THE PEED-UPON ARMOURED PERSONNEL CARRIER Will Be Presented by the Finborough Theatre

The Finborough Theatre's new digital initiative #FinboroughFrontier continues with the second in an ongoing season of online readings and performances of Ukrainian Plays as a part of the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Reading Series, a collaboration with the Theatre of Playwrights in Kyiv to read new Ukrainian plays around the world. In addition, true to our policy of pairing vibrant new writing with unique rediscoveries, we will also be presenting readings and performances of classic Ukrainian drama and poetry in English.

The rather humorous, always ironic, story of war coming to a town "where nothing ever happens".

After an initial flurry of activity from military vehicles and fleeing civilians, some form of normal life returns, with the Ukrainian villagers' most pressing concerns being hiding their cars, finding food and forlornly looking for a phone signal.

But the war remains, even if the shooting has stopped, and there are bodies to be buried. The invaders are rarely seen and as the villagers start to hear about acts of defiance across the country, they plot their own resistance...

Playwright Oksana Grytsenko is a Ukrainian dramatist and screenwriter. She wrote her first play, Saniok, in 2019 as a result of studying with Maksym Kurochkin and Anastasiia Kosodii at Kyiv's Post Play Theater. Saniok was shortlisted at the Topical Play Week in 2019 and had a staged reading at Lesia Ukrainka Drama Theater, Lviv. Her second play, Don Juan from Zhashkiv, was shortlisted at the Topical Play Week in 2020. Based on this play, Grytsenko wrote the screenplay for a feature movie with the same name. The film was produced by Kristi Films and received funding from Ukraine's State Film Agency and the release of the film is scheduled for December 2022. Grytsenko is a co-founder of Kyiv's Theater of Playwrights. Before starting her artistic career, Grytsenko had worked as a journalist for about twenty years, covering the Russian invasion of Georgia, Ukraine's EuroMaidan Revolution, Russia's annexation of Crimea and Russia's war against Ukraine. She has worked for Ukrainian and foreign publications including the Kyiv Post, AFP, The Guardian, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Marie Claire, Ukraine Verstehen, Huck Magazine, Nikkei and the Wall Street Journal.

American writer and translator John Freedman previously worked in Russia and now lives in Greece. He is the curator of two Worldwide Play Readings projects: Insulted. Belarus and Ukrainian Play Readings.

Director David Mildon's theatre includes Leaves (Jermyn Street Theatre), Dealer's Choice (Trafalgar Studios), Consent (Harold Pinter Theatre), Hamlet (Principal Theatre), Romeo and Juliet (International Tour), the original cast of Accomplice (Menier Chocolate Factory), Enemy of the People (Union Theatre) and Ionesco: Dinner at the Smiths (Performances in London and Paris).
Literary readings include pieces for Radio 4, the British Library, Liars League and the French Institute.

Performed by Rebecca Hands-Wicks. Rebecca trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Theatre includes, Macbeth (Audio for Pearson Education), Notes to the Forgotten She-Wolves (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse), A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (Trafalgar Studios), Sheildmaidens (Norwich Castle), See You Next Tuesday (Lion and Unicorn Theatre), Final Proof (Southwark Playhouse), Coffee Cup (Theatre503) and Portia's Julius Caesar (Development workshop).

Available FREE TO VIEW on the Finborough Theatre YouTube channel #FinboroughFrontier.

All videos are free to view but we do ask for donations for Voices.org.ua, a Ukrainian charity providing urgently needed psychological and psychosocial support to children affected by the war in Ukraine. For more information, click here.

Available from Monday, 6 June at 6.00pm
Simultaneously available free with subtitles on Scenesaver
www.scenesaver.co.uk
Performance Length: 10 minutes.