It is completely dark in the hall, only a recording is heard - a child's voice tells some kind of horror story. Actors take turns leaving the audience. This is how a charity performance begins at the independent theater "18+".

It is completely dark in the hall, only a recording is heard - a child's voice tells some kind of horror story. Actors take turns leaving the audience. This is how a charity performance begins at the independent theater "18+".

The scenery on the stage is minimal: a cloud resembling a tutu is under the ceiling, and scraps of paper are scattered on the stage. Nothing should distract from the story itself. “Still Ahead” is a documentary charity performance. It is based on the stories of children who survived leukemia. There are only three professional actors on the stage, the main characters are children. It is their letters that the audience hears during the performance. You will find out how they lived and fought this disease.

The first independent theater "18+" of Rostov-on-Don, together with the Darina charity fund for helping children with oncohematological diseases, won a grant from the "Theatre + Society" project. And so the play "Still Ahead" appeared.

I spoke with the director of the Darina Foundation, Tatyana Avdeyeva, after the performance:

— It was very pleasant that all the audience understood the performance correctly. There was such a warm atmosphere in the hall. I tried several times to write a review on my Facebook page, but it didn’t work because I was overwhelmed with emotions. During this hour, which was the performance, experienced a lot. After the speech, I met those people who had long suffered from leukemia. They told how much the production excited them, they woke up old experiences that needed to be thrown out.

***

Since March, the 18+ Theater has been hosting master classes in acting, plastique, and contact improvisation. Teachers and actors from Moscow, St. Petersburg and Rostov-on-Don worked with children: Vitaly Shchannikov, Olga Belinskaya, Zhanna Turchina.

— We had to think over such a program that the master classes would not tire the children too much, many of them are still undergoing treatment. The performance itself was put together in three weeks. I talked to children, parents and doctors. I tried to make sure that the main idea in the performance was that leukemia is treatable. No need to be afraid. The main problem for both parents and children is that when they found out the diagnosis, they gave up. Many parents fainted from such news ,” says Olga Kalashnikova.

Olga shared that as she collected information, she faced difficult situations: the attitude of doctors, the corruption of the system, divorces in some families.

- If the production would have been without the participation of children, then the performance would have turned out to be very tough. And now we have a life-affirming story.

From the beginning, more children participated in the project, but someone left because it was hard to travel or combine with studies. For example, Dima quit classes in the middle, only at the end, according to Tatyana Avdeeva, he was persuaded to return.

We really wanted the children to overcome their fears. I went to the first master class with them and realized that children open up. Classes helped them not only to articulate their illness, but taught them to talk about themselves. The most important thing is not to live with these fears, Tatyana continues.

***

- Can I go back?

Says the actress-grandmother of Veronica during the story of her granddaughter's illness. The letter she is holding was written by the girl's real grandmother. Thoughts are confused: she writes about the achievements of the child, but then returns to the disease again.

A few days before the performance, I came to the theater for a rehearsal. Then for the first time I saw the children who are involved in the production. Actors must not be distracted during rehearsal. Indulge too. But they quietly continue to talk and make fun of each other. Director Olga Kalashnikova quickly stops them. She is attentive and demanding to everything that happens on the stage:

- I try to be stricter with them so that they adapt and smoothly move from hospital autism to ordinary life. The complexity of the work was also in the fact that during the illness the children became a little spoiled, all the parental attention was paid to them. But we took to the performance not only those children who themselves were ill, we have two girls whose brother and sister were ill. They received insufficient attention from their parents, because it was directed to the treatment of another child. They came to us very closed. The most energetic of them is Veronica. Her parents are like that, and her grandmother, who did a lot to make her granddaughter bounce back.

By the beginning of the rehearsal, Veronichka and her grandmother were late. But when she entered the hall, it seemed that Veronichka had time to be everywhere: say her text at the right time, make a bridge and run up to her grandmother, who was watching the rehearsal. Olga Kalashnikova takes a short break. During it, I manage to talk with the children.

— We all met at the foundation, where we learned that you can come to master classes. I did not expect that I would participate in the play , - says Lisa.

They share their feelings about the performance among themselves, it is clear that they are worried. The five-minute break ends, the children, along with the actors, return to the stage.

_— Children understand that they are now doing something that is conveyed in a completely different way. Previously, they were looked at with regret, but now they feel a different energy, says Olga.

***

There are many people in the hall, someone is standing in the aisle. Families came. During the performance, children can be heard whispering something to their parents.

“Leukemia is being treated,” the actress reads the letter.

Behind her, voices echo:

- Leukemia is curable.