Belarus

Robert Stanton for #FairWageOnstage considers the recent success of negotiations for salary increases for Off-Broadway actors and how theatre can support and lead the resistance to oppressive political administrations.

Frequent overseas contributor verity healey reports on the Belarus Free Theatre workshop exploring the intersection of how a true story about mental illness is portrayed on stage.

verity healey reviews Belarus Free Theatre’s Being Harold Pinter at the Young Vic in London, England.

verity healey offers an overview of pop up performances by Belarus Free Theatre’s studio Fortinbras, highlighting the treatment of disabled citizens in Belarus.

Jonathan Mandell on Belarus Free Theatre's Trash Cuisine, playing through May 17 at La Mama ETC in New York City.

In his last installment, Brendan McCall talks with Nicolai Khalezin, one of the founders of Belarus Free Theatre about art, exile, and if theatre has any impact on politics.

In this installment, Brendan explores what happened when he directed some of the plays from the Belarusian Dream Theater at Belarus’ exiled university, resulting in differing perspectives.

In addition to new works by Belarusian playwrights, writers as far-flung as Europe and the United States, Australia and New Zealand, ended up making excellent contributions. The Belarusian Dream Theater project linked playwrights with more than a dozen independent presenting groups in Europe and North America, who donated their time and talents to assemble the collaborators necessary to present as many of the twenty-five new plays as each group wanted.

While I was reaping the benefits of working internationally, my Belarusian friends were living as a theater company in exile. What could I do to help make a difference? What tools could I use, as a theater artist, to break down this silence, censorship, and oppressive regime?

I felt compelled to act, to do something, to speak up—but how? What could I, an expatriate American living in Scandinavia, do to break the zone of silence surrounding Belarus? While I was enjoying certain freedoms as a theater artist in this affluent Nordic country, my friends and colleagues elsewhere in Europe—writers, directors, journalists, and more—were being imprisoned and threatened.

These personal experiences of Belarus Free Theatre—what they have endured, and what they are willing to sacrifice for what they believe in—humbles me. I cannot imagine being arrested for doing theater, much less being physically threatened by my own government for a play I wrote or acted in or directed. Would I be able to be as brave as Khalezin and Koliada or the other members of their company?