Radio 477! Polish-Ukrainian Jazz Musical Fri NYC June 17 2022

https://www.rehearsalfortruth.org/program/radio-477 Free but RSVP required From Tomek Smolarski: "A few months ago, I asked the director of the Rehearsal for the Truth Festival (showcasing Central European theatre), Pavla Niklova, to add Ukrainian theatre to this year's line-up. I reached out to Yara Arts Group' founder Virlana Tkacz to see if she and her company would be interested in participating. It turned out that, in the past, they have been working on a project called Radio 477 without finishing it yet and performing it before an audience. I am pleased that offer jump started their rehearsal process once again. You can see the fruits of this Ukrainian-American-Polish collaboration next Friday, June 17th at 7:30PM at Bohemian Hall in Manhattan. Its FREE but RSVP is needed. Official premiere will be next year at La Mama Theater. Inspired by the 1929 Ukrainian avantgarde jazz musical, Radio 477! has original songs and text by New York City-based Yara Arts Group in collaboration with artists in Ukraine. The text, based on the original structure of the show, is written by SERHIY ZHADAN Сергій Жадан [офіційна сторінка], Ukraine’s renowned poet who lives in Kharkiv and who was nominated by the Polish Academy of Sciences for the Nobel Prize in Literature this year. Presented at the Berezil Theatre in Kharkiv in 1929, Hello, This Is Radio 477! was the first jazz musical in Ukraine, featuring catchy songs, wild dances, dazzling set design, and fabulous costumes. Although the show captivated audiences, the Communist Party bosses did not like it and it soon disappeared from the repertoire. The musical’s text and score were assumed lost in the Stalinist purges that followed. A few years ago, Virlana Tkacz, director at the Yara Arts Group in New York, discovered the conductor’s score hidden in an archive. Now, it has inspired a new theater piece created by Yara Arts Group and Ukrainian artists. The show features musical arrangements and compositions by Anthony Coleman, inspired by the original music by Yuliy Meitus."