“Who, if not us?”: researcher Kseniya Knyazeva on Belarusian theatre, the phenomenon of émigré readings, and a professional mission
Theatre researcher and critic Kseniya Knyazeva talks about how she came to theatre studies, about criticism and teaching in Belarus and Lithuania, about which theatre matters today, and about the phenomenon of émigré staged readings and the results of the first Dramatyzacyja.
Dramatyzacja-2025: a new stage for Belarusian playwriting in exile
The first Dramatyzacyja’25 competition-festival in Warsaw: how it was born out of a need for texts and a voice, who made the long- and shortlists, staged readings of five plays about memory, trauma and identity — and the winning play, “Limbo” by Renata Talan.
The Druga Próba festival of performative readings: a new space for Belarusian theatre
An analysis of Belarusian staged readings at the Druga Próba festival in Poznań: four categories of the newest playwriting — inward testimony, diasporic identity, liminal border-space and speculative crisis plays — and the staged reading as a new form of Belarusian theatre in exile.
An interview with Belarusian director, playwright and musician Zhenia Davidzenka
Zhenia Davidzenka — a Belarusian director, playwright and musician — talks about writing plays on emigration, choosing a language, national identity, theatre-and-music projects, and how her texts come into being.
A non-local text and the trauma of time: a conversation with Valiantsina Maroz
Valiantsina Maroz — director and curator — talks to Kseniya Knyazeva about her five years as a reader for the WriteBox festival, what makes a good play, theatre under conditions of invisibility, and the new Dramatyzacyja competition.
How the Belarusian playwriting of the 2020s becomes a reflection of socio-political transformations and a space of memory in our society
An analysis of the newest Belarusian playwriting: its key themes, the problem of identity, texts as a space of memory, documentality and performativity — and the mission of theatre as a form of therapy and activism in a period of socio-political transformation.
WriteBox: a gathering point for contemporary Belarusian playwriting
In the second half of the 2010s, contemporary Belarusian playwriting was noticed abroad yet almost invisible at home. WriteBox emerged as an answer to that gap — a competition-festival of contemporary Belarusian drama that brought new plays, voices and theatrical forms together in one space. Over five years it became a point of reference and an archive of its era, without which it is impossible today to speak about the development of Belarusian drama.