A Diary of War & Theatre: Making Theatre in Kyiv, Spring 2024

In the midst of war, spending nine weeks directing his play, Conversations in Tusculum, in Kyiv, Ukraine, American playwright and director Richard Nelson kept a diary. Here the mundane, the artistic, and the ongoing war entwine in a visceral account of making theatre in a different world at a time and a place where it has come to have a very special meaning.

A profoundly moving, exceptional, essential story, full of humor, self-questioning, confusions, doubts, fears, heartbreak, and joy, set in the middle of a beautiful, magical city under attack.

“In this deeply stirring chronicle of making theater in a time of war, Richard Nelson deploys the same sensibility that shapes his plays, moving from curiosity to empathy to invaluable insight. Drama, for Nelson, has always been about creating an endlessly evolving conversation – on the stage, yes, but also with the time and place and people it reflects. Here, that dialogue echoes with a thrilling new urgency. Nelson's Kyiv diaries radiate hope for the endurance and necessity of theater.” - Ben Brantley

"I have never read a theatrical diary before like Richard Nelson's. In describing the process of staging his play, Conversations in Tusculum, in Kyiv, Mr Nelson gives a deeply moving picture of the grit, determination and heroism required to create theatre in a time of war:” - Michael Billington

RICHARD NELSON has directed over twenty of his plays, as well as those by Chekhov and Turgenev. His plays include The Michaels, Illyria, The Gabriels (Hungry, What Did You Expect? and Women of a Certain Age), The Apple Family Plays (That Hopey Changey Thing, Sweet and Sad, Sorry and Regular Singing), Conversations in Tusculum, Nikolai and the Others, Farewell to the Theatre, An Actor Convalescing in Devon, Goodnight Children Everywhere (Olivier Award Best Play), Two Shakespearean Actors (Tony Nomination, Best Play), Some Americans Abroad (Olivier Nomination, Best Comedy), and others. His musicals include James Joyce’s The Dead (with Shaun Davey, Tony Award Best Book of a Musical, Tony nomination for Best Musical); his screenplays include Hyde Park on Hudson (Roger Michell, director). With Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, he has co-translated plays by Chekhov, Gogol, Turgenev, and Bulgakov. He is an Honorary Associate Artist of the Royal Shakespeare Company and recipient of the PEN/Laura Pels ‘Master Playwright’ Award. He recently directed his play, Notre Vie Dans l’Art at the Théâtre du Soleil, in Paris, translated by Ariane Mnouchkine. He lives in Upstate New York.