The play "Сhernovik" (ru) in Frankfurt 23 October 2026

A youth theater production based on Joseph Brodsky’s poem “The Procession”
Joseph Brodsky wrote “The Procession” in 1961, when he was 21 years old. The actors of the Step By Step theater studio are about the same age now; through the texts of Brodsky and Alexander Galich, they are coming to terms with their place in the world. They are trying to understand whether it is possible to preserve one’s own voice when thousands of others are speaking all around.

“Draft” is a conversation about an individual in a crowd. A conversation about life and death, freedom and loneliness, war and propaganda, choice and responsibility.

Joining the young actors in their search for answers are heroes of world literature and theater—Don Quixote, Hamlet, Harlequin—as well as allegorical characters—the Thief, the King, and the Merchant. Changing faces and personas, the troupe gathers answers piece by piece in search of the very essence.

In the play, words become movement, movement becomes music, and the stage transforms into a space where worlds are born and crumble. This is how “Draft” comes to life. A play about the crowd as seen through the eyes of those who are just beginning to find their place in the crowd… or apart from it.

A “special” performance ahead of the Step by Step theater troupe’s trip to the “Theatrical Baltic” international festival in Riga.