We’re always interested in new work by new writers, so we always keep an eye out for anything on at Theatre503, and their upcoming production of Theatre503 International Playwriting Award winner ‘Donbas’ definitely called out to me.

It’s by writer and comedian Olga Braga, and it’s set in Ukraine on the eve of the country’s invasion by Russia. 

The play – which looks at how people cope in war time, as well as how the ordinary facets of their lives continue – is directed by the venue’s new Artistic Director Anthony Simpson-Pike. 

To find out more about the play, and both the playwright and the director, I spoke to Olga and Anthony ahead of opening night. 

CM: Olga, can you start by telling us a bit about the narrative of ‘Donbas’? Who is it about and what story does it tell?
OB: ‘Donbas’ is set in a small town near the frontline, as the full-scale invasion of Ukraine begins. At its centre is a family on the edge of fracture.

There’s Seryoga, a weary father trying to stop his son Sashko from enlisting; Marianca, his partner, longing to leave but bound by love and circumstance; Vera, their neighbour, grieving what the war has already taken; and Nadya, a teenage girl who becomes the play’s conscience – child, witness, keeper of myth. 

But the world they live in isn’t only disaster. It’s also hair dye and dumplings, a Snickers shared on the walk home, the perfect shade of red lipstick. Those moments of levity aren’t distractions; they’re survival.

As the outside world collapses inward, routine and fantasy become lifelines. Cossack stories ride alongside gunfire. Language shifts. History isn’t past; it’s in the room.

CM: What are the primary themes of the play?
OB: ‘Donbas’ is about war, but also about the ordinary life that continues inside it. The play lives in domestic details — a gingerbread house on the table, a quarrel over whether almond milk is real milk, a grandmother playing at Scarlett O’Hara. 

One of its central themes is story: the myths people reach for when reality becomes too much to hold. Nadya and Sashko invent Cossacks riding through the steppe, not as escapism, but as survival.

Another theme is choice under coercion – stay or go, fight or flee, protect your child or let them go. The play holds tenderness and brutality together, and insists on resilience. 

CM: How would you describe it in terms of style or genre?
OB: It’s a war play, but not in the epic sense. The scale is deliberately intimate: one town, one household, a handful of lives. The style moves between naturalism and something more fractured, more mythic.

There are scenes of realism – food, arguments, small humiliations – and then moments where the play breaks open into story, into history, into hallucination. Nadya’s imagination becomes a kind of stage language. 

I think of it as a piece of heightened realism: a domestic drama where reality can’t hold, so it cracks, and story pours through the cracks. The form shifts because war shifts reality. 

By the end, the play is operating on another level – as though the world itself has broken, language has fractured, and the form has to fracture with it.

CM: What was your inspiration for writing this? What made you decide to cover this topic, these themes?
OB: I didn’t begin ‘Donbas’ by deciding on themes. It wasn’t an intellectual project. It came from a visceral place – from feelings I couldn’t organise yet and the need to write without over-thinking.

I tried not to make arguments, just to stay close to what was happening in the body: fear, love, helplessness, the strange persistence of the everyday.

The ideas came later. I followed images, bits of dialogue, the pressure of it – and trusted the play to tell me what it was about.

CM: Does the play have a message? Who is it aimed at?
OB: ‘Donbas’ is for anyone who has felt overwhelmed or numb in the face of violence — and for anyone who still wants to keep looking. 

It asks the audience to stay with people living through war, without reducing them to soundbites. But it isn’t only bleak. It’s full of small moments of care: tea being made, flirting, someone insisting on lipstick or beauty for no reason at all. Those fragile gestures matter. They’re how people survive. 

The message is one of resilience: survival is made of small things and those small things are a form of hope.

CM: Anthony, can you tell us about your approach to directing ‘Donbas’?
AS-P: My approach to directing ‘Donbas’ has been really similar to my approach to directing ‘Grenfell: In Words Of The Survivors’, which is to say that I’ve had to think really carefully about how to prioritise research and also sensitivity in the way we are depicting reality. 

When you’re working on a play that’s depicting real life it puts a different sort of duty onto the work, and that can be really invigorating and refreshing – and it really connects you to the present moment. 

That’s what I really love about directing work that reflects the world we live in now.

CM: And can you tell us a bit about your career path – what made you decide to pursue a career in the theatre and what brought you to this point? 
AS-P: I grew up in a village in Yorkshire and was bored a lot of the time, so theatre became a thing that I had a lot of fun with. I took part in NT Connections in my final year of school and that really changed everything for me, and let me know the possibilities of theatre. 

At university, I acted in about 30 plays, as well as directing, and it put me around people who took this thing very seriously. After university, I went to Central School Of Speech And Drama to study acting. I wanted to study acting so I could have a tool-kit for all kinds of theatre making. 

After that, I did something called TYPT at Talawa and I worked with a director / dramaturg called Ola Animashawun. I asked them how I could get to do what they were doing and they said to go and speak to someone called Sue Emmas at the Young Vic.

Sue introduced me to the Director’s Programme there, and gave me my first job as an Assistant Director. That was my first professional gig, and from there I carried on assisting and directing and learning my craft. 

I joined The Gate as Associate Director, then the Yard as Associate Director and then Deputy Artistic Director, and in 2025 I joined Theatre503 as Artistic Director. 

CM: Olga, can you also tell us a bit about yourself now? What made you want to work in the arts?
OB: I’m a playwright and screenwriter, currently on attachment at the National Theatre, London. I got into the arts after a brief flirtation with law, because I’ve always been obsessed with stories, and because it’s one of the few jobs where being curious, nosy and overly earnest is useful. 

I learned English by watching ‘The Simpsons’, ‘Fawlty Towers’ and other programmes of similar educational value. As a child, I used to talk to myself. As an adult, I do the same. Only now I write it down and call it a play. 

I also perform stand-up comedy, and humour is why even my darker work has moments of levity. At its best, theatre is a room full of strangers feeling something together – sometimes grief, sometimes laughter, often both.

CM: What have been the highlights of your career thus far?
OB: Winning the Theatre503 International Playwriting Award for ‘Donbas’ – from 1586 submissions across 50 countries – has been a major highlight. It’s been incredibly encouraging to have strong producers champion the play, and I’ve been fortunate to work with Anthony, who I’ve learned a great deal from.

CM: What aims and ambitions do you have for the future?
OB: I want to keep writing work that treats people as fully human – complicated, contradictory – and I want it to be enjoyable. 

I love theatre as a way of gathering: a group of people holding the same moment. I’m drawn to drama, to joy and to humour. I want the stories to have bite, to move, to entertain as well as matter. 

Ultimately, I want to make work that connects people without sanding anyone down.

CM: And finally, Anthony, can you tell us about your future plans as AD of Theatre503?
AS-P: ‘Donbas’ is the start of our 2026/27 season, and so for now I’ll be focused on the four incredible plays we have coming up over the next year. 

Beyond that, we are launching a young company and rolling out primary school playwriting classes – making sure that the opportunity to tell your story is available to everyone. 

I’m thinking about what it means for us to be the National Theatre Of Debut Plays. We are the only theatre in the country that exclusively programmes debut plays, so it’s vital we continue to reach across the UK to find the best and most exciting writers and stories.  

Theatre is a place we come together to listen to a story in community with each other. We agree to learn something new about the world – and in a time where everyone is increasingly divided, platforming stories we haven’t heard before in ways we haven’t seen before feels more important than ever. 

‘Donbas’ is on at Theatre503 from 5-28 Feb. See the venue website here for more information and to book tickets.

LINKS: theatre503.com