A small group of students has put NIU on the map as one of the participants in the national initiative called Worldwide Ukrainian Play Readings.
The initiative was started by academic John Freedman in 2022 after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
The initiative aims to contextualize the war and foster global solidarity by translating Ukrainian plays and staging readings for international audiences in 35 countries.
At NIU, the readings have been organized annually around Feb. 24 since 2022, marking five years of student-led readings, fundraising and international livestreams. This year, the event took place from 2 p.m. to 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 22 in the Stevens Building.
Donations collected at the readings support humanitarian efforts, medical supplies and exiled Ukrainian artists. Over the last five years, the readings have raised an estimated $1,500 to $2,000.
Two plays were read this year: “Blue Potatoes, Yellow Guns” by Hanna Bulatova and “Robinson” by Vitaly Chenskiy.
The pieces highlighted the hardships Ukrainians have endured throughout the war, offering personal portrayals that reveal the human side of conflict.
The play reading project was brought to NIU by Gibson Cima, a theater history professor, whose research is primarily on South African apartheid theater. He believes that theater can humanize issues like no other form of media through its ability to bring people together in crisis.
“Theater artists are often the first artistic responders in times of crisis,” Cima said. “If you think about something like 9/11, the first songs were about two years later. The first movie was three to five years later. But the first play was like two days later.”
According to Cima, reading works like the two plays performed can reveal personal perspectives that are difficult to capture in news reporting. These perspectives, for many, are needed to fully understand wars that may feel distant.
“It’s very difficult to get the human story from the headlines right, and it becomes a kind of something that we can ignore as human beings who, you know, the idea of, you know, Russia, invading a sovereign nation, seemed impossible until it happened. And then when it happened, then it became normalized as well,” Cima said.
Cima emphasized that the central goal of the event is to remind audiences that Ukraine’s fight for sovereignty continues.
“That’s sort of what we’re trying to do here, is to remind people that this war is ongoing, that the Ukrainian people are still there. They are still fighting for their freedom and self-determination,” Cima said.
After four years reading for the project, first-year English graduate student Carrie Szostak embraced the director’s role this year, wearing sunflower accessories, the national flower of Ukraine, and a wartime symbol of freedom.
Other volunteers came from various non-theater related majors like psychology, biochemistry, chemistry and music education. Many were moved by the stories they read in unexpected ways.
Reflecting on the play’s harrowing realism, June Maldonado, a sophomore psychology major, who had a role in both plays, understood the reality of war through the mundane aspects of life depicted within them.
“It was, like, really mind-opening because you hear about wars and atrocities all the time and stuff like that, but to hear, like, the mundanity of it, just living life, you can relate to it so much,” Maldonado said.
They added how these conflicts can be all-consuming for the people within them.
“It really helped me realize how much these conflicts really do affect the day-to-day of people, because like that, that’s real. That’s your entire world, right? It’s not just, you know, something you’re watching on the news,” Maldonado said.
For Herrera, the motivation comes from building voices for change through theater.
“For me, it’s been really important to sort of think about theater for social change as a way to uplift voices that aren’t heard as typically, but also bring to causes that may be swept under the rug or drowned out,” Herrera said. “I think we’re small but mighty, you know? And so I think no matter the numbers, there’s this sort of thing, where like, each voice counts, and how much more can we amplify it further and further?”
Students who are interested in participating in future events can contact Cima, and all years and majors are welcome. The recorded live stream of the reading can be found on YouTube.
To donate to The Ukrainian Crisis Relief Fund, visit their website.
