Sasha Denisova is a Ukrainian playwright, director, and novelist whose work merges documentary realism with poetic imagination. Born in Kyiv, she studied philology at Taras Shevchenko University before pursuing theater in Moscow, London, and beyond —including training at the Royal Court and graduating from the School for Theater Leaders at the Moscow Art Theatre School. In her plays, Denisova weaves together documentary sto- rytelling, live speech, phantasmagoria, and grotesque— a signature style evident from her first major production Light My Fire, which received the Golden Mask Award in 2012, to her final Russian work Batman vs. Brezhnev. During her years in Russia, she wrote and staged over 25  productions.

In Russia, she served as deputy artistic director of the Mayakovsky Theater and as chief dramaturg at the Mey- erhold Center, while also teaching documentary theater and screenwriting at the Moscow School of New Cin- ema. She became a leading figure in the Russian-lan- guage documentary stage—until the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when she fled Moscow for Warsaw. Most of her productions were canceled or continue to run without her name. Since the war began, Denisova has written and staged a series of urgent, lyrical plays about war, exile, and re- sistance: My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion, created and performed at CCCB–Museum of Contemporary Art Barcelona, with the support of Artists at Risk. The play has been translated into English, French, German, Span- ish, and Catalan. The Hague, a surreal tribunal staged by Ukrainian children against Putin, told through the eyes of a girl from Mariupol. The piece has been performed in Poland, Bulgaria, Romania, France, the Netherlands, Lithuania, and the U.S. (Arlekin Players Theatre, Bos- ton). She’s also written Six Ribs of Anger, about Ukrai- nian refugees across Europe (Kommuna Warszawa); Decameron: Love Stories During the War (Warsaw); and Golem, a new play about two women grieving the same man—an intellectual who gave his life for his country. Premieres in Amsterdam in fall 2025. Denisova now lives and works in Barcelona, where she is completing two novels: The Hague and Sasha and Her Brain Run to Barcelona and Win—a sharp, autofic- tional tale about a woman, a war, and a city that changes her language and her life. American awards include the 2024 Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Direction (The Hague
[Gaaga]) and the 2024 Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Production of a Play (My Mama and the Full-Scale Invasion).

About the Play

At the beginning of the war, Sasha’s mother, 81-year-old Olha Ivanivna, refused to leave Kyiv. She said that her mother and grandmother had survived two wars without ever leaving their home in Solominka, that her kitchen was her fortress, and that if Zelensky was staying, so would she. In the author’s imagination, Mama becomes the Commander-in-Chief: she negotiates with world leaders, demands tanks from Scholz and Macron, fighter jets from Biden, flies to bomb the Kremlin, kills Putin with a jar of pickles, and finally reaches God Himself to demand that He save Ukraine. This tragicomedy is based on the real letters the author’s mother wrote during thewar. Mama speaks like a Woody Allen character — blending the domestic and the divine. She fries cutlets while watching rockets burn outside her window. It’s a heartbreakingly funny play about resilience, absurdity, and love stronger than fear. The production, staged at Woolly Mammoth Theatre (Washington, D.C.) and Wilma Theater (Philadelphia), received the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Production of 2024. Sasha Denisova was named a world-class figure by The Washington Post, and the play is published in American Theatre Magazine.