First Ukrainian Theatre for Children and Youth, Lviv

The First Ukrainian Theatre for Children and Youth in Lviv: a theatrical world for children, young spectators and adults

The First Academic Ukrainian Theatre for Children and Youth was founded by order of the Theatre Department of the People’s Commissariat for Education in March 1920 in Kharkiv as the «Fairy-Tale Theatre» (official opening on 21 March 1921). This launched a new kind of theatrical art that had no analogue in world practice: a theatre for the youngest spectators.

The First Theatre works with well-known creators from Ukraine and abroad: directors, artists, composers and playwrights, among them Merited Artist of Ukraine Oleksiy Kravchuk, Merited Artist of Ukraine Andriy Prykhodko, Merited Artist of Ukraine Vadym Sikorskyi, the well-known Kharkiv director Artem Vusyk, the director and playwright Sashko Brama, who works in experimental, search theatre based on documentary material, the renowned Ukrainian artist, stage designer and director Bohdan Polishchuk, the Romanian director Cosmin Matei, the playwrights Natalia Vorozhbyt and Iryna Harets, the stage designer Mykola Molchan, the composer Oleksandr Kozarenko and others.

The theatre actively develops its orientation towards the family spectator, choosing drama that can interest both children and adults, not afraid to speak in a child’s language about complex and even philosophical problems that children also face. Thus the repertoire has acquired new readings of both well-known works and contemporary literature: «Koza-Dereza», which explores the theme of annexation and occupation, the surreal «Dzhalapita», Shakespeare’s «The Two Gentlemen of Verona», the instructive British play «At Eight in the Evening on the Ark», and the unusual production «Plyve choven» (The Boat Floats), which you cannot see but can feel.

The repertoire of the First Ukrainian Theatre for Children and Youth is full of aesthetically, thematically and artistically varied productions. The First Theatre is perhaps the only theatre in Lviv whose repertoire can satisfy all age groups, including teenagers.

The First Theatre is an inclusive theatre, accessible to people with musculoskeletal disorders and people with visual and hearing impairments: a tactile guide strip; a ramp; wide corridors; a toilet for disabled people; «flexible» seats for wheelchair users; subtitles for spectators with hearing impairments; audio description of performances for spectators with visual impairments. In 2022 the First Theatre’s repertoire had 33 productions: 15 for children, 12 for teenagers and 6 for adults. «First emotions. First words. First steps».