The Out of the Wings Team are please to announce that the winner of the Dragons’ Den competition was the entry submitted jointly by the Silver Lining Theatre Company and Artes Escénicas Rayuela proposing a production of playwright Griselda Gambaro’s Los siameses translated by Gwen MacKeith. Congratulations in particular to Mara Lockowandt (Silver Lining) and to Jorge Perez Falconi (Artes Escénicas) for coming along and giving such a dynamic and interesting presentation.

We would also like to thank all the teams who came along and so confidently presented their proposals. In all we had nine entries, of which five were selected to present on the night itself. It was a great evening and we hope that it was a rewarding (if not daunting!) experience for those who entered.

Lastly, a huge thank you to our ‘dragon’ judges – James Hogan (Oberon Books); Nicola Stanhope (Hackney Empire); Alan Read (King’s College London); Chris Campbell (Royal Court Theatre); and Annecy Hayes (Iceandfire) – for their expertise, their time, and for giving our contestants and fair and robust Dragons’ Den grilling.

The Out of the Wings Dragons’ Den training session will take place tomorrow between 4 and 5.30 pm in Room S.-2.25 in the basement of the King’s Strand Campus. Take the lifts immediately in front of you as you enter the Strand reception down to floor minus 2, turn left and it is the first set of lime green door you come to. Ask for directions from the reception desk if you are unsure of where to go.

Out of the Wings “Dragons’ Den” Competition Training Session

Thursday 3 March 16.00 – 17.30 , King’s College London, Strand Campus (room TBC)

Thank you for expressing an interest in competing for up to £10,000 to produce a play from our database of translated plays from Spain and Spanish America .

We are offering a training session before the Dragons’ Den event itself. This session is designed to help you with your business planning and presentation skills.  Please let us know as soon as possible if you are able to attend.

We ask you to come to the training session with some planning of your production already underway.

Firstly, please arrive with a clear idea of which play text you have chosen for production from our database of plays available on www.outofthewings.org.

Other considerations we would also like to prepare in advance of the training session would include:

• 1) The costs involved in hiring a venue.  We would advise that you make preliminary enquiries to ascertain what these costs might be: availability, day rates, technical facilities lighting and sound, seating capacity etc.
• 2) Copyright and performance rights clearance.  Is a full translation available and can you secure permission to use it? Gain an estimate of the costs involved for performance rights.
• 3) Actors.  How many, of what gender? What will they be paid?  Are equity rates specified by the venue?
• 4)  Travel expenses involved.
• 6)  Budget for costumes?
• 7)  Cost of rehearsal space?
• 8)  Advertising: posters, flyers, listings in London publications?  Do you have an in-house designer, or will this be a further cost?  Will you use other free methods of publicising the production, eg. Facebook, Myspace etc?
• 9)  Are they any other petty costs?  Postage for a mail out etc?
• 10)  Identify your team. In addition to the actors, who will fulfil the duties of the following production team roles (these jobs may be done by the same person, but how will the responsibilities entailed be covered by the members of your team?) – Artistic director / Producer / Marketing Manager / Production Manager / Set designer / Lighting and Sound designers and technicians / Stage Manager
• 11)  A contingency sum.  When the budget has been fully costed, add 7 – 8% of the total costs.  What would that make your total figure? Make a calculation of the entire production in order to ascertain if the production will break even.  Divide the total costs by the figure of the price of a ticket multiplied by the maximum number of seats and the number of nights of performance.

While we do not expect you to have worked out each and every one of these factors in detail, your application will be enhanced by some thought given to these details. If you can identify some of these points ahead of the training day, you will get more from the session as you will be able to apply your real numbers in making a draft budget and plan.

We look forward to seeing you on the 3^rd.

With best wishes,

The Out of the Wings Team

Out of the Wings wishes to offer the opportunity to compete for up to £10,000 to produce a play from our database of translated plays from Spain and Spanish America.

These plays are located at www.outofthewings.org.

We invite applications from students on postgraduate programmes on theatre and directing.

The adjudication process will take the form of a ‘Dragons’ Den’ type event in London, where applicants will present their plan for the production.

The format and rules for the competition are as follows:

1. The event you are proposing must involve a live audience at a venue selected by you. You will be responsible for all aspects of the production, including ensuring that your chosen venue is available.
2. The production must take place before 30 November 2011
3. The competition is open to teams of students currently enrolled in a postgraduate theatre programme.
4. Each team will be encouraged to attend a training session before the Dragons’ Den itself. This session is designed to help you with your business planning and presentation skills. This event will take place at King’s College London on the week beginning 28 February.
5. Each team / entrant will submit an outline of the event (maximum 500 words) and a business plan (maximum 10 pages). This must include written confirmation from your venue. Your outline and business plan should be submitted to Out of the Wings at info@outofthewings.org. Hard copies may be sent to Professor Catherine Boyle, Out of the Wings, Spanish, Portuguese and Latin American Studies, King’s College London, Strand, London, WC2R 2LS.
6. The deadline for submission of applications is Friday 11 March 2011.
7. The Out of the Wings Dragons’ Den event is scheduled to take place in London on the evening of Thursday 17 March. You will give a five-minute presentation and face questions arising from your outline and business plan. You are encouraged to invite friends and supporters to this event.
8. The total prize fund for this competition is £10,000 and this will be awarded by the Dragons as they see fit.
9. Dragons’ decision is final.

For more information, feel free to email us on info@outofthewings.org.

Registration for Invisible Presences: Translation, Dramaturgy and Performance, to be held in the Brian Friel Theatre at Queen’s University Belfast (18-20 April), is now open. Please go to https://admin.qol.qub.ac.uk/ecommerce/trad2011/ and continue through the registration process. A link to our website, where you will find discounted accommodation, may also be found there.

Once you have registered, we will send you regular updates on the Invisible Presences Conference.

The following have confirmed as plenary participants: Susan Bassnett, Catherine Boyle, Marvin Carlson, Peter Eckershall, Susan Fischer, David Johnston, Mary Luckhurst, Lawrence Venuti. There will also be nearly fifty papers, two rehearsed readings, a performance and a number of workshops.

Coming soon from the University of Wales Press:

Golden Age Drama in Contemporary Spain: The Comedia on Page, Stage and Screen

Duncan Wheeler

This is the first book dedicated to the performance and reception of sixteenth and seventeenth century national drama in contemporary Spain. It contextualises the socio-historical background to productions of works by the country’s three major Spanish baroque playwrights (Calderón de la Barca, Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina), whilst also providing detailed, accessible and jargon-free aesthetic analyses of individual stage and screen adaptations. Plot summaries of each of the plays discussed are included, and the extensive bibliography will provide an essential resource for academics, practitioners and students alike.

See the poster for full information:  Golden Age Drama in Contemporary Spain

Liminal Space Productions presents

Olives and Blood

By Michael Bradford
A rehearsed readingwith Q & A at Caravanserai Studios, 7.30pm December 15th2010
Directed by Prav Menon-Johansson

Liminal Space Productions presents a rehearsed reading of anew play in development  Olives and Blood (SOMBRA de unPOETA en la OLIVAR ) by American playwright, MichaelBradford who will be flying in from Granada, Spain where he is on aFulbright Scholarship to attend the reading and to host a Q & A.

Michael Bradford (Associate Head of Theatre Studies,Associate Professor of Playwriting at the University of Connecticut, USA,Fulbright Scholar)
Bradford?s work has been produced Off-Broadway at the American PlaceTheatre, and elsewhere in New York at the Lark Developmental Theatre, The Flea,The Access and the NADA Theatre. He has received the Manhattan Theatre ClubPlaywright fellowship, the LARK Theatre Writers Residency and the New YorkStage and Film Residency, New York. His play, LIVING IN THE WIND, received overten AUDELCO Theatre award nominations, and WILLY?S CUT AND SHINE was recentlypublished by Broadway Play Publishing and produced at the ETA Creative Theatre, Chicago, Ilinois.

Bradford is considered one of the most promising African American playwrights today.

Olives and Blood
This is a contemporary play about the murder of Spanish poet andplaywright, Federico Garcia Lorca.  The drama focuses on one of the murderers who stood on that dark hillside in 1936.  One particular murderer, Juan Luis Trescastro Medina (for the purpose of this play renamed simply, Trescante), later bragged about his involvement in the deluded attemptto silence Lorca’s  voice by silencing his life.  In the end, Trescante cannot help but realize that neither five bullets, nor unmarked massgrave, nor thirty years of banning the works of Lorca had the power to stillthe Poet?s voice.  Instead, it is the murderer, living and breathing inthe world, who has become the voiceless, invisible one.

Performance:            WednesdayDecember 15th 2010 at 7.30pm

Venue:                       CaravanseraiStudios (Entrance to the studio is at:
334B Ladbroke Grove) http://www.caravanseraiproductions.com/

Nearest tubes:             KensalGreen (Bakerloo line, Overground), Kensal Rise (Overground) orLadbroke Grove (Circle, Hammersmith & City)Buses 23, 52, 316, 452 (Kensal House stop)2 minutes walk from Sainsbury’s by the canal

Tickets:            Free, Reservations required with Prav Menon-Johansson

For further information please contact Prav Menon-Johansson at pravmj@mac.com.
Prav Menon-Johansson
Mobile: 07799 412328
Website: www.pravmjdirect.com

The Brian Friel Theatre, Queen’s University Belfast

Friday 26 November 2010

7.30pm. Tickets £4.00 on the door with a complimentary glass of wine or soft drink.

As part of Queen’s Quarter Weekends, Play in a Day presents a dramatised reading of Ernesto Caballero’s thriller En la roca, translated as On the Rock by Sarah Maitland:

The year is 1937. Across Spain, a brutal civil war is raging. In the famous Hotel Rock of Gibraltar, two young men reminisce over the course of an evening about their Cambridge days. In a meeting where nothing is quite what it seems, the fate of the Second Spanish Republic and the very course of World War Two rests in their hands. On the Rock invites its audience to step back in time to the inter-war years and the smoke-filled world of international espionage...

9 November 2010: 7.30pm

The Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre, London

Tickets Free. Book online at www.amnesty.org.uk/ehtr.

As part of the Everyone Has The Right writing programme, Catherine Boyle’s translation of Juan Radrigán’s Las Brutas will receive a rehearsed play reading on 9 Novmeber 2010.

Las Brutas is based on a true story of three Cola (indigenous Andean) sisters who, in October 1974, were found tied together and hanged from a rock near their home. The play delves into the last months in these women’s lives in the isolated mountains of Pinochet’s Chile.

More information on this and other readings is available by visiting the Amnesty International Everyone Has the Right website.

Great news. The Out of the Wings website is now live!

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