The National Kaunas Drama Theater and the Ivan Franko Theater will be linked by even stronger cooperation

The National Kaunas Drama Theater signed a cooperation agreement with the National Ivan Franko Academic Drama Theater (Ukraine). During the war, the theater goes through great changes – the actor, “Voice of the Maidan”, two-term Minister of Culture of Ukraine, current war veteran Yevhen Nyshchuk has been appointed as the director. The new manager is happy with the theater’s phenomenal popularity and is grateful to Lithuania and the Kaunas Theater for their support.

Yevhen Nyshchuk assumed the position of director of the general theater on April 3 of this year. He has been working as an actor in this theater since 2015, and when the war broke out, he left to defend his homeland. He returned from the front to play from time to time. From now on, the manager has important tasks – to carry out the reform of the theater structure, to solve the issues of actors’ mobilization and to strengthen the theater’s international cooperation. Kaunas National Drama Theater is one of the foreign partners with whom we have been friends since the beginning of the war. in 2023 in December, Ivan Uryvskyi, one of the most prominent directors of the Ivan Franko Theater, as well as Petro Bogomazov, the set designer of this theater, and costume designer Tetiana Ovsiichuk arrived in Kaunas. With the actors of the National Kaunas Drama Theater, the play “Zemė” based on the novel by the Ukrainian author Olha Kobylianska was born on the stage. It is shown in the repertoire, finds its way to the hearts of the audience. To meet the Christmas of 2024, the theater sent symbolic gifts to colleagues in Kyiv – for each employee of the theater (about 600 of them) – boxes of sweets, the name of which is dominated by the symbolic word “victory”. Both theaters are connected by the Creative Europe project “Prospero NEW (Prospero New European Wave), in which 19 performing arts institutions from Belgium, Germany, France, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Sweden and other countries participate. The purpose of this platform is to support emerging artists in Europe, their creative residencies and the dissemination of their work in partner countries and theaters. The platform will also be used to conduct important research into the theater of the future.

On May 3, NKDT General Director Egidijus Stancikas and I. Frank Theater General Director Yevhen Nyshchukas communicated during a remote conversation on the occasion of signing the contract. Y. Nyshchuk said that, despite the gloomy mood at the front, the theater is working very actively – tickets are snapped up several months in advance, because the audience misses the performances, and the recent premiere of I. Uryvskyi’s “Maria Stuart” attracted a lot of interest. The theater also supports fighters. At the beginning of March, the theater held a performance “The Witch of Konotop” in support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, based on the satirical fiction story of the Ukrainian writer Hryhorii Kvitka-Osnovianenko (directed by I. Uryvskyi), during which 55,271 euros (2,349,000 UAH) were collected for the purchase of drones.

Recently, the head of the I. Frank Theater took part in a meeting at the presidency, where the government called on art collectives and theaters to prepare and bring artistic programs to Kharkiv, because the population in this region lacks spiritual light. Also, cultural operators focus on spreading Ukrainian culture abroad.

Egidijus Stancikas invited the new manager to ask for help, to come to Kaunas and get to know the theater, to make proposals for cooperation. “We are open to host your performance in our theater, take a small-format performance to Kyiv, organize educational projects, and exchange experiences. And of course we support you morally – your war is our war. We live waiting for elections, we see the participation of pro-Russian forces, efforts to influence people’s consciousness. We have common experiences. We are very much looking forward to having you as our guests, because we want to give you time under the peaceful sky”, said the head of NKDT in a friendly manner.

Yevhen Nyshchuk expressed his gratitude to the head of NKDT for his strong support and moral support and promised to consider the possibilities of coming to Kaunas with his team.

NKDT information and photo.