With most male actors at war, a small Ukrainian theater reinvents itself with an all-female cast

CHERNIHIV – The 43-year-old Ukrainian actor took to the stage wearing a black leather jacket and with a moustache painted on her face.

Ruslana Ostapko was performing in multiple traditionally male roles in a recent production of the Chernihiv Regional Youth Theater. With so many men serving in Ukraine’s armed forces to repel Russia’s invasion, the theater has adapted to the realities of war, and women are taking the spotlight.

“We were rehearsing Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ when suddenly our men were taken to the front,” said the theater’s 52-year-old director, Roman Pokrovskyi. “We only had the female part of the troupe left. So we thought, ‘Well, if men played women in Shakespeare’s times, why not give it a try?’”

The efforts of the theater in Chernihiv, the capital of a region that borders Russia and Belarus, reflect a broader reality in Ukraine where women are stepping into roles once dominated by men, sustaining not just their industries but the spirit of national resistance.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, four of the theater’s male actors and five stage workers have joined the army, leaving the troupe short-handed. Only two men still perform on the stage, and most stage work is done by women. But the troupe has reinvented itself by adapting its repertoire, transforming its space into a hub for art and wartime volunteer work, and casting women in most roles.

A new take on a storied pro-independence figure

An all-female cast is taking on “Hetman,” a play based on the life of Ivan Mazepa, a 17th century Cossack leader who defected from the Russian Empire’s army to side with King Charles XII of Sweden.

Mazepa’s role as the pro-independence leader, and the theme of Ukraine aligning with European states to resist Russian control, remain salient in Ukraine more than 300 years later.

Ostapko burst into tears when asked about her friends and colleagues fighting at the front.

“This is pain, the pain of the entire nation, our pain,” she said while preparing for a performance. “But our guys are doing well. We keep our fingers crossed for them. We help.”

The theater’s predominantly female actors and staff — including cloakroom attendants, cashiers, cleaners, and cafeteria workers — spend much of their time supporting Ukrainian soldiers, weaving camouflage nets in the theater before opening the doors to audiences at night.

The team also regularly raises funds to supply their deployed colleagues with necessary kit for the front lines. But some of those colleagues will never return to the stage.

“Our actor, Kostiantyn Slobodeniuk, went missing. Our sound operator, Dmytro Pohuliaylo, disappeared in the Pokrovsk direction at the end of 2024,” said Oleksii Bysh, 52, one of the theater’s few remaining male actors.

Standing by a photograph of one of his former colleagues, sound engineer Vyacheslav Shevtsov, Bysh describes how he was killed in a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Russian region of Kursk last August.

‘Destroying our culture means destroying our future’

While Chernihiv remains under Ukrainian control, it has paid a heavy price for its proximity to Russia’s borders. At the start of the invasion, Russian troops besieged the city, forcing residents to endure harsh winter conditions without electricity or water under constant shelling from Russian artillery, missiles and drones.

As the war enters its fourth year, Russian strikes on Chernihiv remain frequent and culture has not been spared.

A significant number of cultural and artistic institutions in the Chernihiv region have been destroyed or severely damaged, requiring repairs or total reconstruction, said Oksana Tunik-Fryz, 46, head of the Arts and Culture Council at the Chernihiv Regional Administration.

“The enemy is destroying us from within by destroying our culture,” she said. “Killing a Ukrainian is killing a person. But destroying our culture means destroying our future.”

Drone strikes unite a community

Before every performance at the theater in Chernihiv, a recorded announcement reminds audiences that the show will be paused in the event of an air raid alert.

That warning was recorded by Kostiantyn Sloodeniuk, an actor who joined the army and is now missing, theater director Ihor Tykhomyrov told the Associated Press. When the alarm sounds, which Tykhomyrov said happens at nearly every second performance, everyone inside moves into bomb shelters.

“Russian drone strikes are a problem, a serious problem, but there’s an interesting thing,” he said. “It brings people together.”

Despite an uncertain future, the theater’s team is determined to continue their art and their wartime volunteering. Reflecting on their resilience, Bysh quotes Soviet-era Ukrainian filmmaker, Oleksandr Dovzhenko.

“We are a small theater,” Bysh said. “But, as Dovzhenko said, you are only small from afar. Up close, you are large.”