Maria Kravchenko strides across her rented Toronto room, practising her English-language routine for Saturday’s standup comedy show at Free Times Cafe in the downtown core.
The 27-year-old Odesa native arrived in Toronto two months ago from Riga, Latvia, where she fled to escape the war in Ukraine after Russia’s invasion.
In Odesa, Kravchenko was a professional stage actress with dreams of getting a role on a Netflix show. In Toronto, she’s working as an entertainer at children’s birthday parties — and is now part of a growing group of Ukrainians who’ve been displaced by war and are using standup comedy to tell their stories.
Saturday’s
