Antonina Crimeawas given the name Anton at birth in 1985 in the city of Simferopol, but later took the name of Antonina when coming out as a non-binary person. They graduated from the Kotliarevskyi National University of Arts in Kharkiv, receiving a diploma as a director of dramatic theater. They staged several productions in various theaters in Ukraine and were an occasional reader for competitions of contemporary Ukrainian drama.

After the occupation of Crimea in late February 2014, they left their native city, subsequently taking its name as their pseudonym. At the end of February 2022, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, they volunteered for the army. Unable to practice theater at the front in combat positions, they participated in online theater projects, and recorded videos that were incorporated into performances. Playwright Tetiana Kytsenko wrote a play, Antonina, based on conversations the two had online. Inspired by this text, and by interactions with the writers Oleksandr Zhuhan and Iryna Harets, Antonina wrote their own first work for theater — A Text for Theater.

“I wrote it in one fell swoop on the battlefield at the end of February 2025,” they said. “The text is about presence. About ‘presence’ as a theatrical term. About the presence of artists in Ukraine now. About my personal presence at the very moment I was writing the text. About the presence of people in the audience at the moment the text is being read.”

Text was first performed on stage by Iryna Harets in Poltava. It was later performed in Lviv, Kyiv, and Cologne. It was included in the longlist of the Drama.UA competition, and shared first place in the Contemporary Play Week competition. It was first presented in English in May 2026 as a staged reading by the Voyage Theater Company of New York.

Crimea was named among the “Ukrainska Pravda 100: Women’s Power” award in the Culture category in March 2026