About the Show

CODENAME OTHELLO (Ukrainian) Saturday 2nd May, 2pm - York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium Sunday 3rd May, 6pm - York St John University Creative Centre Auditorium This show is part of a double bill programme, presenting Codename Othello by Olga Annenko in both its original Ukrainian and its translation to English by Daria Moskvitina, which was produced for YISF in 2025. Tickets to the individual performances are £15 each, but if purchasing each show together, the combined price is £20. £15 Standard £15 Pass It On! (purchase a ticket for a member of our refugee and asylum seeker community who would otherwise be unable to attend this event) £5 Student (available for students with a valid ID card) £20 Double Bill **All tickets purchased online come with a 10% processing charge. Tickets purchased in person are not subject to this charge but availability of tickets is not guaranteed. Running time is 60 minutes without an interval CODENAME OTHELLO is a powerful contemporary wartime drama inspired by Othello by William Shakespeare and reimagined by Olga Annenko. Set against the reality of ongoing war, the production explores how conflict infiltrates love, memory, and identity—turning private relationships into battlefields. Directed by Nazarij Paniv, whose artistic language is rooted in deep symbolism, the performance unfolds in a space where waking life and dream dissolve into one another. Paniv works with the imagery of lucid dreaming: reality seeps into nightmares, ghosts breathe beside the living, and the stage becomes a fragile border between trauma and illusion. Performed by actors of the Ivano-Frankivsk National Academic Drama Theatre named after Ivan Franko—including Iryna Onyshchuk, who also works as a psychologist in a rehabilitation center for soldiers; Ivan Blindar, a volunteer; and Oleh Panas, representing a generation that has grown up in wartime Ukraine—the production carries lived experience onto the stage. Blending Shakespearean verse with documentary fragments and contemporary testimony, Codename Othello asks whether love can survive when truth fractures, and what happens when a soldier returns home but the war refuses to leave him. Director: Nazarii Paniv Cast: Iryna Onyshchuk, Oleh Panas, Ivan Blindar General and Artistic Director of Frankivsk Drama Theatre: Rostyslav Derzhypilskyi