Produced and performed by an all-female cast and crew, Nordost tells the harrowing story of the 57-hour hostage crisis in Moscow’s Dubrovka Theatre and its shocking culmination from the perspective of three very different women: Olga (Elizabeth Kirkland), a Russian mother, has saved for months to bring her husband and young daughter to the theatre to see the first original Russian musical. Zura (Chelsea MacDonald), a young Chechen widow, travels to Moscow as a suicide bomber, trained to avenge her country and her slain husband. Tamara (Randi Edmundson) is a paramedic and single mother called to the scene of the crisis, who has ties to the Chechen conflict of her own. As lives and families are forever altered, these three women must find new sources of strength, resistance, and empathy.

At a time when terrorism, rebellion, and imperial military muscle (not to mention Vladimir Putin) are once again dominating headlines, Nordost invites audiences to examine contemporary issues through past events. Who are the “others”, known to us only through their violent acts? Are they terrorists? Freedom fighters? Murderers? Revolutionaries? Is there any way, amidst the atrocities committed by both sides, that we might come to understand each other?

David Tushingham’s translation commissioned by Company of Angels, London, and first presented at the Salisbury Playhouse Studio in April 2013.