JOHN FREEDMAN

John Freedman is an American writer and translator who, after working for 30 years in Russia, now resides in Greece. He lived in Moscow from 1988 to 2018, where he was the theater critic of The Moscow Times (1992–2015). His play Dancing, Not Dead (2011) was winner of the Internationalists Global Play Contest (2011) and his short play, Five Funny Tales from the Heart of Buenos Aires (2013), has been performed in New York City, Chattanooga, and Edinburgh. He has translated over 100 plays, of which productions have been mounted in five continents. He is the author or compiler of numerous books, including Silence’s Roar: The Life and Drama of Nikolai Erdman (1992) and Provoking Theater: Kama Ginkas Directs (2003). He was Russian director of The New Russian Drama: Translation/Production/Conference (2007–2010) conducted by Towson University and the Center for International Theatre Development (CITD); and director of New American Plays for Russia (2010–2015), a CITD project bringing cutting edge American drama to Russia with the support of the U.S. embassy in Moscow under the auspices of the Bilateral Presidential Commission. He is the curator of two Worldwide Play Readings projects: Insulted. Belarus (2020 to present) and Ukrainian Play Readings (2022). He is the director of CITD’s Ukrainian Hope Initiative.