Maryna Smilianets

Maryna Smilianets, born on 12 October 1992 in Kyiv, is a Ukrainian playwright and theatre maker. She is the author of more than 15 plays for children and adults, most of which have been staged at various theatres in Ukraine and abroad (including Bristol, Munich, Riga, and Stuttgart). Since 2018, she has served as deputy director of the New Ukrainian Theater Arts Center in Kyiv. Maryna Smilianets’s works have received numerous awards. Country of Serious won the children’s play category at the international literary competition Coronation of the Word in 2015. In the same competition, she received first prize in 2018 for her play Dog House. In 2022, she was awarded the Special Prize for Contemporary Drama at the Kyiv Pectoral Theatre Awards. Since spring 2022, she has been an artist in residence at Schauspiel Stuttgart. Together with Luda Tymoshenko, she wrote the texts for the audio tour City X – Fragmente eines Krieges, directed by Gernot Grünewald. Her play Borscht. Ein Überlebensrezept meiner Großmutter was also presented as a staged reading. In the 2024/25 season, her play Willkommen am Ende der Welt premiered at the Kammertheater. In 2026, she won the annual competition of the international network EURODRAM with her play Vyshneve.