Theatre na Zhukah, Kharkiv has turned 10 years.
In December 2007, in suburbs of Kharkiv, in a building of Ochag private grammar school, there appeared a small theater, a chamber hall for 46 spectators. Geographically, this is the most Eastern theater in Eastern Europe. It is located 30 km away from Ukrainian-Russian border. This project has fulfilled the lifelong dream of theater director Olha Ternova and journalist Dmytro Ternovy, who were the ones to found the theater.
The theater was constructed due to Hennadiy Khmelnytsky (Opta company) and Yevheniy Medresh (Ochag grammar school).
The Zhuki Theater started with its first performance “The Choice” from the play “Forget about Herostratus” by Grigoriy Gorin. The first night took place on December 16th, 2007.
In 10 years time, the director Oha Ternova has presented 13 performances both from classical (by Shakespeare, Beaumarchais) and from modern pieces (Sadur, Ternovy). She has also mounted a number of productions from original dramatizations of works that previously had not appeared on stage (by Cortázar, France, Vezhinov, Klyuyev). Since she started working in Theatre na Zhukah, Olha has directed a number of music and literary compositions and contributed to a variety of unique international projects that were shown at festivals in Ukraine and abroad. In all those years Olha Ternova has created an authors method of actors training and gained great experience in carrying out acting workshops for different target groups (Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, France, Germany). Despite the non-commercial staging policy of the theater and the theater being geographically far from the city center, the performances are usually sold out from day one.
Being registered as an NGO, Theatre na Zhukah is known for its proactive stance and a number of initiatives aimed at alignment of Ukrainian and European theaters. In 2010-2012 the Zhuki were co-organizers of an international workshop-festival of “Hartenberg”, Czech Republic, which had been initially designed as a meeting point of different theater schools and cultures.
In 2011 the theater started a program “A Theater Window on Europe” in Ukraine. As part of it, representatives of different European schools conduct training for students of theater universities of different cities (Kharkiv, Kyiv, Lviv, Dnipro, Mykolayiv). Since the project was launched, 8 projects have been organized and supported by European institutions. As part of the project, Ukrainian students got to know the schools of Grotowski and Staniewski, commedia dell’arte, Lecoq’s physical theater school, documentary and musical theater, Georgian dance, modern opera art. Dmytro Ternovy is the program’s curator. After quitting journalism, he’s got known as a play writer. One of his plays has won a prestigious international drama competition in 2012. It was also staged and published in Germany and Austria, translated into several European languages, and awarded the best drama piece at “Calmius” literature contest in 2016.
The team took part in 14 festivals and 6 international projects in Ukraine, Poland, Czech Republic, Germany, awarded several prizes, including the silver and golden mask of “Masks of the South” festival (Mykolayiv), diplomas in different nominations at “East-West” (Krakow), “Zhyvi!” (Crimea), “Homo Ludens” (Mykolayiv), “Rampa” (Dnipro) festivals.
Traditionally, the theater celebrated its 10th birthday with a cheery actors’ party, which was as usual friendly and warm.
