“We cannot direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails.”
Dolly Parton
Gallery
The Harlem Renaissance Project
poets of the Harlem Renaissance
The Revolutionists
by Lauren Gunderson
The Winter’s Tale
by William Shakespeare
Red Ball
by THEA 399 Beginning Screenwriting
Tame That B!#@H
an adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Taming of the Shrew
The Wolves
by Sarah DeLappe
References to Salvador Dalí Make Me Hot
by Jose Rivera
Voices of the New Belarus
by and co-directed with Andrei Kureichik
Sense & Sensibility
The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey
Featured
Voices of the New Belarus
by Andrei Kureichik
PRESENTED BY ILLINOIS THEATRE
live and filmed performance at the KRANNERT Art Museum
April 28, 2022
sponsored by the Russian, East European, Eurasian Center | the European Union Center | Departments of Theatre, Dance, Slavic Languages and Literatures | Krannert Center for the Performing Arts | the George A. Miller Visiting Scholar’s program | Krannert Art Museum
co-directors
producer
media designer
stage manager
casting
Andrei Kureichik & Nisi Sturgis
Valleri Robinson
John Boesche
Katie Anthony (BFA 2024)
Nisi Sturgis
Andrei Kureichik
The staged reading of exiled playwright Andrei Kureichik’s Voices of the New Belarus, a documentary play about the experiences of political prisoners in Belarus following the fraudulent 2020 Belarusian presidential elections, is an interdisciplinary project featuring performers from across campus.
Forced to flee the country following the elections, Kureichik, George A. Miller Visiting Artist, leveraged his creative energy to produce the documentary play, Insulted. Belarus., about the elections, subsequent protests, and violent crackdown by Aliaksandr Lukashenka’s regime in Belarus.
Interdisciplinary and International Cast
Kevin Hamilton
Emanuel Rota
Lilya Kaganovsky and David Cooper
Sam Smith
Lisa Dixon
Aaron Muñoz
Genesee Spridco
Zev Steinrock
Jordan Coughtry (MFA ’18, Acting)
Katayoun Salmasi (PhD ’22)
Mariana Seda (MA ’21)
Brandon Burditt (MFA ’22, Acting)
Bree Kazinski (BFA ’22, Acting)
Toyosi Tejumade-Morgan (PhD ’26)
Finn Marloft (BFA ’24, Acting)
Dean of the College of Fine & Applied Arts
EU Center Director
professors from the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures
Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
UIUC Department of Theatre faculty
UIUC Department of theatre students
Will be presented at the Oslo Freedom Forum in June 2023
•
presented on Orwell Day at the Center for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona, Spain
•
presented at the Ukrainian Theatre Festival Melpomene of Tavria in Kyiv, Ukraine | over 6,000 viewers
Aaron Muñoz
Brandon Burditt
Lisa Dixon and Toyosi Tejumade-Morgan
the ensemble
Photos: Landon Sinclair
Andrei Kureichik’s Voices of the New Belarus profiles the fight against autocracy
“… the performance was delicately directed by Kureichik and Nisi Sturgis, with seamless stage management by Katie Anthony.
A blend of acting professors, student actors, and members of the university community comprised the cast. While uniformly excellent, the ensemble’s varying degrees of theatrical training enhanced the play’s commitment to its real-life characters. One felt as if a random medley of townspeople were sharing their traumatic stories with us, some with polish and command, others opting for a more homespun and unaffected presence.”