Virlana Tkacz was educated at Bennington College and Columbia University. She is the founding director of the Yara Arts Group, a resident company at La MaMa Experimental Theatre in New York. She has directed members of the company and local actors abroad in bilingual versions of Yara's shows. Ms. Tkacz has received the National Theatre Translation Award, the Agni Review Poetry Translation Prize, and three NYSCA grants for her translations with Wanda Phipps.