GALICIA - A PLAY WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY RICHARD MAXWELL

Faktura 10, a core initiative of RIBBON International, as curated by Marta Kuzma, and the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater announce the world premiere of Galicia, a new play by Richard Maxwell

Galicia, a play written and directed by Richard Maxwell, will be staged for the first time at the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater in Kyiv, Ukraine, from Friday, August 22 through Monday, August 25. Commissioned by Faktura 10, as curated by Marta Kuzma, Artistic Director and Chief Curator of Faktura 10, Galicia is a continuation of Federico García Lorca’s seminal play La Casa de Bernarda Alba (1936), a tragedy that takes place in a small village in Spain.

The play is presented in Ukrainian with a Ukrainian cast selected from both Maxwell’s Theater for Beginners workshop - held in Kyiv in March 2025 at the Ivan Franko Theater - and through street casting in conjunction with the creative studio Baby Prod.

The cast includes: Kseniya Boychenko; Oksana Briukhovetska; Nataliia Khodos; Bohdana-Valeriia Korniienko; Anke Cristodorescu; Dmytro Krashchenko; Alina Lianyha; Khilyal Tiufekchioglu; Yevheniia Nesterova; Oksana Saboldash.

In La Casa de Bernarda Alba, Federico García Lorca explores, love, familial ties and the ways in which men control other women’s lives. Bernarda Alba, forever concerned with appearances, runs her household with an iron fist. She is about to marry off her eldest daughter, Angustias, to Pepe el Romano, although Pepe el Romano is conducting a secret affair with Adela, Bernarda's youngest daughter. Lorca's play, a production of which was directed by Maxwell in 2024, in New York, ends tragically with the death by suicide of Adela, who believes that Pepe has been shot by her mother.

In Galicia, Richard Maxwell proceeds with the tale as one of a family catastrophe, exploring how a family might pick up the pieces as a civil war unfolds in Spain. Choosing to focus on the family that remains together in the aftermath of Adela’s suicide, Maxwell considers the impacts of tragedy and war on a family, and the underlying causes of conflict.

The new play will also see audiences experience The Еxperimental Stage in the Ivan Franko Theater's set space, which has been arranged specifically for Galicia. This will be the first artistic intervention in the space where the third stage of the theater, the Stage under the Chimeras, will be created.

Throughout the production, Maxwell has been working with the Kyiv-based architectural office ФОРМА on both stage lighting and sets. With relation to their collaboration, Maxwell notes, “It was clear upon meeting Ira [Miroshnykova] and Oleksii [Petrov] of ФОРМА that they understand and, in fact, are an emblem of a new attitude: seeing the value in transcending the barriers between siloed disciplines in order to find a deeper collaboration. The fact that ФОРМА was already working with Ivan Franko Theater on their renovation made the arrangement a perfect fit.”

DIRECTOR’S NOTE
by Richard Maxwell

In Federico Garcia Lorca’s play La Casa de Bernarda Alba, (which I directed in New York last year) Bernarda Alba is a widow with 5 daughters. She is forever concerned with appearances and runs her household with an iron fist.

When La Casa begins, she has just lost her second husband and is about to marry off her eldest daughter Angustias to Pepe el Romano. Meanwhile, Pepe el Romano has been having a secret affair with Angustias’ sister, Adela. Lorca's play ends tragically with the death by suicide of Adela, who believes that Pepe has been shot by her mother.

With my play Galicia it is my interest to share with you tonight a continuation of this tale.

-RM

CURATOR’S INTRODUCTION
by Marta Kuzma

I was introduced to the work of Richard Maxwell through Paradiso, a play he wrote and directed in 2018 in New York. The play approached existential questions: what is the purpose of life? Do we ever find salvation (and where)? What is life after death? How do we carry on despite life’s wretchedness? The play was barren, straightforward, quirky, and American in a Walker Evans/James Agee sense; it stuck to the essentials.

More recently, I had the opportunity to attend Buildings I and II, a play set on the 19th floor of a corporate office building, against the backdrop of New York City’s Financial District, its script unfolding around a family in the wake of a father’s death—the relationship of three siblings dissolving as they battle over the control of his assets. In this play, death made an explicit appearance as the Grim Reaper.

In drafting the blueprint for Faktura 10, Richard was the first person I sought out for a possible project. We proceeded to travel together to Ukraine for research. He met many people, listened avidly, and returned in March to hold a Theater for Beginners workshop for this production of Galicia, an adaptation of Frederico Garcia Lorca’s last play The House of Barnarda Alba, a play Richard initially staged with the New York City Players in in 2024.

In Galicia, Richard builds upon a play completed in 1936, two months prior to Lorca’s arrest and assassination in the opening days of the Spanish Civil War, foreshadowing the personal and political conflicts that resulted in the coup against a democratically elected government. Although Lorca had been sacrificed before the war, he had, in the face of the struggles to come, written about “duende” as a protean device of artistic agency—a combatant to “shatter forms to reach the marrow of forms.”

Amid the ongoing war throughout Ukraine, I am honored by Richard Maxwell’s will to produce a play that premieres this and the next evenings—within this country, with a cast of those living and challenged by daily struggle, and in partnership with a theater whose history in Kyiv dates to 1920. I am also grateful to the theater’s director, Yevhen Nyschuk, for providing the opportunity to extend his program into this experimental arena.

Marta Kuzma
Artistic Director and Chief Curator
Faktura 10

BIOS

RICHARD MAXWELL (PLAYWRIGHT AND DIRECTOR) is an artist and longtime Hell’s Kitchen (NYC) resident, having lived there for the past 30 years. He has served as the Artistic Director of New York City Players since its founding in 1999. Over the course of his career, Maxwell has received numerous honors, including a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, and a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grant. His work has been commissioned and presented in more than 20 countries, including by prestigious institutions such as the ICA London, Barbican Centre (London), Festival d’Automne (France), Kunsten Festival (Belgium), and the Vienna Festival, and has been presented at the Venice Biennale and the Whitney Biennial.

CAST

Ksenia Boichenko (Angustias) – born in Zaporizhzhia. Actress of the “Actor’s House” theatre platform. Also teaches theatre disciplines to children.

Oksana Briukhovetska (La Poncia) – artist, curator, and author of texts. She holds an MFA from the Stamps School of Art & Design, University of Michigan. Her recent book, Black Lives Matter Voices, based on research conducted in the U.S., was published in 2025 by Choven Publishing House.

Anke Cristodorescu (Mother Superior) – born in Romania, half German, currently choosing to live in Kyiv. She enjoys practicing yoga (half her playlist is Indian music). She is a model, a German teacher, and a soon-to-be actress.

Dmytro Krashchenko (Don Arturo / Ferry Driver / Tronchapino) – screenwriter and comedy writer. One of the lucky ones to take part in Richard Maxwell’s master class. Proud husband and father of a wonderful son.

Bohdana-Valeriia Korniienko (Amelia) – 24 years old. Producer and director with the soul of an actress. Her love for theatre was shaped by her parents and years of performing in a children’s theatre. She considers the most fascinating chemical bond in the world to be actor–stage–audience.

Alina Lianyha (La Criada) – 52 years old. Born in Bukovyna. Lives and works in Kyiv. Loves flowers and dogs. Grandmother of a beautiful boy, Tymofii. First-time actress.

Yevheniia Nesterova (Magdalena) – model from Kyiv with extensive experience in photo shoots for Ukrainian designers and several video projects. This is her stage debut.

Mariia Noshchenko (Aid) – curator and researcher of visual culture. She is part of Pavilion of Culture, FORMA, and the journal Epipolar. Researches horses exclusively for Richard Maxwell.

Yana Potseluy (Adela) – director and designer. Works at the Ivan Franko Theatre as an assistant director. Performs in the theatre’s productions. Loves books and lives through theatre. Runs a YouTube channel about books and curiosities.

Oksana Valentynivna Saboldash (Bernarda) – 57 years old, from Kyiv. Mother of three children and wife of the best husband, a veteran of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. First-time actress. Seamstress. Model at Enjoying Life Modeling agency.

Natasha Khodos (Sister Inferior) – born in Kyiv, Ukraine. A woman, traveler, and researcher.

Khilyal Tiufekchioglu (Martirio) – half Turkish, half Ukrainian. Actress. Designer. Plays drums (ask her for a Led Zeppelin song). Loves black cats and black magic. Expert in dark humor. Writes poems when heartbroken. Ask her for fashion advice (you won’t like it).

COLLABORATORS

NEW YORK CITY PLAYERS
New York City Players is a theater company about people, relationships, and above all, feeling. Based in New York City, NYCP has always been about giving people access to the stage regardless of background and experience. This turns the stage into a reflection of the community we live in. We redefine the notion of “community theater” and elevate voices and images historically marginalized by the art and theater communities, while simultaneously challenging norms of form and entertainment. We find purpose in the community interrogating received notions of realism and sanctioned space. We employ a stylistic rigor where form follows function. Performers bring different levels and methods of training, and our language and movement is by turns terse and poetic. In addition to producing the work of director Richard Maxwell, NYCP produces emerging playwrights through its American Playwrights Division, and its Incoming Theater Division which engages immigrant New Yorkers in a series of workshops culminating in a public performance. Our ultimate aim is to find a more individual level of exchange and give audiences more agency as viewers equalizing the experience of performer and audience.

ФОРМА
ФОРМА is an independent architecture office based in Kyiv, Ukraine, founded and led by Iryna Miroshnykova and Oleksii Petrov. Its practice is grounded in research, experimentation, and interdisciplinarity, working at the intersection of architecture, art, music, and cultural production. Among its achievements are the curation of Ukraine’s National Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the development of large-scale spatial strategies, master plans, and reconstruction projects. Beyond architectural design, ФОРМА engages in publishing, exhibition-making, and collaborative initiatives. It is a co-curator of the Pavilion of Culture, an institution that brings together contemporary art, music, and architecture. In 2025, ФОРМА is launching Epipolar, a printed periodical dedicated to exploring multiple dimensions of architecture through theory, practice, and cultural dialogue.

IVAN FRANKO NATIONAL ACADEMIC DRAMA THEATER
The Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theater, established in 1920 in Kyiv, stands as a cornerstone of Ukrainian cultural heritage. Renowned for its rich history and artistic excellence, the theater has been home to some of Ukraine’s most talented actors, directors, composers, and set designers. Its diverse repertoire features both Ukrainian national works and world classics, continuing to captivate audiences with timeless performances. Under the leadership of Artistic Director and General Director Yevhen Nyshchuk, the theater remains a vital hub for artistic expression and cultural pride.