CALL for PARTICIPANTS

in

undercover

New Approaches to Plays from the Spanish Golden Age through Hidden Histories of Women & Native Americans

mission

The American Society for Theatre Research (ASTR) is forming a working session to:

• Uncover new riches from theater history’s best-kept secret – the Spanish Comedia nueva.
• Overhear vibrantly expressed underdog perspectives, as Native Americans and women take center stage.
• Unearth golden opportunities for critical study, performance experimentation, and dynamic teaching.

ways in

In pursuit of its mission, this working session forms multidisciplinary teams to dig into two revolutionary plays currently poised for explosion in America:

1. 1.     Ana Caro’s Valor, agravio y mujer (c. 1640). 

Known Fact:  playwright Ana Caro (c. 1600–1652) illuminates undercover history of female playwrights during the Siglo de Oro.

Known Fact:  protagonist Leonor (a/k/a Leonardo) mounts feminist counter-attack on Don Juan.

Facts To Be Determined:  How do Caro and her heroine open new horizons for Comedia research, shedding light on theater-making during the Spanish Golden Age and raising implications for staging and teaching today?  How does translation by Amy Williamsen (Courage, Betrayal, and a Woman Scorned) and editing by Ian Borden equip this play for resurgence in America?

1. 2.     Lope de Vega’s El nuevo mundo descubierto por Cristobal Colón (c. 1600).

Known Fact:  first play in history to put Native Americans on stage.

Known Fact:  explores the causes and consequences of first contact between Europe and America.

Facts To Be Determined:  How do Nuevo mundo’s Amerindian characters interrogate theater’s capacity to challenge expectations about aliens, explode stereotypes, and promote human rights?  How can translation for Florida’s quincentennial (1513-2013) make this play a springboard for everyday citizens to engage in cultural rediscovery?

infiltration plan

Assembling multidisciplinary teams that link modern language experts with theater scholars, incorporate enthusiastic newcomers, and build on a history of collaborations previously sponsored by ASTR’s Comedia research group, this venture penetrates cultural barriers as participants:

• Post initial responses to target plays on session’s wiki (June).

• Contribute to online library of resources for researching target plays (July).

• Formulate collaborative list of team research questions (August).

• Produce an individual paper that explores a target play through a specific research question (September).

• Respond to other team members’ papers and develop presentations for ASTR’s conference (October).

• Participate in presentations that report team findings, stimulate discussion, and actively involve all ASTR members attending the session’s meeting in Nashville (November).

moles

Experienced agents already stationed in the field to help teams dig effectively include:

Team Leaders Karen Berman (Georgia College & State University), Nena Couch (Ohio State University), Janine Kehlenbach (11 Minutes Theatre Company, Denver), and Darci Strother (California State University San Marcos).

Senior Scholars Ian Borden (University of Nebraska Lincoln), Ben Gunter (Theater with a Mission, Tallahassee), Grover Wilkins 3^rd (Orchestra of New Spain, Dallas), and Amy Williamsen (University of North Carolina Greenboro).

Respondent Susan Paun de García (Denison University).

special operative appeals

• Because operations to incorporate comedias into teaching, production, and research in America can fail when agents encounter difficulty in decoding texts, teams will focus on equipping target plays with features that make them user-friendly – e.g., guides to critical hotspots, maps for classroom activities, and pointers for putting the scenes into production.  These resources will remain available longterm via wikispace postings.

• Because this session targets comedias newly translated for performance in the US, team presentations will include rehearsed readings of critical scenes, putting research findings into practice and enhancing the session with performance elements.  Readings may be re-presented afterhours to ASTR at large.

agent selection procedure

1) Craft 250-word statement spelling out your personal interest in going undercover with one of these comedias.  Zero in on any aspect of the project that appeals to you.  No prior experience required; diversity desired.

2) Add 150-word biographical sketch.  Go public about your modern language skills, experience with theater production and/or pedagogy, allied research interests, and/or raw enthusiasm.

3) Send statement & sketch to ASTRundercover2012@yahoo.com by 31 May 2012.

4) Await response.

recruitment disclosures

PLEASE NOTE:  This is not a call to write a paper and read it at a conference, but a quest to burrow into research targets through months-long scholarly exchanges, to share findings with fellow agents (in writing) before ASTR meets, and to engage in intelligence-altering discussion of discoveries at the conference.

More details on how ASTR working sessions operate is available at www.astr.org. (where you can also find dossiers on other working sessions you’ll be privileged to eavesdrop on by joining us undercover).

psst!

Emerging insider info @ spanish-golden-age-plays.wikispaces.com.

Out of the Wings to welcome José Triana

King’s College London, 4 May 2012

Out of the Wings is delighted to announce a celebration of José Triana in Cuban Theatre.

The great Cuban dramatist, José Triana, will be at the event at King’s College London on 4 May 2012.

The event will include the dramatised reading of the José Triana’s unperformed one-act play, Allí están los Tarahumaras / Evaporation, translated by Catherine Boyle and directed by Sue Dunderdale.

A complete programme and full details will be published by 16 April.

For further information email: info@outofthewings.org or splas@kcl.ac.uk

Organised by Catherine Boyle and Fabienne Viala

When: 4 May 2012

Venue: King’s College London. Flyer and more details to follow.

UK premiere of the play by Juan Radrigán at Theatre 503, Latchmere Pub, 503 Battersea Park Road

Directed by Sue Dunderdale.

Translated by Catherine Boyle.

Chile, 1974. In the extreme isolation of the Andean foothills, three sisters are found hanged from a rock, their animals slaughtered beside them…
Justa, Lucia and Luciana are three Coya (indigenous Andean) sisters, and the last remnants of a large family who tried to survive in an inhospitable environment. Parents, siblings and neighbours have either died or fled the challenging landscape to find work in distant towns. Faced with ageing bodies, loneliness, and terror of unknown forces which seem to be closing in on them, the sisters make a decision which shocks a nation.
Against the backdrop of the Pinochet regime’s ascent to power, internationally-acclaimed playwright Juan Radrigán examines, movingly and at times humorously, the effect of isolation and fear on the human spirit. With poignant echoes of the 2010 Chilean miners’ crisis and resonance with marginalised communities worldwide, Beasts is a haunting portrayal of love, fear and impossible choices.

‘… an observant, sensitive and sad play, never preaching, always generous and directed with matching generosity by Sue Dunderdale.’
The Sunday Times on The Way Home
‘… sparkily translated by Catherine Boyle.’
The Daily Telegraph the RSC’s House of Desires

Juan Radrigán’s awards include: Best Chilean Play (for When All is Said and Done); Circle of Critics Prize (for The Bull by the Horns, 1983 and The Exile of the Naked Woman, 2002); Apes Prize (for Drunken Ghosts, 1997 and When All is Said and Done, 1999); the Agustin Siré Prize from the Academy of Fine Arts, 2002, and the Altazor Prize for Best Dramatist, 2005.

• Post Show talks Tuesday 30 August, Tuesday 6 September & Tuesday 20 September
• On Saturday 10 September, in lieu of a performance there will be a play reading and seminar about Juan Radrigán and Latin American theatre

Developed with the support of the Arts and Humanities Research Council, King’s College London, Out of The Wings and National Theatre Studio.

More information and online booking is available on the Theatre503 website.

A message from our colleagues in theatre translation:

We are delighted to invite you to celebrate the publication of the round table discussion ‘Theatre Translation as Collaboration: Aleks Sierz, Martin Crimp, Nathalie Abrahami, Colin Teevan, Zoë Svendsen and Michael Walton discuss Translation for the Stage’, edited by Margherita Laera, in Contemporary Theatre Review, Volume 21 Issue 2.

The discussion took place on 20 March 2010 at Queen Mary, University of London, during the colloquium ‘Theatre Translation as Collaboration: Re-Routing Text Through Performance’, organised by Geraldine Brodie (UCL/QM), Kate Eaton (QM), Dr Tiffany Watt-Smith (QM) and Dr Margherita Laera (QM). The colloquium was generously sponsored by the AHRC, the Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences, and the Departments of Drama and Languages at Queen Mary.

Prof. Maria Delgado, editor of Contemporary Theatre Review, and Dr Margherita Laera will briefly talk about the publication of this article, but otherwise this will be an occasion for scholars and practitioners interested in theatre translation to meet informally over a glass of wine and snacks. All are very warmly welcome.

Location: Queen Mary, University of London, Arts Building, Mile End Road, E1 4NS, Rehearsal Room 2, 6-8 pm on 20 June.

For information: m.laera@qmul.ac.uk, g.brodie@qmul.ac.uk

PLEASE RSVP by 14 June to g.brodie@qmul.ac.uk

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...

Invisible Presences: Translation, Dramaturgy and Performance (click here for pdf poster)

‘Invisible Presences’ is presented under the aegis of Out of the Wings, an AHRC‐funded project exploring Spanish theatre in English translation, in association with the Dramaturgies Project, and the Translation, Adaptation, and Dramaturgy Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research.

Drama and Film Centre Queen’s University Belfast 18‐20 April 2011

This international conference will explore the dramaturgical processes of translation in performance practice, whether across language and culture or the translation of ideas into material production. Rather than seeing the processes of writing (whether collaborative or singleauthored), translation, rehearsal, production, and audience reception as separate and discrete, the conference will engage with approaches that view the process as more of a continuum, one that is perpetually at work. In this way the conference offers the opportunity for dialogue between contemporary practitioners, both translators and theatre makers, and for new insights into dramaturgy and translation that seek to map the growing convergence between theatre practice and translation.

The conference will feature:

• A range of eminent keynote speakers
• Practical workshops exploring issues of dramaturgy and translation
• Performances
• Panel sessions
• Round table discussions

Areas for discussion include, but are not limited to:

• Translation and its metaphorical apprehension of text
• Translation and its audiences
• Translation and the contingency of performance
• Collaborative translation processes
• The limits of translation
• Translation and ethics
• Dramaturgy as translation/ translational process
• Visual theatre: dramaturgies and translations of light, sound, space
• Technology: new relationships with audiences in online productions
• The dramaturgical process in different contexts:
• Case studies from practitioners and scholars exploring the issues and particularities of each context, such as community arts, theatre for young people, cross‐art collaboration processes and facilitation, ‘postdramatic’ dramaturgies, queer dramaturgies, disability arts, collaborative writing processes, etc.

Proposals addressing the themes of the conference are invited in the forms of:

• 20 minute paper presentation
• 2 hour workshop

Please submit proposals of 300 ‐ 500 words, with 150‐word biography, by 30 September 2010, to the organisers:

Alyson Campbell: a.e.campbell@qub.ac.uk

David Johnston: d.johnston@qub.ac.uk

Kurt Taroff: k.taroff@qub.ac.uk

Dramaturgy on the Edge: A Dialogue Between Australia and Northern Ireland

Friday 2^nd July 2010, 2- 5pm

Brian Friel Theatre, Drama and Film Centre, Queen’s University Belfast

The discussion will be chaired by Professor Mary Luckhurst, playwright, director, dramaturg and academic.

Speakers:

• Dr Peter Eckersall, Associate Professor in Theatre Studies, The University of Melbourne and dramaturg with not yet it’s difficult performance company.
• Hanna Slattne, dramaturg with Tinderbox Theatre Company, Belfast and founder member of UK Dramaturgs’ Network.
• Dr Duška Radosavljević, dramaturg, theatre critic and academic based at the University of Kent.

This round table discussion aims to initiate a dialogue about dramaturgical practices in Northern Ireland/UK and Australia, and between dramaturgical theory and practice. Peter Eckersall will talk about the Melbourne-based Dramaturgies Project and Hanna Slattne will outline the Northern Irish Joint Sectoral Dramaturgy Project. Hanna will also give a demonstration of her practice with the Tinderbox Writers’ Lab.

For more information or to register interest in the event, please contact Dr Alyson Campbell a.e.campbell@qub.ac.uk or Hanna Slattne hanna.slattne@tinderbox.org.uk

—————–

The Dramaturgies Project is a research and development laboratory, established in Melbourne in 2001 by Peter Eckersall, Melanie Beddie and Paul Monaghan. It aims to explore, reflect on and give rise to dramaturgical practice in – and as a basis for – making innovative performance in Australian theatre. The recent Dramaturgies # 4 in Melbourne brought together international and Australian practitioners and academics to take stock of shifting theatrical forms in the twenty-first century; recognise existing dramaturgical paradigms and find ways to move beyond them; be a ‘national audit’ of dramaturgical practices in and for the sector; develop new ideas, new skills and recommendations for the future development of dramaturgical practices that lie at the centre of an innovative Australian theatre into the future.

For five years Tinderbox has managed, developed and administered the Northern Ireland Arts Council’s Joint Sectoral Dramaturgy fund. This fund is available to companies to do development work prior to rehearsals in order to test ideas, text and performance style. It is a unique project and has been very successful in disseminating dramaturgical exploration and processes of working within the theatre sector in Northern Ireland. Through the JSDP Hanna has worked with many of Northern Ireland’s companies on numerous projects as well as leading the extensive dramaturgy strand at Tinderbox Theatre Company. She is also a founder member of the Dramaturgs’ Network, an organisation with an aim to support practitioners, provide professional development and be an advocate for dramaturgical practice.

Professor Mary Luckhurst is a world authority on dramaturgy and the politics of selecting plays for theatre repertoires, and author of Dramaturgy: A Revolution in Theatre. She is co-founder of the new Department of Theatre, Film and TV at the University of York. She has written over 15 plays for performance which have been staged across Europe. In 2002 she founded Out of the Blue theatre company with Mike Cordner. She specialises in contemporary texts and has directed notable productions of work by Martin Crimp and Harold Pinter.

Dr Duška Radosavljević is a dramaturg, theatre critic and academic based at the University of Kent. She has worked at Northern Stage in Newcastle and at the Royal Shakespeare Company, and has an ongoing collaboration with Hanna Slattne and Tinderbox Theatre Company.

This is an event organised by Drama at Queen’s University Belfast, in collaboration with the IFTR working group Translation, Adaptation and Dramaturgy. It is the first of two dramaturgy events at Queen’s University: the next will be an international conference 18 – 20 April 2011, on Translation, Performance, and Dramaturgy. This will be run with the AHRC funded Out of the Wings project.

AHRC-funded project ‘Out of the Wings’ presents its

2010 Symposium

‘Spanish Golden Age Drama in Translation and Performance’

at Merton College, Oxford

18-19 March 2010

REGISTRATION FORM AVAILABLE HERE:

Registration and Accommodation, Catering OTW ’10

Translating and performing the works of Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina and Calderón de la Barca, and other playwrights of the Golden Age have sparked an increasing amount of interest, heightened by the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2004-5 Golden Age season. Our Symposium will be attended by both academic and theatrical practitioners working within the field of Golden Age drama, and a wider base of attendees interested in Spanish theatre in general, as well as University colleagues and students. Speakers will be drawn from the United States and Europe, representing a variety of areas of expertise in translation and performance of the comedia. Please explore our website (www.outofthewings.org) for more information on the project, and see the rest of the blog for past events.

The London theatre company Metta Theatre is proud to present an immersive production of Lorca’s Bodas de sangre (‘Blood Wedding)’ in English translation, performed at the Southwark Playhouse this summer, 21 July- 15 August 2009.

For further details see the production website.

American Society for Theatre Research
November 11-15, 2009
San Juan, Puerto Rico
THEATRE, PERFORMANCE, DESTINATION

There is a Golden Age Working Group, New Approaches to Plays from the Spanish Golden Age: Destiny, Nation Formation, & Puerto Rican Perspectives

The Working Group will divide into three teams: one working on Lo fingido verdadero, another on Fuente Ovejuna, and finally on Los melindres de Belisa. See the ASTR 2009 Call for Participants.  

Questions regarding this Session may be directed to the conveners at astr_gold_2009@yahoo.com

For general information please see the Conference Website.