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The Last Babushka

  • Whidbey Island Center for the Arts PO Box 52 | 565 Camano Avenue Langley, WA 98260 (map)

Local Whidbey Island playwright Amy Wheeler and Minneapolis-based composer Natalie Nowytski share scenes and songs from their musical play-in-progress: The Last Babushka, inspired by Holly Morris’ award-winning documentary film The Babushkas of Chernobyl.

The Last Babushka is currently being workshopped in Theatre Latte Da’s NEXT Festival in Minneapolis. Wheeler and Nowytski are happy to take a break from their July Whidbey creative retreat to give us peek into their collaborative process. Local actors will read excerpts from the script. Nowytski will share music from the score, then be joined by her husband, musician Scott Keever, to perform a few traditional Ukrainian village songs.

Proceeds beyond expenses will go to support Ukrainian humanitarian aid.

About the piece:

The Last Babushka is a raucous musical play set in Chernobyl’s radioactive Exclusion Zone, a post-apocalyptic landscape and thriving green world. Two worlds collided when elder women, self-settlers living there illegally, confront young people sneaking in, also illegally, to steal
artifacts. The Babushkas and the youth come together to reckon with their troubled past and envision an uncertain future. Drawn from the film’s transcripts, research and imagination, The Last Babushka is a cross-generational story with and an electrifying, haunting musical score, a
mash-up of traditional Ukrainian village folk songs and original punk, rock and folk music.

About the Collaborators:

Amy Wheeler (playwright, lyricist) is a Whidbey Island-based nationally produced playwright, educator, speaker, longtime Executive Director of Hedgebrook and co-producer of its Women Playwrights Festival, and founder of the Play Club.

Natalie Nowytski (composer, lyricist) Minnesota-based classically trained village singer, composer, multi-faceted performer, specializing in traditional Eastern European vocal styling.
Creator of award winning, genre-bending folk-inspired music for theater, dance, a cappella choir, and chamber ensembles. www.natalien.com

About the film:

The Babushkas of Chernobyl is viewable on Amazon Prime and other streaming channels.
To learn more go to: https://thebabushkasofchernobyl.com/

Watch Holly Morris’ popular TEDTalk: Why Stay in Chernobyl? Because it’s home.
https://thebabushkasofchernobyl.com/ted-talk

July 17 | 7:30 PM


Earlier Event: July 15
Nathaniel Talbot Trio
Later Event: July 29
Oriental Rug Sale

LAND ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

Whidbey Island Center for the Arts would like to begin by acknowledging that we gather on the ancestral homelands, originally known as Tscha-kole-chy (SHA-KOL-CHI) in Lushootseed (LU-SHOOT-SEED), of the Coastal Salish Peoples, on the lands of the lower Skagit, Tulalip (tuh·lay·luhp), Swinomish (SWIN-ə-mish), Snohomish (snō-hō-mish), Stillaguamish (still-uh-GWAH-mish), and Suquamish (soo-kwah-mish), who have lived in the Salish Sea basin since time immemorial and have hunted, fished, gathered, and taken care of these lands.

We respect their sovereignty, their right to self-determination, and we honor their sacred spiritual connection with the land and water.

Please join us in expressing our deepest respect and gratitude to the indigenous people of this territory and for their enduring care and protection of the land in which we currently occupy and share through the Treaty of Point Elliott signed by 82 tribes in Múckl-te-óh (Mukilteo) on January 22, 1855.