We would like to highlight a set of striking statistics shared by John Freedman. More than 1,500 days since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, these numbers offer another way of understanding the role of theatre in wartime.
They reflect the work of the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings initiative and the Center for International Theatre Development (CITD)’s Linkages:Ukraine program:
— 845 events (that’s more than one every two days)
— 35 countries
— 19 languages
Among the most frequently performed playwrights are:
— 122 performances of works by Olena Astasieva
— 118 by Andrii Bondarenko
— 66 by Natalka Vorozhbyt
— 57 by Liudmyla Tymoshenko
— 52 by Oksana Savchenko
— 52 by Natalka Blok
— 49 by Iryna Harets
— 41 by Neda Nezhdana
— 39 by Oksana Hrytsenko
— 35 by Tetiana Kytsenko
In total:
— 215 distinct titles
— 90 playwrights
In addition, 2 volumes of Ukrainian plays have been published by Laertes, a press for literary translation (with a third currently in production and a fourth in preparation).
Another significant figure:
— $700,000–750,000 raised in donations for Ukrainian charities and writers.
These are not just numbers. They testify to how theatre continues to create a space for Ukraine’s presence in the world—consistently, persistently, and across languages.