Theatre performance
EMERGE PRODUCTION HOUSE
CREATIVE TEAM
Writer/Performer: Ivan Ivashkin
Director: Nikolaï Mulakov
Producer: Roxane Cabassut
This autobiographical solo show follows Ivan, a Moscow actor in his 30s, living within his creative circle as his country slides into dictatorship. Amazingly, he somehow manages to squander every professional opportunity to succeed in the film industry, unlike his colleagues around him. Naively stubborn, he remains dedicated to theatre. While losing a family member and entering a professional and mental crisis, he is unexpectedly invited to audition for a UK feature film. Doubting anything will come of it, he sends a tape—and finds himself cast in Mission: Impossible.
At the same time, February 24th happens. Russia invades Ukraine, and Ivan is arrested at an unauthorized anti-war protest to which he couldn’t not attend . A series of random events and strangers helps him obtain his passport and escape the country.
Hoping to reach the UK and get to the film set, he flees to Istanbul without a visa, joining thousands escaping war and repression. Like everyone else, Ivan doesn’t fully understand what has just happened, but he soon has to accept that he cannot return home: the police are searching for him. His bank cards are blocked, his money evaporates, and shifting restrictions prevent him from crossing borders or gaining legal status anywhere. Locals exploit his vulnerability, and his situation becomes increasingly precarious.
Navigating a world that is falling apart, Ivan eventually makes it to the dream set. But what should have been a happy ending becomes the start of a survival Odyssey in a “beautiful new world” where a “creative migrant” from the other side of the Iron Curtain is forced to start from the very bottom. Working double shifts to pay for visas and survive in London, unable to afford even his own bed, he continues working as an actor, using irony as his armor against the circumstances.
Finding shelter in a Gypsy house, he earns money for the new visa and rebuilds his sense of Home, self and existence in a new reality.
2026
IVAN IVASHKIN
Writer / Performer
Ivan is a theatre and film actor and writer born in Moscow, Russia in 1990. After graduating from the GITIS (Russian Academy of Theatre Arts) in 2012 he joined the Moscow Art Theatre, simultaneously performing in other state theaters and different independent productions.
From 2017 to 2022 Ivan was playing a leading role in the immersive performance The Revenants based on Ibsen’s play Ghosts. The performance was nominated for the main Russian Theatre Award Golden Mask as an experiment.
In the UK, Ivan Ivashkin has appeared at Chichester Festival Theatre in Anna Karenina (dir. Philip Green), alongside Natalie Dormer and David Oakes, he also received critical acclaim for his performances in 1984 (Summerhall, sold out run in 2024 and awwarded with Lustrum Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe) and The Last Word directed by Maxim Didienko.
Ivan also has more than 45 credits on Russian TV and films amongst which some global and UK productions. Some recent credits involve Mission: Impossible part 7- 8 directed by Christopher McQuarrie, the feature film Back in Action for Netflix directed by Seth Gordon, The Capture S3 for BBC and Bloods series for SKY TV.
In 2019, Ivan wrote Zhazhda, an experimental theatre performance staged at Mutabor, one of Moscow’s leading techno clubs. At the intersection between theatre and rave culture, the production explored the lives of Vincent van Gogh and Egon Schiele. The play received support from Porsche and Puma.
In 2022, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ivan left Russia and relocated to London.
KOLYA MULAKOV
Director
Nikolay (Kolya) Mulakov is a Russian actor, director, and producer born in Kharkiv, Ukraine. He studied theatre and film acting at GITIS (Russian Institute of Theatre Arts, MFA, 2012-2016) under professor V. Dolgorukov and at the Moscow School of New Cinema (2014-2015) with Y. Muravitsky.
Since 2014, he has been working at Teatr.doc (Moscow), Russia's leading opposition theatre company, and the Meyerhold Theatre Centre. His work has addressed vital topics including the violated rights of the LGBT community in Russia, wars in Ukraine and Syria, justice for political prisoners, and working conditions for independent artists.
As a theatre-maker since 2014, his work includes co-directing and performing in Man in the Cube (Ulovo), Do You Like Purple? (2022, SALAAM CINEMA Baku), Don't Use Russian Gas (2022, Untitled Gallery Tbilisi), and _(underscore) (2021, Meyerhold Theatre Centre, Moscow).
He was forced to flee Russia shortly after expressing his anti-war position and worked in exile in Georgia and Azerbaijan. He moved to London in 2023 after receiving a Global Talent visa for the UK.
His solo show Vanya Is Alive, which premiered at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in August 2023, has received critical acclaim from the Financial Times and The Guardian, and has been presented in Berlin, London, and Paris. In 2024, he was awarded the Lustrum Award at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
"This is trust in me as a director and trust in me personally as a human being. I feel a deep human need inside myself to make this work heard and to let it resonate profoundly in the hearts of the audience. I have great respect for and personal affection for Vanya.
This work is Vanya’s attempt to trust the world. A world that continues to fall apart into past and future, real and unreal—and sometimes, through fixation and notes, we glimpse a flickering present, the one in which we so deeply want to live.
I understand very deeply what Vanya is speaking about, because I too fled Russia in search of a new, beautiful world, which turned out to be so real that personal vulnerability cannot be expressed in everyday life and instead finds its path through theatre—the path of British theatre.
This play is written on the basis of diary notes, using a documentary language that is close to me and that was my tool for ten years at Teatr.doc in Moscow. Now this language is seeking a new expression—this is a personal challenge for me as an artist, to find that expression now. I want to find this language in partnership with the entire team of our production.
I am convinced that the Russian proverb “Do what you must, and let what will be be” vividly reflects Vanya’s story and the tragedy of many people who, through the loss of home, identity, language, friends, and family, try to pull themselves through this world with a wild and almost mad faith in themselves, their profession, and their work."
Director Kolya Mulakov
