Live Coverage of an NYC Theatre Event for Ukraine

Fighting violence and injustice, with artists

In April 2022, the New York-based Martin E. Segal Theatre Center — a non-profit centre for theatre, dance, and film, affiliated with the City University of New York — brought together 24 New York theatres, with hundreds of artists and theatre-makers, for a 12-hour non-stop marathon of readings and conversations in solidarity with Ukraine. The event took place an exact month after Mariupol’s drama theatre, which was being used as an air-raid shelter, was bombed by Russia. For this, The Paper Planes Agency conceptualised a visual identity and ran communications for social media, across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, both leading up to the event, and live through the 12-hour marathon. The visual identity took cues from Ukraine’s art and craft heritage to create the visual language for the campaign. We designed templates to announce participating theatres, share quotes during the event, and post snapshots and screen recordings from the live performances.

Live coverage of the marathon featured powerful quotes from theatre-makers.

Pre-event coverage included rallying theatre artists from the world over for the 12-hour marathon.

The motifs and illustrations drew on Ukraine’s art and craft heritage.

The marathon had a fantastic response, but alas, things took an unexpected turn on Instagram — activity on the Segal Center account alarmed the social platform and the account was suspended, which, we were informed, was supposedly an action taken to protect the Instagram community. 

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