Book Celebration—CASSANDRA: A Dramatic Poem, by Lesya Ukrainka (1871 –1913) + 5:00 pm Talk by Seth Baumrin

5:00 pm

Talk by Seth Baumrin:

“The Kharkiv Dramaturgy - Fortitude and Democracy in Ukrainian Modern Theatre.”

6:30 pm

Book Celebration: CASSANDRA

A Dramatic Poem, by Lesya Ukrainka (1871 –1913), reading of excerpts and a panel.

Lesya Ukrainka^, born Larysa Petrivna Kosach (1871 –1913), is one of Ukrainian literature's foremost writers, best known for her poems and plays. She was also an important political, civil, and feminist activist.

Ukrainka's dramatic poems put Ukraine on the world stage, reimagining classical myths, challenging patriarchal norms and envisioning a sovereign future. Her poem 'Contra spem spero' ('Against all hope I hope') embodies Ukraine's spirit — to fight, to endure and to believe in victory. Lesia was active in the Ukrainian struggle against Tsarism as a member of Ukrainian Marxist organizations.  In 1902, she translated the Communist Manifesto into Ukrainian and was arrested in 1907 for her political activities. Following her release, she was kept under surveillance by The Okhrana, the Tsarist police, for the remaining years of her life. Lesia died, after a long illness, in 1913 in Georgia—shortly after the ban on the Ukrainian language she wrote her entire life in, was lifted. She did not live to see the collapse of the Tsarist Empire.

Written in 1907, Cassandra reimagines the fall of Troy through the eyes of a prophetess cursed by Apollo to never be believed. Ukrainka’s fearless drama, resonates clearly with today’s battles over propaganda, war, and truth. With the unbreakable heroine of Cassandra—one of the daughters of Priam, King of Troy—this classic dramatic poem embodies Ukrainka’s legacy of portraying women not as passive figures but as seers, warriors, and visionaries. The play was presented in 2025 at Tatro LATEA by Eklektika Productions as part of Razom’s Ukrainian Cultural Festival, Against the Grain. The book CASSANDRA, A Dramatic Poem, translated by Nina Murray with an introduction by Marko Pavlyshyn has been published Harvard Library of Ukrainian Literature.

The evening will feature readings of poems and excerpts of Cassandra by Ukrainka with Dominika Handzlik and Jacob Anderson, followed by a talk with director Artemis Wheelock, producer Illia Rebechar, Handzlik, Anderson and others.  

Many thanks to Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) and the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America (UNWLA). who supported the NYC production of Cassandra.

5:00 pm Talk by Seth Baumrin:

“The Kharkiv Dramaturgy - Fortitude and Democracy in Ukrainian Modern Theatre"

About the talk:

Aleksandr Les Kurbas’s Berezil Theatre’s 1924-34 activities in Kharkiv (Ukraine’s capitol 1919-34) still resound in 21^st Century theatre. Seth Baumrin's talk links Kurbas’s unique dramaturgy to its contemporary uses via three case studies: Les Kurbas’s Macbeth, 1924; Ivan Franko University in L’viv thesis project performance of the poetry of Taras Shevchenko, 2009; and the Andrei Prykhodko production of Lesya Ukrainka’s Song of the Forest, 2015. The Berezil Theatre’s aesthetics and pedagogies were excoriated by the newly formed Soviet state. Not only censored, Kurbas and colleagues were silenced through deportation, forced labor, and assassination. Berezil Theatre’s resilient praxes survived their cultural moment to reemerge in a unique 21^st Theatre with 20^th Century Modernist earmarks. Ukrainian dramatic literature and traditions have been formed under the pressure of centuries of conflict resulting in a durable drama linked to democratic urgency in the face of persistent threats of tyranny. There will be an open discussion after Baumrin's presentation before the reading of CASSANDRA A Dramatic Poem, by Lesya Ukrainka.

Seth Baumrin, author, director, and educator served as chairperson of the Department of Communications and Theatre Arts at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY from 2010-22. His work as a theatre educator ranges from teaching in detention and mental health facilities to curriculum development for undergraduate and graduate theatre programs. He is the Artistic Director of Subpoetics International and the Performing Typewriters (Paris/NYC). And founding Artistic Director of Gershom Theatre (L’viv) and Fluid Balance Dance (Ljubljana). Baumrin trained as a director with Eugenio Barba Jacques Chwat, and Jerzy Grotowski. Author of multiple scholarly essays on theatre history and treatises on acting and directing, Baumrin has also directed over sixty productions like Offenbach’s Tales of Hoffman; Milhaud’s Médèe; Lorca’s As Five Years Pass; Calderon’s Life is a Dream; Odets Awake and Sing and Golden Boy, and McCullers’s The Member of the Wedding.