Playwrite: Mila Levine
Director: Lissa Moira

An autobiographical one-woman show about a timid, imaginative, and resilient Jewish girl from Kiev, Ukraine, who immigrates to the US and who has always wanted to be an artist – filled with original music and poetry. “Leaving Kiev: Coming Full Circle” is about leaving home we always carry inside.

 

Cast
Mila Levine

MILA LEVINE: BIOGRAPHY
Mila Levine is a Kiev-born performing artist, poet, singer, songwriter, actor, and playwright. She performed her solo shows, “Leaving Kiev” and “Leaving Kiev, Part 2” at numerous  festivals in New York City. A shorter version of this show, “Behind Closed Doors,” was done virtually, and is currently on Mila’s YouTube Channel, @Milochka89. Mila received multiple honorable mentions in several songwriting contests. The album of her original Russian songs, “My Voyage Back,” written by her as a teenager and then partially translated into English is currently available online under her first name “Mila.” Mila arrived to the United States when she was eighteen years old with no knowledge of English. She has been writing poetry since she was seven and songs since she was thirteen. In the United States, Mila earned two master’s degrees as well as multiple fitness certifications that allow her to teach various fitness formats. She is also an owner of a nonprofit theater company, Stage Love Theater, Inc. Her YouTube Channel includes several of her music videos, including, “Hometown” dedicated to her hometown, Kiev, and the war in Ukraine.

LISSA MOIRA, DIRECTOR

Lissa Moira (director) is a playwright, screenwriter, director, artist and poet. She is two-time Jerome Foundation grantee and an OOBR Award-winning actress. She directed and was dramaturg of “Siren’s Heart, Norma Jean and Marilyn in Purgatory” by Walt Stepp, which enjoyed a seven-week run at TNC in 2011 and then played 14 months Off-Broadway at the Actors Temple starring Louisa Bradshaw. The following year, she directed “Skybox,” also by Walt Stepp, at TNC. Her direction of “Cocaine Dreams” at the Kraine was described by the NY Post (Chip Deffaa) as “inspired.” Last season, she directed two musicals at TNC: “Who Murdered Love?” a Dadaist musical comedy which she co-wrote with Richard West, and “Bliss Street,” an Indie Rock musical by Abra Bigham from a concept by Rich Brotman with songs by Charlie Sub. The latter show traced the role of the club-owning Sub family in the making of New York’s decade of punk, glam and glitter rock. This February, she has helmed “The Boy Who Listened ToPaintings,” a musical theater work based on the memoir of the same name by the late visual artist and poet Dean Kostos (1954 – 2022), an extensively published, award-winning poet.