Davyd Petrosian

Country: Ukraine

Biography

Davyd Petrosian is a Ukrainian theatre director, artist, and set designer, one of the leading figures of contemporary Ukrainian theatre. He graduated from the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Kary University of Theatre, Cinema and Television with a specialization in « Directing for Drama Theatre. » His diploma productions were staged in state and independent theatres and drew the attention of theatre critics as examples of contemporary directorial thinking. Since 2018 he has worked as a director at the Ivan Franko National Academic Drama Theatre, where he has created a number of notable productions, including « Zemlia » (Land), based on Olha Kobylianska; « War, » based on Lars Norén (winner of the « Kyiv Pectoral » award for Best Chamber Production); « The Snow Queen, » based on Hans Christian Andersen (winner of the Lesya Ukrainka Prize of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine); « Krum, » based on Hanoch Levin; « Cassandra, » based on Lesya Ukrainka; « The Visit, » based on Friedrich Dürrenmatt; and others. His productions have appeared on lists of the best theatrical works of the year according to critics and professional communities. In his directorial practice, David Petrosian has repeatedly worked with actors of varied life and social experience, including war veterans, paying particular attention to ethical interaction, work with bodily experience, and the prevention of retraumatization. His creative method combines classical texts with contemporary philosophical and social contexts.

Trojanhood

The play takes place before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A screenwriter is commissioned to create a new adaptation of the famous Aeneid. Yet instead of focusing on Aeneas, who is entirely absent from his version, the author turns his attention to those left outside the canon — the forgotten voices that never made it into the poems of Virgil or Ivan Kotliarevsky.

This attempt to rethink a foundational myth gradually provokes anxiety within the creative team. Step by step, they reshape the story into a familiar format of folk burlesque and patriotic spectacle. The writer struggles between the desire to satisfy expectations and the need to remain truthful to himself, but ultimately he is unable to finish the text. Then comes the day that changes countless lives forever, and the author himself becomes one of those whose voice remains unheard.

The new production based on a text by Maksym Kurochkin is an attempt at an honest conversation about what today often appears unquestionable. The performance explores the problematic nature of heroization and excessive pathos, confronting the tension between reality and myth. At its center lies the absence of a cultural language capable of addressing the simultaneous coexistence of a real and immediate war, everyday civilian life, and mythologized popular images of heroes shaped by epic narratives about ancient Greeks and the Cossacks of the Zaporizhian Sich.

Blending irony, documentary sensitivity, and the deconstruction of national mythology, the performance searches for a new theatrical form through which contemporary Ukraine can speak about war, memory, and those who remain outside the dominant heroic narrative.

The performance features veterans of the Russian–Ukrainian war.

based on a text by Maksym Kurochkin

Director: David Petrosyan

Set Designer: Olga Shtein

Chorus Master: Susanna Karpenko

Composer: Alla Zaygaykevich

 Premiered on March 28, 2026