Written By: Maryia Bialkovich
Translated into English By: Darya Vashkevich, edited by Apeksha Harsh
Directed By: Edward Einhorn
Timelessness, anti-dialogue and an atmosphere of suspense. Any Spot with Marks Left Behind is a play that has the intonation of contemporary absurdism. The heroine finds herself in someone else’s apartment and doesn’t remember how she got there. Strange sounds out of nowhere, overly friendly hosts and uncomfortable silence. The play has two acts that are radically different: by the end, the collective unconscious is transformed into a search for self-determination. The playwright explores the origins of violence, social and personal norms that do not always reflect reality.
With: Craig Anderson, Jeremy Cohen, Kingsley Nwaogu, Yelena Shmulenson, Moira Stone, Yvonne Roen, Anna Trubachova, Mikhl Yashinsky, Ann Marie Yoo
Followed by a post show discussion
Part of Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival honoring Vaclav Havel, produced by the Václav Havel Center and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association, in association with Untitled Theater Company No. 61.
Part of Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival honoring Václav Havel, produced by the Václav Havel Center and the Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association.
About
Maryia Bialkovich was born in 1991 (Minsk, Belarus). In 2014 she finished studying at the School of young writers by the Union of Belarusian Writers. In 2014 – 2019 Maryia studied and worked in Belarus Free Theatre as an actress, a stage manager and a playwright.
Maryia Bialkovich’s plays include Any Spot With Marks Left Behind, Wellbeing, Peaceful People and Torn Loops. Maryia is a co-author of three productions by Belarus Free Theatre: Dogs of Europe, Tomorrow I Was Always a Lion and The Master Had a Talking Sparrow.
Dramaturgical adaptations and plays by Maryia Bialkovich were staged by Belarus Free Theatre (Belarus, UK) and Malenky Theatre (Israel). They were presented as various readings in Belarus, Estonia, Israel, Kazakhstan and Russia.
Plays by Maryia Bialkovich are translated into English, German and Czech languages. Plays by Maryia are included in short-lists and lists of plays recommended for staging by playwright competitions AURORA, Liubimovka, Centre for Belarusian Dramaturgy, Remarka, Writebox.
Edward Einhorn is a playwright, director, translator, librettist, theater journalist, and novelist. He is the Artistic Director of both Untitled Theater Company No.61 and the Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival. In 2006, he curated the Václav Havel Festival, which included all of Havel’s work, at multiple theaters throughout New York City, with Havel in attendance. Since then some of his work includes Cabaret in Captivity, songs and sketches from Terezin, written during the Holocaust performed at multiple venues in New York, London, ans Washington DC; The Marriage of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein, which received at Critics Pick from The New York Times chief reviewer Jesse Green, performed in at HERE in New York and Off-West End at The Jermyn Street Theatre in London; The Pig, or Václav Havel’s Hunt for a Pig, adapted from the work by Václav Havel and Vladimír Morávek, which played at The New Ohio and 3LD Theatres in New York and received a New York Times and Village Voice Critics Pick; The Velvet Oratorio, an opera-theater production following Havel’s character Vaněk through the Velvet Revolution, which played at Lincoln Center’s Walter Bruno Theatre and Bohemian National Hall; and directing The Last Cyclist, a play by Karel Švenk written in Terezin, which performed at La MaMa and was also shown on PBS affiliate WNET as part of their Theater Close Up series.
Cast
Craig Anderson is excited to be a part of bringing Any Spot with Marks Left Behind to the stage. He is a longtime actor with Untitled Theater company No. 61 whose work with director Edward Einhorn includes The Shylock and the Shakespearians, Doctors Jane and Alexander, The Resistible Rise of J.R. Brinkley, The Iron Heel, The Velvet Oratorio, and the stage and screen versions of The Last Cyclist. His other New York credits include Stephano in Dysfunctional Theater’s onsite production of The Tempest on Governors Island and Judge Brack in Love Creek’s production of Hedda Gabler.
Jeremy Cohen is an actor, writer and producer who is proudly a New Yorker through-and-through. He was raised a classical pianist, traveling the world to perform in festivals and competitions from a young age, but realized his love of acting in middle school. While attending Stuyvesant High School, Jeremy trained with acting coach Ann Ratray. After graduating from New York University, he continued his training with Brad Fleischer and Kyle Donnelly. He was featured in the Emerging Artists Showcases in 2018 and 2019. In the past year, he's starred in and associate produced several feature films for 377 Productions, is the lead in a short film which won awards for best actor in a comedy from festivals such as the Independent Shorts Awards International Film Festival and New York Cinefest, and just returned from the 77th Cannes Film Festival in France for the world premiere of a film he was a part of, 'Gazer'! He is currently cast in a feature film, New York Noise Anomaly, set to pick up production this summer, as well as running his own theater company, Open Variations Theater, which has its first production slated for the fall!
Kingsley Nwaogu is a NYU TSOA graduate with a background in dramatic writing and dance. This is his second time working with UTC61 and can't wait to debut the staged reading of Any Spot With Marks Left Behind. Shows include Airness (Vermont Stage), The Shylock and the Shakespearians (UTC61) TRACKS (The Skeleton Rep), The Comedy of Errors (AlphaNYC), Exploring Modern Myth I&II (The Skeleton Rep), Women of Manhattan (Pink Arts Peace).
Masha Pruss Graduated from The Kiev State Institute of Theatrical Arts .Worked as an actress in Kiev Drama and Comedy Theater on the Left Bank, Колесо Theater, New Ukrainian Theater ,Steps Theater and La Mama”. Also she hosted two Jewish programs, Yahad and Shalom,Kiev on Ukrainian TV. Her roles in movies are Vera in The Americans, Galia in Как закалялась сталь and Feodosia in Taras Shevchenko. Now in NYC Masha works as a voice over actress, singer and songwriter, actress for movies ,tv shows and commercials. Her credits include work with such big companies as Rosetta Stone, Microsoft, Cablevision, Discover America etc.
Yvonne Roen is an actress, songwriter, storyteller, teaching artist, and parent. She believes the innate creativity of people can be our greatest force for progress, and that nurturing the seeds of imagination can change the world. Yvonne has made and performed theater in England, Scotland, Rwanda, and the U.S. of A. She has graced stages in 29 states and Washington D.C., as well as film and television, with roles from Shakespeare to sci-fi. She has written several scripts for young audiences, including a musical about mathematics which premiered at the D.C. Fringe. She is currently at work building an interactive curriculum which melds theater and science. When she is not writing, rehearsing, or leading a classroom through an imaginative adventure, she can be found exploring bugs and flowers in her garden or baking a pie.
Moira Stone is an actor and singer who specializes in new and experimental performance. A frequent Untitled Theatre Company No. 61 collaborator, Moira last appeared at The Bohemian National Hall in The Velvet Oratorio. Other work with the company includes Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Pig (or Václav Havel’s Hunt for a Pig), and Money Lab. Moira has performed at EST, HERE, The Brick, The Flea, 3LD, PS 122, The Metropolitan Museum, TheatreWorks Silicon Valley, Northern Stage, onboard the QE2, and many, many, many other venues in New York and beyond and can also be seen on CBS, HBO, and in multiple indie features and national commercials.
Anna Trubachova is a journalist, writer, and Executive Editor of the anti-censorship platform Samizdat Online. Before moving to New York, she devoted more than 20 years to working for multiple publishers in Belarus, founded a journalistic agency, and participated in the creation of landmark civic and professional initiatives. In 2016, she was forced to leave Belarus, fearing for her safety and that of her family. After moving to the States she continued to write for selected Belarusian publications and literary magazines, she worked as a producer for the RTVI TV channel and as an editor for the Freedom FM radio station. Winner of the M. Aldanov Literary Award in 2023.
Mikhl Yashinsky was born in Detroit and educated at Harvard. He works as a writer, translator, singer-actor, and teacher in Manhattan. Yashinsky has performed with National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene in the Yiddish-language Fiddler on the Roof directed by Joel Grey, Amid Falling Walls, and The Sorceress, in which he brought a “keen, if malevolent, psychology” to the title role (New York Times). In 2023, he débuted at Carnegie Hall in the Holocaust Memorial concert We Are Here, singing the hymn of the Vilna Partisans. His original Yiddish play The Gospel According to Chaim, the first of its kind produced in the United States in decades, and put on this year by New Yiddish Rep, “jolted the repertoire with a work that is both traditional and delightfully subversive” (Forward). His Yiddish-language erotic one-act Blessing of the New Moon premièred at 2022’s Lower East Side Play Festival. He is the co-author of the Yiddish Book Center’s textbook In eynem and his translation of the memoirs of Ester-Rokhl Kaminska, the Mama of Yiddish Theatre, is forthcoming from Bloomsbury.
Ann Marie Yoo was born and raised in New York and is the definition of a stereotype: Carnegie Hall performing, Ivy League engineering, figure skating Korean American. Credits include East New York (CBS), That Damn Michael Che (HBO), Gotham (NBC) [TV]; Dumb Money [film]; Maude Night (Upright Citizens Brigade), Alma Baya (UTC61), CLUE (Arrow Rock Lyceum) [theater]; various commercials (including Super Bowl 2024).
ABOUT THE 2024 REHEARSAL FOR TRUTH INTERNATIONAL THEATER FESTIVAL
Rehearsal for Truth International Theater Festival, honoring Václav Havel, is a showcase of contemporary European theater organized each year in New York City. Conceived in 2017 as a shared endeavor of the Václav Havel Center (VHC) and Bohemian Benevolent and Literary Association (BBLA), the festival honors the legacy of Czech playwright, dissident and political thinker Vaclav Havel.
Each edition of Rehearsal for Truth Theater Festival addresses current sociopolitical trends in Central and Eastern Europe, offering New York audiences a unique opportunity to witness the region’s theatrical zeitgeist.
The program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. The festival is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.