The following plays were presented during the event: 

• ‘24 Hours’ (playwright – Nina Zakhozhenko, director – Susanna Frazer). The story of a young family forced to make a life-altering decision when war reaches their town. 

• ‘The Sailor’ (playwright – Oksana Hrytsenko, director – Wayne Maugans). During an evacuation, a weary doctor meets a peculiar patient who teaches her how to laugh when all she wants to do is cry. 

• ‘A Time For First Dates’ (playwright – Maryna Smilianets, director – Matthew Pezzulich). A conversation between two 20-year-old friends during an air raid. 

• ‘New York, Donetsk, Ukraine: 100° F’ (playwright – Oleksandr Zhuhan, director – Wayne Maugans). The story of a young gay soldier nicknamed Raccoon. 

• ‘A Fan Of War’ (playwright – Polina Polozhentseva, director – Rose Burnett Bonczek). A play about a Ukrainian refugee trying to support her mother who remains in Ukraine. 

The presentation was part of LINKAGES: Ukraine, a project aimed at building long-term connections between American and Ukrainian playwrights. It also contributed to the Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings Series, a global initiative launched by John Freedman in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

‘Watching the performance left me deep in thought: about how we write war from within war, how fragile and complex that task is, and about the power of theatre: how it helps those untouched by war to feel its presence through the words and silences of Ukrainian playwrights’, shared soldier, director, and playwright Oleksandr Zhuhan.