ANDREI KUREICHIK

Andrei Kureichik is one of the foremost playwrights, screenwriters, and producers in Belarus. His plays have been performed at the prestigious Moscow Art Theatre and Janka Kupala Theaters in Moscow and Minsk, as well as at numerous theaters throughout the former Soviet Union.

Prior to 2020, as a writer and director, Kureichik was beloved for his comedies and suspense thrillers. Following the contested presidential elections and brutal aftermath in Belarus in August 2020, he has gained an international following as a political playwright. Forced to flee the country as a member of the Coordination Council working with perceived winner Svetlana Tikhanovskaya’s transition team, Andrei leveraged his creative energy to produce the documentary play Insulted. Belarus, about the 2020 presidential elections, subsequent protests, and violent crackdown by Alexander Lukashenko’s regime in Belarus. Already, the play has been translated into 30 languages and received 250 readings and performances across the globe (including Hong Kong, Nigeria, throughout the EU, UK, and North America). Articles about the play have been published in Plays International & Europe, Contemporary Theatre Review, the Boston Globe, Dialog, and Theatre Journal among many others. It has been featured on BBC Radio’s “The Cultural Frontline,” and by the HowlRound Theatre Commons. Kureichik’s next play, a verbatim piece about Belarusian political prisoners, Voices of the New Belarus, has received similar recognition.

As a member of the Coordination Council of Belarus, Kureichik was awarded The Sakharov Prize of Freedom of Speech by the European Parliament. He became a Yale World Fellow in 2022 and in 2023 accepted a position as lecturer at Yale University.