The Brusnikin Workshop and the Praktika Theater will present the play "Grisha is not a Witness"

The Brusnikin Workshop and the Praktika Theater will present a new play directed by Andrey Gordin based on Nastya Ryabtseva's bestseller Grisha is Not a Witness. The premiere will take place on November 26 at the Praktika Theater.

"Grisha is not a witness" is a poignant monologue by a 14—year-old teenager who is going through a difficult stage of growing up: his grandmother died, his mother left, and bullying unfolded at school, which adults do not seem to notice. Grisha, like many peers, feels lonely and reacts painfully to the injustice of school bullying, the indifference of elders, and one day decides to stop being a silent witness. The hero experiences his first love and comes out of the observer state, finds his own voice.

The original text is written in the genre of a novel in verse. In his new work, Andrey Gordin retains the poetic rhythm, but adds to it an intonation familiar to every modern person from everyday life. The performance refers to the form of poetic stand-up, where difficult problems are described in simple and understandable language. The rhythmic core will be music from the team of composers Anton Silaev and Timofey Silaev, existing at the intersection of several genres. The visual solution is due to the team's attempt to look at history through the eyes of a teenager: artist Anna Braude recreates the world as seen by 14-year-old Grisha.

"I want to believe that this performance will be able to change the opinion of theater among those teenagers who do not like it. This work is intended, among other things, for non-theatrical audiences, for those who do not really understand what theater is today. I want them to come to it and see that the theater can be different — not boring, but about themselves," said the director of the play, Andrei Gordin.

The upcoming premiere continues to reveal the themes laid down by Andrey Gordin's previous work, the therapeutic performance-concert "It's Good that I'm like this", and suggests addressing the difficult problem of finding mutual understanding and empathy in a situation of cruelty and lack of dialogue between peers and between different generations. The play is designed to remind teenagers of the opportunity to change themselves and the world around them for the better, and adults of the importance of constant support and understanding of children, because indifference and silence can hurt more than any words.

The history of the production began with a reading within the framework of the festival "Territory. Kids" in 2023 and continued at the Brusnikin Workshop Pitching in 2024, where a sketch of the future performance was shown.