A group of five teenagers from Ukraine performed in several cities in the New England region this summer with the musical “Voices from Ukraine: Stories of War and Hope,” organized by the nonprofit Common Man for Ukraine. Performances took place in Concord, Newbury, New Hampshire; Burlington, Vermont; York, Maine; and Boston and Newton, Massachusetts. The goal of the tour was not only to raise funds, but also to bring to an American audience the personal stories of children and teens who experienced the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine.
During a performance at the Concorde, 19-year-old actress from Kharkiv, Taisiya Hryhorova, took to the stage and uttered a few words that echoed her personal experience of escape:
“I survived. I survived. I survived.” She recounted the moment her family was fleeing in 2022 and how she kept telling herself that she had survived: “I couldn’t believe it, so I kept repeating it a thousand times while my mother was driving down the highway at night: I survived. I survived. I survived.”
These vivid memories became part of a theatrical reenactment that combines personal monologues with musical numbers.
The material for the show is largely composed of letters that children wrote during three-week therapeutic retreats held by Common Man for Ukraine in Poland, as well as the performers’ own texts.
The production’s director, Trish Lindberg, explained the idea of the production this way: “You start to see the themes, and they become your musical numbers.” Lines from children’s letters became the basis for songs and scenes that develop into a joint musical-theatrical composition that aims to convey both trauma and hope.
The program also featured very difficult testimonies, which 19-year-old Sofia Kopytko recreated in her monologue memoirs about the story of her friend Arina:
“Her parents died on the spot,” she said of the car being shelled by Russian soldiers. According to Kopytko, Arina was searched for almost two years before her body was found in a morgue in Belarus. “We are afraid to imagine what Arina went through in her last hours or days or months. No one even knows how long she was alive before her death,” added Sofia, emphasizing that these are not isolated stories.
After the performances, question and answer sessions were held with the audience, where the child actors shared not only tragic memories, but also hopes. In particular, Bohdana Františkevich noted:
“I really hope that this will end and we will be free. On every birthday, I have one wish. It is always the same. I want everyone to be happy. This is my only hope – just to be happy.”
Senator Maggie Hassen, who attended one of the screenings in Concord, called the play a reminder of the “terrible price” of the invasion and praised the role of the artists:
“You are helping to supply the arsenal of democracy not with steel weapons but with acts of care and words of hope.”
Behind the scenes, the project also served a social and therapeutic function: the participants rehearsed in a utility room in Newbury, and were hosted by donors and local families who cooked them meals and organized trips. Taisiya Grigorova described the process as therapy: “It’s like psychodrama,” she explained, adding that living and reenacting her own stories helped her to let go of some of the trauma and live more peacefully. She also mentioned the impact on her family: her six-year-old brother “knows what a rocket is” and has no memory of a peaceful childhood, which made returning to normal life even more difficult.
The performances were free, and the organizers collected donations to support Common Man for Ukraine, which has held therapeutic retreats for about 1,300 children, many of whom had lost at least one parent. After a series of six performances in New England, the actors returned to their lives in Ukraine, and the initiators expressed the hope that the personal stories of the teenagers would help the American public not forget the war and support humanitarian and rehabilitation programs for children.
Author: Danylo Pievchev