Another month has fairly flown by!

I must start this post with exciting news about a project I am co-curating at the Arcola Theatre.  For March 2018, the Arcola Queer Collective is planning a short festival of international LGBTQ play readings.  For this, we have put out an open call to translators and writers to help us find plays that tell stories of queer lives from throughout the world and throughout history.  Plays can be translated from any language, from any country, from any period of history, and the submission window is open until December 25.

With B ending its run at the Royal Court I took the chance to take two theatre trips to Spain (more below), but managed to squeeze in a fair bit in between flights.

On the publication front, I’m delighted to feature as a translator in this newly published anthology of contemporary Mexican plays, published by Paso de Gato in assocation with the Anglo-Mexican Foundation and the Royal Court Theatre.  My translations of Beat by Bárbara Colio and A Choir of Orphaned Children by Mariana Hartasánchez feature alongside work by Alberto Villarreal, translated by Simon Scardifield.  The publication is the culmination of a two-year playwriting workshop run in Mexico City by the Royal Court as part of its ongoing commitment to developing the work of international writers.

This month I have continued to work closely with international theatre company

[Foreign Affairs].  On their theatre translation programme I have enjoyed both delivering and participating in workshops aimed at bringing translators and theatre-makers closer together.  These have included more text-based workshops but also, pictured below, sessions exploring how a translator’s words can become sound, rhythm, image and movement. There will be a showcase of work by the three participating translators – working from Chinese, Finnish and Japanese – in January.

[Foreign Affairs] translation workshop. Image (c) Luca Migliore

Also for [Foreign Affairs], I enjoyed being part of a post-show discussion on the subject of theatre translation following their production of The Unburied, a Romanian play that arose from the company’s 2016 programme.

On November 9th, Latin American Voices reprised their production of Pig Woman by the Argentine playwright Santiago Loza.  This powerful monologue on the trials of faith and survival lived out by Loza’s female protagonist was staged this time at the Argentine Embassy in London.  We followed the reading with a panel discussion, expertly chaired by Professor Maria Delgado of the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama.

At the Argentine Embassy, 09 November 2017

Also this month I translated the programme notes for Ellipsis Land, a contemporary dance piece by Chileans Pepa Ubera and Josefina Camus, performed at Sadlers Wells.

Finally, I must mention my two theatre trips to Spain.  In Valencia I saw Cuzco, the fantastic play I had the pleasure of translating for Out of the Wings 2017, and which I hope will soon have more of a future in English.  At home in Valencia, directed by the author Víctor Sánchez Rodríguez, it stunned with its visceral power.

Then in Madrid I caught up with Abel González Melo, author of Weathered and Chamaco, which were produced at HOME MCR in 2016 and, in the case of Weathered, as a reading at the Southwark Playhouse in 2017…

…before catching up one day later with Julio Escalada.  Julio has a special place in my heart because his Springtime was the first play I ever translated.  My trip to Madrid was mainly to see his new play, On the Edge, which I will be translating very soon.  A tense thriller set in one of Spain’s little-known African enclaves, the play opens our eyes to a side of Spain – and of Europe – that we very rarely see.  I’m looking forward to being able to share the English version.