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F R E Q U E N T L Y A S K E D Q U E S T I O N S
1. How did this project begin?I was looking for a one-act to pitch for a Director’s Festival in 2005 and my ASM at the time, Nina, gave me this 160 pg printout of the online text of Voices From Chernobyl. The book was scheduled for publication in England and America at a later date. Nina had worked on a one-woman show, where a French actress performed the SOLITARY HUMAN VOICE as a monologue. That monologue, plus the others in the book, really urged me to adapt it for the stage.NOTE: The English translation is much better than the American translation, which I feel is dumbed down.2. How many times has this piece been performed?
It has performed many times. For a detailed list visit our performance page.3. Why are you changing the adaptation from the one performed before?It is my feeling that this piece should be constantly breathing new life. The performance in 2006 was based in the group of 18 people who were involved: their roles and what each actor brought to their role. It was meant to touch on many of the interviews in the book and to tell those stories in the most active way for the audience.
The Edgefest performance was performed in a different location, with a different audience, only 3 of the original actors and with no tech. It was a shorter, more focused piece, and the stories we told are meant to put the audience in a different mindspace than the original.
The New Voices performance will be set in a completely different space than the first 2, based on the space of The Empty Stage. We will more clearly set the time and place for each interview; the audience will be witnessing the interview as it took place in 1996.It is my hope that I will develop the piece many different times, with a variety of artists and in different venues, and retain Performative Pieces which can then be used much as the original actress did in France: as political pieces, educational theater, entertainment mixed with education, and basically in whatever ways can get the story of these people across and urge its audience to investigate what is happening around them.4. Why is it spelled with an “o”?From The Site for International Nuclear SafetyWith Ukraine becoming independent from the former Soviet Union, the Ukrainian government has set about to reestablish its own language and original spellings. Two of the most noticeable differences are Chornobyl (Ukrainian spelling) and Chernobyl (Russian spelling); and Kyiv (Ukrainian spelling) and Kiev (Russian spelling).