TV presenter in Kharkiv. She graduated with honours from the Kotlyarevsky Kharkiv National University of Arts with a degree in drama theatre directing and later earned a master’s degree.

As a director, playwright, and actress, Yulita contributed to the Kalambur National Children's Theatre and the Aparte Private Theatre, where her productions received awards at theatre festivals. She founded and directed the author’s theatre Green Magic, staging performances based on her own plays. Since 2014, she has worked as a freelancer, engaging in various creative projects. In 2022, she became the acting artistic director of the Poltava Academic Regional Puppet Theatre while the theatre’s artistic director served in the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

Yulita Ran is the author of approximately 30 books for children. Her debut books, Santa Claus and Everyone, Everyone, Everyone and Winter Holidays, were published by Vesna Publishing House.

Since 2013, she has collaborated with Ranok Publishing House, writing books for children of all ages, including:

• Magical Things
• Travelling Fairy Tales
• Don't Be Afraid to Be Afraid (an anti-fear book)
• The Magical Stories series (Stories about Fairies, Stories about Princesses, Stories about Cossacks, Stories about Knights)
• The Fairy Adventures series (Fairies and the Elixir of Happiness, Fairies and the Crystal of Life, Fairies and the Christmas Miracle)
• Alpha Cat Detective
• History of Robots
• Fixies. Encyclopaedia
• In Search of the New Year
• The Squirrel Who Was Looking for His Business
• St Nicholas’ Holidays

She has also contributed to collective story collections, including Stories of Kindness, Stories of Friendship, Reading Before Bedtime, Reading to Kids, and Reading in Winter Evenings. Beyond writing, she has worked as a literary editor and translator from Polish, translating works such as Ludwik Jerzy Kern’s Ferdynand Wspaniały, Marcin Mortka’s Viking Tappi series, and Barbara Supeł’s Szeptanka o krasnoludkach. In 2021, ACCA Publishing House published Tatomamasnig, a collection of Christmas stories, featuring her titular story. The same publisher is set to release her upcoming children’s book The Mirror of Desires. She also began collaborating with VIVAT Publishing House, where a book on Ukrainian Christmas traditions is currently in development.

Yulita Ran has collaborated as a playwright and director with numerous theatres, including the Dnipro Academic Theatre of Drama and Comedy, Poltava Academic Regional Puppet Theatre, Chernivtsi Regional Academic Puppet Theatre, Kharkiv Theatre for Children and Youth, and Arabesque Independent Studio Theatre. She has also worked with creative platforms such as the Theatre Initiatives Platform, Kharkiv Literary Museum, and various independent theatre groups in Ukraine and beyond.

She has written over 30 plays and dramas for children and adults, including River Under the River, Peter Pan Syndrome, Endorphins, Three Little Foxes, Lullaby for Snowflake, Romeo. Juliet. A Classical Comedy, and Contrary. Many of her works have been staged at prominent theatres, earning recognition at festivals and competitions. As a director, she has staged performances such as EndorphinЫ, Jazz Monologues, On the Wave, and Peter Pan Syndrome, as well as student productions at the Kotlyarevsky National University of Kyiv.

Among her notable projects, in 2018, she directed and wrote the experimental children's theatre production So, It's Up to You, which won the Grand Prix at several international festivals. In 2020, she won the First National Librettist Competition at Vostok Opera, creating the libretto for The Green Circle. That same year, her play On the Wave was awarded Best Performance for Children at the All-Ukrainian Theatre Festival "GRA".

During the full-scale invasion, she wrote Two Sketches about War, which won the Children’s Stage nomination at the July Honey Playwriting Competition and was included in Anthology 24, a collection of war-time plays. Her play Contrary premiered in 2022 at the Dnipro Academic Drama and Comedy Theatre. Throughout her career, she has been actively involved in theatrical education, scriptwriting mentorship, and cultural projects, continuously expanding the boundaries of contemporary Ukrainian theatre.

Between 2019 and 2021, Yulita Ran served as an expert for the Ukrainian Cultural Foundation, specializing in Inclusion and Culture in Times of Crisis: Institutional Support. In 2017, she completed an internship in theatre pedagogy at the Raszewski Theatre Institute in Warsaw. She later curated the 2019 exhibition Archive of Children's Drawings of the 40s–70s as part of the Second National Biennale of Young Contemporary Art.

Her commitment to theatre education and accessibility is reflected in her participation in international training programs, including the 2020 online seminar Performances for Young Children (led by PhD Professor Birute Banevičiūtė with EU support) and the Ukrainian Artists Camp in Croatia (2022), where she trained in Art as Support for Victims of War, with a Focus on Children and Families.

During the 2020 lockdown, she co-created the artistic and educational project Theatre and Children with director Yanina Zelenska—a series of online discussions with theatre professionals, psychologists, and educators on theatre for young audiences. Since April 2022, she has been living in Poltava, actively engaged in volunteer work at the Humanitarian Hub of the Poltava Academic Regional Puppet Theatre and the Free and Unbreakable Charitable Foundation.