How do you stage Chekhov while the world is burning? When there's bombings of Ukrainian cities. When you're from Kyiv and staging a "Russian play." When the culture you love has been weaponized by a government to wage war against everything you come from.I got my education in Russia. Six years in Moscow. Probably the best years of my life — the most extraordinary theatrical experiences, the deepest learning and development I've had as a theater artist. Some of the people I know there are the most heartfelt, open, and profound thinkers I've ever met.And I want to tear it all out of my heart. Forget all of it.Because every bombing of a Ukrainian city is also a bombing of my past. Those missiles are also bombing Chekhov. Bombing Pushkin and Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Destroying the very culture that regime claims to defend.how does one live with that?The Cherry Orchard is about the loss of a world. Loss of connection. Loss of each other. Loss of a family. It's a story where a human being is forgotten — Firs, the old servant, physically locked inside an abandoned house while everyone else moves on with their lives.Right now, human beings are being forgotten.