“For the first time in my life, I like who I am,” wrote Hennadii, a special forces soldier and participant in the First Plays Festival, where he read his piece about war, his injuries, childhood dreams, and love.
Just four months before writing that message, Hennadii found himself confused: he had come to sign up for a training course at the Veterans Theatre, thinking he would learn how to be an actor. Still he was told right away that the course taught playwriting and provided the basic skills needed to write plays. “Well, me and the plays?!” Hennadii panicked. His life had it all—a poor childhood, a turbulent gangster youth, fleeing with his family from the occupiers in his home region of Donbas in 2014, the war that began in 2022, two heavy injuries, a pile of awards—truly everything. Except for playwriting. And now he says of himself without a hint of irony, “I am a playwright.”
And dozens of people like Hennadii can call themselves playwrights after completing the Veterans Theatre training course. Remarkably, for most of these people, the statement “I am a playwright” is more than just big talk. Their works are staged, they sign contracts with publishers, and publish books.
There are many theater projects, studios, and schools focused on working with veterans and active-duty military personnel, and on integrating their experiences into contemporary art. However, what makes the Veterans Theatre unique is that everyone involved is an active-duty service member, and the project’s main driving force is a military unit called the Public Relations Department of the Territorial Defence Forces (TDF Media).
Since 2024, TDF Media has had a department dedicated specifically to the Veterans Theatre training course. Everyone serving in this department—military personnel with firsthand experience of war, who understand the needs and challenges of veterans—treats the course participants as brothers and sisters in arms. Alongside the military personnel, civilian professionals are also involved in the training course: directors, screenwriters, actors, and playwrights who help veterans develop their distinctive literary toolkit. Natalka Vorozhbyt, Lena Lagushonkova, and Iryna Harets are just a few of the names among at least two dozen mentors working with Ukrainian veterans.
The educational course is a very important part of the Veterans Theatre, but it is not the only one. It stages classic plays with a modern twist. In 2025, Akhtem Seitablaiev, artistic director of the Veterans Theatre, together with Olha Semioshkina, chief choreographer of the I. Franko Kyiv National Academic Drama Theatre, staged their interpretation of Kotlyarevsky’s Eneida. In this production, all roles are performed by veterans, including those who have suffered severe injuries. Eneida by the Veterans Theatre draws sold-out audiences in Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine.
The Veterans Theatre has also made its mark on the international stage. In March 2026, the play Crossing the Line, directed by Oleksandr Tkachuk and based on a script by educational course graduate Natalka Zarytska, was performed at Divadlo Komedie in Prague (Czech Republic). The production received positive reviews from audiences and the Czech theatrical community. With the premiere in Prague, the Veterans Theatre has taken another step toward its core mission, as embodied in its motto, “The world must see Ukraine’s struggle with the eyes of its defenders.”
The Veterans Theatre is an ambitious art project by the Public Relations Department of the Territorial Defence Forces (TDF Media), aimed at integrating veterans of the Russo-Ukrainian war into the theatrical world. An educational course was the first part of the project, which helped veterans and their family members master the art of playwriting and gain the skills needed to tell their personal stories through the language of modern theatre in just a few months of intensive training.
Each training course traditionally closes with the First Plays Festival, during which professional actors and directors stage the scripts written by graduates of the Veterans Theatre.