From Kyiv to the National Theatre: How Sasha Syzonenko Rebuilt a Career in the UK from Zero

She Opened a Map of the World and Chose the UK

Sasha had gone to Bukovel for a ski trip a week before the full-scale invasion began. When the war started she was still in western Ukraine, Kyiv was surrounded, and going home wasn’t an option. She spent about a month not knowing what to do or how long it would last.

Eventually she opened a map and made a decision: she was an actress with a base of English and a strong showreel. The UK made sense. The Homes for Ukraine scheme had just opened. Through a mutual connection of her sister’s, she found a sponsor family who had a house in Gloucester and a flat in London. She arrived with no London contacts whatsoever.

Her first day in London she understood her English was much weaker than she’d thought. Her first week, she started working in a restaurant — because she needed money — and simultaneously started looking for any possible way into the industry. The approach she took from the start: do everything. All at once. Because there is no time to wait.

300 Emails, Day Two, and Choking on Her Borsch

On her second day in the UK, through a mutual contact, she met a RADA graduate who gave her a list of 300 agent email addresses. He briefly explained how to write a cover letter, what to attach — CV, Spotlight profile, showreel — and what the format should look like.

Her cover letter was simple to the point of absurdity: “Hi, I’m looking for representation. My showreel, my Spotlight, my CV. Will be glad to meet at your convenience. Sincerely.” She spelled “Spotlight” wrong. She sat down and sent all 300 emails anyway.

Because her showreel was strong and her Ukrainian and Russian-language credits were extensive, about 50 people responded. She spent weeks on Zoom calls with all of them, trying to assess who was good, who wasn’t — almost impossible when everyone is equally polite, equally warm, equally “lovely, lovely, amazing.” All British agents were equally kind and she liked all of them equally, which made the decision impossible.

Then one of Britain’s top agencies wrote to her. She was eating borsch when the email arrived. She nearly choked. The agent — Nicky, who also represents Benedict Cumberbatch and Helena Bonham Carter — invited her in for “a few pieces of advice, like a coffee.” Sasha arrived completely relaxed, expecting a sympathy chat about her photos or her showreel. She sat on their sofa looking around the beautiful office. And at some point in the conversation the agent asked: “Are you actually interested in working with us? You seem like you might not be?”

What She Would Do Differently

Mass emailing is not the right approach — she admits this directly. The correct way is to personalise each email: use the agent’s name, show you’ve researched their agency, mention what specifically appeals to you about their roster. That said, her honest takeaway is that what actually got responses was the quality of the showreel and the depth of her Ukrainian credits — not the cover letter. If your work is strong, even a bad email can open doors. But do both properly if you can.

Two Lines About Selling Ducks — That Became Seven Roles

The path to the National Theatre was not direct. It happened through a Ukrainian casting director, Olya Lyubarova, who had also just arrived in London. Sasha’s Ukrainian agent mentioned her name — they had never met, Sasha had never auditioned for her — but the logic was simple: you’re both in London now, it’s perfectly normal to just write and suggest a coffee. They met, became friends.

Several months later, Olya was working as a casting assistant at the National Theatre, which was organising a masterclass for Ukrainian actors — about 20 performers reading English-language monologues in front of British casting directors. The session was recorded; casting directors who couldn’t attend could watch it later. Sasha prepared a monologue through a Chubbuck technique course she’d found in London, rehearsed it, performed it — and someone in the room remembered her.

About six months after the masterclass, she was invited to an R&D (Research and Development) — the process by which the National Theatre tests a new play before committing to a full production. They read scenes, rehearse fragments, and constantly discuss what’s landing and what isn’t.

The play — The Land of the Living, directed by Stephen Daldry — is set after the Second World War, following the search for displaced children taken from Ukraine, Poland and Russia and placed with German families. The story spans the immediate post-war period and the 1990s. There were multiple Ukrainian characters.

Stephen Daldry directed Nicole Kidman to her Oscar for The Hours and Kate Winslet to hers for The Reader. He also produced and directed The Crown for Netflix. A titan of British and international theatre and film.

The R&D ran three times over a year and a half. Sasha’s English improved with each round. She didn’t fully participate in the script discussions at first — too much unfamiliar vocabulary — but she was always visibly present and engaged. Daldry noticed. He started using her in rehearsals for things beyond her two lines: “Sasha, sing a Ukrainian lullaby here. Sasha, hold this suitcase — this is a child — and carry it while you sing.”

After a year and a half of R&D sessions she was confirmed in the production. She still had two lines. But because the script had been written as a film screenplay with dozens of characters — too many for a theatre cast — one actor needed to play multiple roles. And because she had been present and trusted throughout the whole development process, they gave her seven small characters across the full story. Then her Ukrainian woman’s scene expanded. Then Sasha suggested the character needed more — she needed to describe her children. A monologue appeared. One Sasha essentially invented herself.

Then during the run, one of the leads fell ill. The easiest casting reshuffle was to give her role to Sasha, since Sasha’s small parts could be distributed to others. For one week she covered a lead role — alongside Juliet Stevenson, who plays roles people buy tickets months in advance to see — while also playing her original parts, with 30-second costume changes throughout. The stage manager came out before each of those performances to tell the audience what was happening: that their Ukrainian actress, performing in her second language, had stepped in and taken on the role.

What She Learned About British Theatre

The UK does not have a repertory system the way Ukrainian theatres do. There is no permanent company, no ensemble you’re part of for years, no steady income. Productions run for a few months, then close. Actors work show to show — and in between, the vast majority work as waiters, bartenders, or in whatever other jobs keep them solvent. Even actors who have worked at the National Theatre. This was the thing that surprised her most.

An eight-show week is standard when a production is running — sometimes two shows a day, with a 2.5-hour show in the afternoon and another 2.5-hour show in the evening, with barely an hour to eat in between. The Land of the Living ran for 65 performances over two months, preceded by a month and a half of daily rehearsals.

500 Emails a Day. Here’s How to Be One They Actually Read.

A top casting director receives around 500 emails a day. Most are not read. This is not a reason to stop sending them — it is a reason to send them properly. Sasha’s advice: make the email effortlessly easy to engage with. Clean layout, every link working, something that immediately shows your work. If they open it, you have three seconds.

But her most emphatic advice is: go to the paid casting director workshops. In the UK there is a whole ecosystem of these — sessions where a working casting director or their assistant sends scenes in advance, you prepare and perform them, get redirected, perform again, and the whole thing is professionally recorded. The footage is yours to keep and use in your showreel or on Spotlight.

The investment is twofold: you build a relationship with a real casting director who will remember your face, and you build your English-language performance skills in a structured, recorded environment. Assistants to casting directors are particularly worth knowing — they often cast smaller roles independently and can be a genuine entry point.

The long game paid off directly. Years after attending a workshop with casting director Chandra Reck, Sasha auditioned for Donbas at Theatre503 — cast by Chandra. For that audition, she was sent a scene in which her character — from Transnistria — had a monologue in Romanian. Romanian shares nothing with any language Sasha speaks. She remembered Chandra saying in that early Q&A that the thing she values most is preparation. So Sasha learned the entire Romanian monologue from memory. She was the only actor who did.

Work on Fluency First. Accents Come After.

This is the clearest and most direct advice Sasha gives on language — and it’s different from what many actors hear. Her agent told her on day one: don’t work on accents yet. Work on fluency. It makes no sense to add accent work on top of an uncertain foundation.

She spent two years attending an English-language college — 20 hours a week in the first year, then less. She completed a GCSE English qualification (the standard UK school-leaving exam typically taken at 16). She did it because her agent told her to, and because she understood that until the language itself was solid, nothing else would work.

• 1

  Build vocabulary and fluency first

  Formal classes, a college course, whatever works. You need the foundation before you work on how you sound. Four years of living in the language, watching shows and films, being in rehearsal rooms — that is the real teacher.

• 2

  Read aloud constantly

  Not just silently. Read text out loud every day. Your mouth needs to learn the shapes of the sounds, not just your brain.

• 3

  Accept the accent you have

  For the first years, you will be cast as Eastern European. This is not a limitation — it is your specific value. Ukrainian actors have an authenticity in those roles that no one else can replicate. Your origin is an asset, not a barrier.

• 4

  Work with an accent coach when you have a specific job

  Sasha only worked with an accent coach when she had a concrete role requiring a specific accent — in her case, English with a Romanian accent for Donbas. A few hours with a specialist is far more effective and efficient than general accent training without a goal.

• 5

  The long target: a neutral, unplaced accent

  It takes years. After four years of constant work, her agent is now starting to submit her for roles where the accent is not defined as Eastern European. This is the horizon — not British, but flexible enough that the character’s origin is ambiguous. Possible to achieve, but it requires real commitment.

We Are Not Less. We Just Think We Are.

One of the most important things Sasha said in the entire session — and the one most worth carrying forward. In her first year, she auditioned for a physical theatre production. She made it to the final round: five women, all of similar type, from Poland, France, the UK, and Ukraine. She gave what she felt was an excellent audition. She didn’t get the role — not because of her performance, but because the production was touring for a year internationally and they didn’t yet trust that a recent arrival from a country at war would have the stability to commit to the full run.

Ukrainian acting training — the Karpenko-Karyi tradition, the system most Ukrainian theatrical actors come through — is serious and rigorous. It produces real professionals. The belief that Ukrainian actors are somehow lesser is something actors carry in their own heads, not something the industry believes.

How to Actually Get There — and Stay

Sasha arrived through the Homes for Ukraine scheme — you find a UK-based sponsor and they host you. She lived with her sponsors for just under two years, then rented independently. The scheme is still active but finding willing sponsors has become harder as the war continues. Many Ukrainians now use it purely for the paperwork — finding someone to formally sponsor their application even if they don’t actually live with them, then finding their own accommodation independently.

Where to Find Work, Train, and Build Your Network in the UK

Her Final Message

Do everything you can reach. Every masterclass, every workshop, every networking event, every short film, every opportunity that comes your way — take it. Exchange Instagram handles with everyone. Keep your Instagram active and professional — if someone looks you up, there should be something there that shows you’re an actor.

Opportunities come through people. Always. That’s true in Ukraine, in the UK, everywhere. The coffee with Olya led to the National Theatre. The workshop with Chandra led to Donbas. The actor on day two who gave her 300 email addresses changed everything. None of it was planned. All of it required her to keep moving.