Meet our director
Hi, I’m Asya! It’s a weird name, I know, even in Ukraine, where I’m from, it’s quite unusual. My parents liked to be creative with names, just ask my younger sister Vlada. Means “Power” in Ukrainian. My name doesn’t mean anything though, it just sounds cute in Russian. Then again, everything sounds cute in Russian to foreigners, right? … No? *sadface*
Anyway, so I’m 27, live in London, I decided to be a film director at 14, came to England at 16 (because I wanted to study in Hogwarts), graduated film school in 2012, and put on my first theatre performance in 2016.
The way I figured out that THEATRE IS LOVE was actually a little dramatic: I’m from Donetsk, which is currently the war zone of Ukraine. When the war began, I stumbled across this play by Mikhail Bulgakov, called “Flight”, about the civil war in Russia in 1920, which portrayed people and situations very similar to what I felt was happening in Donetsk, and it affected me so much I decided to put it on as a theatre piece, and the rest is history. If you’re interested, you can check out the website here.
I’ve learned tremendously more since then. I went to Ukraine last year to put on “The Crucible”. In a real, professional, famous theatre in Kiev Molodyy Theatre . With super awesome actors and crew and just amazing people in general. In English for some reason... I am just really lucky that way!
Anyway, so I learned a lot, and I continue to learn. My passion is theatre and everything to do with it. I want to spread the joy of it into the world, because although theatre today is struggling to find a new place and mission in society, while seeming to many people like an old-fashioned or posh type of art, I know very intimately, that theatre is for everybody, because it tells you a story – and storytelling is one of the first rituals we created, and it is designed to open our souls to wonder and beauty, and to connect us to one another, regardless of age, sex, societal status or anything else. As long as we are open to it, theatre will connect and unite us.
And that is why theatre is love.