TYUG submits a voice: theaters need open contests for directors

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Kyiv. Theater of the Young Spectator in Lypki. At the end of January, it was left without a leader. The director, who won the open competition, was dismissed by the KMDA due to the decision of the now defunct court. The TYU staff refused to appoint a new director without a competition. This is not the first scandal in the theater environment of Kyiv: in general, 4 capital theaters and 1 national theater have managers with acting status, that is, they are appointed by the governing body, and not selected in a competition, as required by law. The capital authorities are justified by martial law – they say, it forbids holding contests. However, the martial law did not prevent the authorities of the Lviv region from organizing open contests for managers of 4 cultural institutions and electing their directors. Using the example of the situation in the capital’s TYUG UP.Zhyttia, it explains why open competitions are important and how theater groups can defend their right to creative development. Why did the director of the theater Vyacheslav Zhila leave On January 5, the then director of the Theater on Lypki, Vyacheslav Zhila, announced future premieres for the audience at a team meeting. And already on January 26, his message on Facebook talked about “the last day in the position of director-artistic director of the Theater of the Young Spectator.” He briefly outlined the achievements of the theater during his tenure, but did not say a word about the reasons for leaving his post. Over the past year, despite a full-scale invasion and a temporary break in work, TYU released seven premieres, held charity screenings at the “Okhmatdyt” hospital and in the village of Borodyanka. And he started a new project “Theatre Therapy”, which introduces theater to children with special educational needs. Vyacheslav Zhila was named the winner of the competition for the position of director-artistic director of the Lypki Theater in August 2021. He then defeated Victor Hyrych, the head of the Theater of Young Spectators who had been unchanged for almost 30 years. However, honored artist and people’s artist Hyrych decided not to retire, but to the District Administrative Court. He filed a lawsuit against the Department of Culture of the Kyiv City Council for recognition of the illegality of the competition decision. Vyacheslav Zhila headed TYUG in August 2021. Photo: Theater of the Young Spectator / Facebook While the war was going on in the country, and TYUG was releasing new projects, the trial was also going on. And on September 15, 2022, he issued a decision to fully satisfy Hyrych’s lawsuit: the competition was declared “unlawful”, and the decision of the competition commission of the year to elect Zhyla as the director of TYUG and his subsequent appointment to the position was null and void. The court justified its decision by the fact that some members of the competition commission were not sufficiently professional. Zhila filed an appeal against the decision of the OASK. Meanwhile, the Verkhovna Rada passed a decision to liquidate the District Administrative Court. However, Zhyla’s appeal remained unsatisfied, and the decision of the OASK remained unchanged. This is what the VI Appeals Administrative Court decided. The Department of Culture of the KMDA took the decision to implement immediately. So, the result of this judicial review is as follows: the Department of Culture lost the lawsuit, and Vyacheslav Zhila was released. In a comment to UP.Zhyttia, the dismissed manager of the Theater on Lypki says that his lawyers are giving a legal assessment of these events and after that it will be clear what to do next. “I really don’t want to believe that it was a political decision, because the reason for my dismissal is quite ambiguous. And I don’t want to go back to the beginning of the last century, when the authorities and judges engaged in arbitrariness, trying to exterminate young innovative artists,” said V Yacheslav Zhila. Read also: Tours, salaries and irreversible changes: what is really happening in the capital’s Theater on the Left Bank Next or deputy? To resolve the issue with the head of the Theater on Lypki, on January 27, Serhii Anzhiyak, the director of the Department of Culture of the KMDA, visited the team meeting. He brought a proposal to appoint an acting director of TYUG, because the competition for “managers of communal enterprises and institutions” is not held during the war. Clarifications were heard from the hall, that the legal form of TYUG is “theatrical and performance cultural institution”. Meeting of the TYUG team in Lypki on January 31. Photo by Iryna Golizdra “During the period of martial law, the Department of Culture, as a governing body, has the right to appoint a person by its own decision. It can be my decision and it will be 100% my responsibility,” Serhii Anzhiyak said at the January 27 staff meeting. In the end, the official said that only a person who is currently in the position of deputy can take over the position of the director of the theater. And there is no alternative to Maksym Mykhailichenko: “As of today, the assignment of duties is entrusted to the person who holds the position of deputy director… If I am not mistaken, today Mykhailichenko is the deputy director of the theater,” Serhii Anzhiyak told the team. Very soon it became clear that Mykhailichenko was not the deputy director, but the director. But this, it seems, was no longer significant for an official from the KMDA. Mykhailichenko has been working in the theater since 1995, and a significant period was during the tenure of Viktor Hyrych. Therefore, he began his address to the team as follows: “I’m sorry that my appointment scared or excited you in any way. In any case, so that it does not happen again, I would like our relationship to remain as it is.” From the hall it was heard: “no one is speaking against you, but we demand transparency regarding the appointment of the theater’s management.” On that day, Mykhailichenko was appointed acting chief, but he was in this position for only a few days. Life from a new page: the deputy The next meeting of the team was held on January 31, at which Maksym Mykhailichenko was absent, according to Anzhinyak, “for good reasons.” The discussion regarding the appointment of an acting director-artistic director has become constructive. The team emphasizes: it is necessary to conduct a transparent competition, and not to appoint people to whom there is an ambiguous attitude internally. In particular, the actor Oleksandr Zinevych, who has been working here for 13 years, recalled how Mykhailichenko threatened to “stuff his face” because the actor expressed a different opinion. “Everyone was afraid. People, we want to work normally,” he said. There was even a suggestion that the entire theater should leave, in order not to work “in a totalitarian regime” under Mykhailichenko’s leadership. Serhiy Anzhiyak, Head of the Department of Culture of the KMDA, at the meeting of the TYUG team on January 31. Photo by Iryna Holizdra The theater workers persistently tried to defend their rights and the theater. And the head of the Department of Culture asked the team a question: “Are you now able to unite and start life on a new page? To move on?”, to which a loud “Yes” resounded. After that, Serhiy Anzhiyak proposed a candidate that would suit the majority of the team – Maria Kryvenko, who actually holds the position of deputy director. “She will be the acting director until the director of the theater is appointed for the period of martial law. The search for a new director will be accelerated. It should be a person with experience and a name, at least,” emphasized Serhiy Anzhiyak. “We will do everything to make the theater work powerfully, the creative process develops as it should. I will help you,” Maria Kryvenko told the team. So, Maria Kryvenko has been officially appointed as the temporary acting director-artistic director of the Kyiv Youth Theater. Read also: Important premieres in 2022: how Ukrainian theaters worked miracles under shelling Manual control under the cover of war Lypki Theater became the fourth Kyiv theater that does not have a permanent director. An acting manager is appointed, not a manager selected at the competition, at the Left Bank Theater, the Podil Theater, and the Golden Gate Theater. All acting KMDA were appointed there with the excuse that open competitions for the positions of theater directors were prohibited by martial law. The Theater on the Left Bank was not appointed acting director. several months, the Podol Theater also had no director for a long time and eventually got an acting director, who continues to work in another theater. The play “Blessing the Animals and Children”. Photo: Theater of the Young Spectator / Facebook Read also: “Art cannot exist without politics” – the new director of the Podol Theater Bohdan Benyuk Although the same martial law did not prevent the Lviv Regional Council from holding competitions for the positions of heads of communal cultural institutions literally this December. Acting directors without prefix received the Lviv Historical Museum, the Museum of the History of Religion, the Historical and Local History Museum and the Hrushevskyi Museum in Lviv. The situation is explained by Iryna Podolyak, People’s Deputy of the 8th convocation and one of the co-authors of the law on competitions for managers of cultural institutions. “The law on martial law tells us that competitions for the appointment of managers may not be held. But in the list of institutions where competitions may not be held, there are no cultural institutions, there are enterprises. For example, the Ivan Franko National Theater is an enterprise. There, an authorized authority to appoint an acting director without a competition. And the Young Spectator’s Theater is a cultural institution – it is a different legal form. Yes, the authorized body can appoint an acting director, or it can hold a competition,” said Iryna Podolyak on the air of Theater Fishing. Of all the four Kyiv theaters, the demand for a transparent appointment of the manager was formulated most clearly and loudly by the TYUG. The young team of the Theater on Lypki focuses on the audience of children and teenagers. And it is she who needs as much modern theatrical content as possible, which cannot be produced without an advanced and effective director. And without transparent management. At the meeting of the team with the head of the Department of Culture of the KMDA, it became clear that for the previous 30 years, the TYU team had no information about the results of audits conducted in the theater. Serhii Anzhinyak assured that after signing the act on audit, the theater manager is obliged to familiarize the staff with it. Auditions are currently ongoing at the Kyiv Theater of the Young Spectator and the Left Bank Theater. Meeting of the TYUG team in Lypki on January 31. Photo by Iryna Golizdra “Tectonic changes in the theater community, when collectives finally got the right to vote”, – this is how theater critic, head of the expert council of the GRA theater festival-award Olha Stelmashevska assesses the situation at TYU. In the commentary of UP.Zhyttia, she says: “The times of dictator directors are fading away. And with them, I hope, numerous schemes, “murky” interpretations of laws that allowed for arbitrariness by governing bodies, and the incompetence of some officials gave grounds to crack down on progressive leaders. If the current Department of Culture of the KMDA will continue to be in dialogue with the collective, and even better – will communicate with the community and the media, then the example of TYUG will become a successful case of overcoming the management crisis.”

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