OverVIEW

Crimea 5am brings together voices from an extraordinary community of women, bound together as a result of human rights violations against Crimean Tatars since 2014. Through personal stories and testimonies of love and struggle in Crimea today, and combining victim and activist interviews, it highlights the stories of 10 political prisoners and their families. 

Since  2014, civil activists and in particular representatives of the indigenous people of the Crimean peninsula, Crimean Tatars, have been persecuted by Russian occupying forces. Obscured by a news blackout, we know little of these events, little of the prisoners themselves, their families and life in Crimea under occupation. 

This moving verbatim play, drawn from interviews and testimony, tells this story largely through a female perspective. We hear from the wives of the political prisoners, of their lives, friendships and love affairs, and particularly the extraordinary way that they have kept their households together, drawing comfort and support from their tight-knit female community and how they have been empowered and changed through the experience.  

Crimea 5am celebrates the sheer determination and activism within this oppressed community, the bravery of the prisoners in documenting abuses, and its defiant women holding the ravaged community together. A cast of actors, activists and journalists staged a reading of Crimea 5am in the UK at The Kiln, followed by a post-show chat co-hosted by Index on Censorship.  

This one-night-only performance was part of the British Council and the Ukrainian Institute UK/Ukraine Season of Culture, produced by Dash Arts and supported in kind by Kiln Theatre.

The original production of Crimea 5аm was initiated by the Ukrainian Institute and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine as part of the Crimea Platform. The original performance was directed by Dmytro Kostiumynskyi and produced by Dollmen.

Partners

British Council
Ukrainian Institute, Kyiv
Kiln Theatre
Index on Censorship

Creatives

Directed by Josephine Burton
Written by Natalka Vorozhbyt and Anastasiia Kosodii
Projection & Set Design by Marie Blunck
Sound Design by Maks Demydenko
Costume & Props by Firdest Karaca
Script Advisor Yael Shavit
Stage Manager Bethany Barrington-Davis

CAST

• Chiraz Aich

• Laila Alj

• Gemma Barnett

• Svetlana Biba

• Calin Bleau

• Cristina Catalina

• Waleed Elgadi

• Yasmeen Audisho Ghrawi

• Alexandra Hall Hall

• Laura Hanna

• Peter Jukes

• Maria Romanenko

• Hemi Yeroham

Post Show Chat

• Martin Bright, Index on Censorship

• Rory Finnin, Cambridge Ukrainian Studies

• Maria Romanenko, Ukrainian Journalist

• Josephine Burton, Dash Arts

• Alexandra Hall Hall, former UK ambassador to Georgia