Stage Manager: Gary Damico
Mission of the International Voices Project:
The International Voices Project (IVP) champions the work of global playwrights by creating opportunities to experience new and contemporary international plays on Chicago stages. IVP debuts voices from the world’s stages through commissions, translations, and production. We collaborate with consulates, cultural partners, and universities throughout the Chicagoland area and partner with national and international theatres to promote global playwrights in their USA premieres.
Playwright
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).
Golem
Written by Sasha Denisova
Translated by Maria Saltykova
Directed by Kay Martinovich
Thursday, May 14th, 2026
When: 6pm
Admission: Free
Where: Instituto Cervantes Chicago:
What: Staged reading, talk back & complimentary reception.
Play Summary: Max’s ex-wife, Marta — a bohemian 47-year-old woman from New York — arrives in Ukraine for his funeral. However, his widow Maria, a young artist, refuses to bury him. His body has finally been found on the front line. Yet Maria refuses to identify or bury him. Because Max is alive — he has been coming back. At first, Marta believes Maria. She looks around her former husband’s study — she is back in the apartment where, as young students, they dreamed of becoming writers, reading European literature together. But Max went to the front to defend his country and died. Though he could barely take out the trash — an intellectual, a screenwriter, a poet. Then Marta finds a doll in the wardrobe. The doll looks like Max. The doll has a body sewn from pillows, and a face made of papier-mâché and fragments of Max’s photographs. It is him — half-alive, but loved. Marta is forced to play Maria’s game: to have dinner with the doll, watch the news, argue about whom he loved more, and read aloud their favorite novel — The Golem — about a Prague rabbi who creates a man from clay, neither alive nor dead, but living forever. A ghost.
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Director
Kay Martinovich is a Chicago-based director. Recent credits include the Jeff-nominated and Chicago premiere of The Father at Remy Bumppo, Deirdre of the Sorrows at City Lit, and Jeff-nominated Naked and Jeff-award winning La Bête both at Trap Door Theatre. Kay has a long-standing association with Trap Door, having directed several shows over the years, starting with Bremen Freedom in their fourth season. As Associate Artistic Director for Irish Repertory of Chicago, Kay supported season selection, production casting, and media materials. For Irish Rep, she directed the American premiere of By the Bog of Cats … , the Jeff-nominated Bailegangaire, Pentecost, The Mai, and Two by Friel: from Chekhov: The Bear and the American premiere of The Yalta Game. She is Artistic Associate at both Her Story Theatre and Perennial Theatre, where she is also involved in new work development along with Chicago Writers Bloc. Kay’s work has been seen on many Chicago stages including GreatWorks, American Blues, The Gift, Lifeline, Buffalo Theatre Ensemble, Mary-Arrchie, Live Bait, Circle, Apple Tree/TYA, Famous Door, Emerald City, Theatre Wit, and Chicago Dramatists, among other theaters in the Midwest. She holds a PhD in Theatre Historiography from University of Minnesota and an MPhil in Irish Theatre from Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland. Kay is Associate Professor at Northern Illinois University where she teaches Meisner-based acting, audition technique, directing, and professional development for the actor. Proud member of SDC, the professional director’s union, Stage Directors and Choreographers Society. Visit kaymartinovich.com