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Playwrights and Translators
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Suzie Bastien (THE MEDEA EFFECT) is the author of Le désir de Gobi (LUX Éditeur, 2003), first produced by Théâtre de Quat'Sous (Montreal) in January 2000, then in Québec City, Ottawa, and Sherbrooke in 2004. Her second play, LukaLila (Éditions Comp'act, 2002), translated into Italian and first produced in Rome in 2005, received an award from the Journées de Lyon des auteurs de théâtre in 2002 (France) and won the SACD de la dramaturgie francophone prize in 2004. L'effet Médée was produced by Théâtre Blanc (Québec City) in March 2005. Suzie Bastien is also the author of Le sens! Le sens!, Ceux qui l'ont connu (written at the Chartreuse de Villeneuve lez Avignon colony in 2004), Après (partially developed in Limoges in 2005), L'enfant revenant (also written in part at writers’ colonies, this time in Québec City and Lennoxville). This last piece was read at the Tarmac de la Villette (Paris) in 2008, again in 2010 in Orléans as part of the Text'avril event, and was produced in Brussels in 2011. Her short plays L'effritement 1 et 2 (Les éditions de la Gare, 2007) were first produced in Paris in July 2007. Her work has been funded by the Conseil des arts du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Centre National du Livre (France). Suzie Bastien was also the 2009 resident of the Québec Studio in Rome. |
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Jessica Cooke (GRACE AND ELIZABETH) was raised in Ireland and Scotland. She received a first class honours degree in English at Trinity College Dublin before studying for a PhD in English at Cambridge University, England. Jessica has been writing all her life, starting with illustrated stories and a novel as a child. She has published poetry widely in Irish and U.K. magazines and anthologies. Her plays include: The Murdering Hole which was performed in Galway’s Town Hall Theatre, to critical and popular acclaim; The Importance of Being Orson commissioned by The Abbey Theatre in Dublin with two readings in the U.S., first as part of writer residency at Connecticut’s O’Neill Theatre and subsequently during the 2011 hotINK festival at the Lark; and Grace and Elizabeth also commissioned by The Abbey for a staged reading and selected for the 2012 hotINK festival at the Lark. Other plays include The Fellowship and Synge’s Women. Jessica is currently working on a documentary drama, Children of the Nation about how the new Irish State colluded with the Church in the abuse of children in Irish Industrial schools and has worked on screenplays, including the controversial Bronson, about the longest serving prisoner in the U.K. Most recently, Jessica worked with school children to develop and produce a children’s play, Brendan the Navigator at the Annaghdown National School, County Galway which was then invited to perform for sold-out audiences at Town Hall Theatre, Galway.
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Nadine Desrochers (Translator THE MEDEA EFFECT) is a dramaturg and translator from Montréal. From 2001 to 2006, she was a dramaturg at CEAD (Centre des auteurs dramatiques), where was also responsible for international projects, overseeing translations in French, English, and Spanish for such institutions as the Royal National Theatre (London), the Abbey Theatre (Dublin), Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal, and the Centro Cultural Helénico (Mexico). Since leaving CEAD, she has continued to work with playwrights and directors on a freelance basis, and has translated five plays, including Sarah Berthiaume’s The Flood Thereafter (Talisman Theatre, fall 2010) and Rock, Paper, Jackknife…, by Marilyn Perreault, which was produced by Talisman Theatre in October 2009 and published by Playwrights Canada Press in 2010, as well as Scenes from a Tree (Compagnie Des mots d’la dynamite, Vancouver International Children’s Festival, 2011). Her translation of The Medea Effect is slated for production in Montréal in the fall of 2012 (Talisman Theatre). She is currently working on the English version of P@ndora (text by Sarah Berthiaume), an upcoming Youtheatre production (Montréal, March 2012). All of her translation work is rooted in her own acting background, which led her to the stages of the National Arts Centre, the Great Canadian Theatre Company, the Théâtre du Trillium, as well as to different television roles and appearances. Nadine Desrochers also teaches in the area of library and information science. Her research focuses on how the narrative – the story, or how we tell of our world – is supported and expressed in the print and digital cultures. |
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Ivan Dimitrov (THE EYES OF OTHERS) a writer who graduated with a degree in Bulgarian Philology. His short stories were nominated for the debut book competition of "Ars" Publishing House and his play Separation at First Sight was one of five nominees to the Slavka Slavova chamber play competition of "Theater 199” in the spring of 2010. He is the author of Local Foreigners, a book of short stories, and the novel Life as a Missing Spoon. He was recognized as one of the top five poets in the “Sofia Poetics” Festival contest in both 2010 and 2011. In 2011 his play The Eyes of Others won the “New Drama” contest in Shumen and it will be produced at the Theatre of Shumen in 2012. |
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Rhea Frangofinou (Translator DNA) studied acting at Drama Centre in London and worked at the Royal Court Theatre, Common Stock and Lighthouse Theatre Company. She moved to Cyprus and worked at the Cyprus State Theatre company (THOC), the Cyprus Broadcasting Company and a number of independent companies. She served as Secretary of the Cyprus Centre of International Theatre Institute including a year as Vice President. Theatre translations into Greek produced at Theatro Ena include: Steven Berkoff’s Kvetch, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, Arthur Miller’s The Last Yankee, M Butterfly by David Henry Hwang, Willy Russell’s Shirley Valentine. Other translation work includes poetry, short stories and other fiction by Cypriot authors including Pantelis Michanikos and Klitos Ioannides. Original plays include Fish are Drowning and Kind Lady of the Harvest. She works as a conference interpreter and translator. |
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John J. Hanlon (Translator COLONEL PILATE) is an educator, actor, director and translator. A graduate of the Yale School of Drama, John studied Russian at Swarthmore College. He has translated four plays by award-winning playwright Maksym Kurochkin. His translation of Fighter Class “Medea” was staged at the Lark Play Development Center in 2004. Vodka, Fucking, and Television was published in THEATERFORUM and staged by Dad’s Garage in Atlanta in 2007 and again in 2009 as part of the “New Russian Drama” festival produced by the Center for International Theatre Development in Baltimore. Mooncrazed was presented at hotINK 2010 and, later that spring, was featured in a special event dedicated to Kurochkin at CUNY’s Segal Center. John and Maksym are currently at work on a new play called The Escape. John directs the theater program at a private high school and teaches senior seminars in subjects ranging from Russian History to Shakespeare. As an actor, he recently performed the role of Raskolnikov in the Campbell/Columbus adaptation of Crime & Punishment at Northside Theatre in San Jose, CA and Richard Hannay in The 39 Steps at Off Square Theater in Jackson, WY. In the past two years, he has directed a production of Ionesco’s The Lesson for Riot Act and staged readings of Albee’s The Goat and Miller’s The Price for Off Square.
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Yuri Kaliada (Translator THANKSGIVING DAY) worked, in 2008, with the Belarus Free Theatre, is part of the International Coalition Against Enforced Disappearances (ICAED) adopted by the UN Human Rights Council. In addition, the Belarus Free Theatre has continued with “Campaign Stop Violence” in which Yuri Kaliada, as human rights advocate, was responsible for the translation of numerous plays including Generation Jeans, Zone of Silence and Discover Love; the books Rock-n-Roll for Generation Jeans by Sir Tom Stoppard and Nikolai Khalezin, One of Us, and We Remember, among others, designed to attract close attention to the genocide and repressions against citizens in Belarus and around the world. He believes that counterculture offers the most effective way to raise awareness, inform the world community, and keep hope alive. Kaliada has provided and coordinated financial support for the creation and operation of the Belarus Free Theatre; assisted Natalia Kaliada (General Director and Co-Founder of the BFT) and Nikolai Khalezin (Art Director and Co-Founder of the BFT) with research and preparation, analysis and selection, funding and monitoring of the Theatre’s creative concepts and international projects. Throughout the history of the company, he has been translating all of its major projects, including numerous plays, books, articles, essays in English, and other written works from around the world from English into Russian. |
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Nikolai Khalezin (THANKSGIVING DAY) is the founding Co-Artistic Director of the Belarus Free Theatre and the author of ten plays, including Generation Jeans and Discover Love. Generation Jeans has been performed nearly 100 times on some of the world’s most prestigious stages, such as the Swedish Royal Theatre, Norwegian National Theatre, and New York’s Public Theater, and in the home of President Vaclav Havel at President Havel’s invitation. In May 2006 his play Here I Am (which was given a reading in the 2008 hotINK Festival) was among six plays chosen from for the Berlin Theatrical Festival.
Khalezin’s production of Discover Love was awarded “Outstanding Off-Off-Broadway Performance” by the Independent Theatre Bloggers Association in New York, and in 2011 the Belarus Free Theatre, under Khalezin’s artistic directorship, received an OBIE Award for its New York performances; was nominated for Drama Desk Award as a “Unique Theatrical Experience”; and received the Fringe First Award at the Edinburgh Festival, and the Atlantic Council Award. Together with Natalia Kaliada, Nikolai Khalezin is the initiator of the Global Artistic Campaign “Free Belarus,” with the support of such artists as Vaclav Havel, Tom Stoppard, Harold Pinter, Mick Jagger, Kevin Spacey and Jude Law.
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Michael Mackenzie (CREDIT) plays have been professionally produced in Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Israel, France, Portugal, England, across English Canada and Quebec. Recent productions (2011-2012) include Frankfurt, Upper Franconia (touring), Hamburg, Prague and Montreal. His plays are currently published in French, German and Hungarian. He has worked with Robert Lepage on a number of projects starting as dramaturge for Elsinore (1996) and most recently as translator for Blue Dragon, which is currently touring Asia, Europe, North America and Australia. Mackenzie was dramaturge for the Cirque de Soleil’sKa now playing at the MGM Grand in Los Vegas. He has written and directed two feature films. The first, The Baroness and the Pig (2002), starred Patricia Clarkson and was invited to Sundance (2003), Toronto (2002), as well as other numerous other international film festivals. The second, Adam’s Wall (2008), was invited to festivals in Tokyo, the Czech Republic, Copenhagen, U.S.A., Lisbon, Montreal, etc. Both films were theatrically released in Canada. Mackenzie has a Ph.D. in History of Science. Past appointments include Visiting Fellow at Princeton University (the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy and International Affairs) and Consultant at the United Nations (U.N.C.S.T.C.). His publications on Economy, Technology and Environmental Policy, etc., have been variously translated into French, Spanish, and Portuguese. This play was written while Writer in Residence at Crow’s Theatre, Toronto (2009-10). Michael Mackenzie lives in Montreal with his partner and their two sons. Special thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts for their support. |
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Linda McLean (strangers, babies)
was born in Glasgow where she studied and trained as a teacher. She taught English as a foreign language in Europe, America, Africa and Scandinavia before she wrote plays. Her plays include, for the Traverse – This is Water (2010), Any Given Day (2010), strangers, babies (Susan Smith Blackburn prize finalist), Shimmer (Herald Angel), and One Good Beating (winner of Best One Act Play 2008). For Dundee Rep and Oran Mor: What Love Is (2011). For Paines Plough: Riddance (Fringe First, Herald Angel) and The Uncertainty Files; for 7:84 Cold Cuts and Doch an Doris; for Magnetic North – Word for Word. For RSAMD – Reminded of Beauty. She adapted Like Water for Chocolate (for Theatres sans Frontieres, from the novel by Laura Esquivel). Linda has also written for radio. strangers, babies (Fractures); Any Given Day (Un Jour Ou L‘Autre); The Uncertainty Files (Dossier Incertitues) and What Love Is have been translated into French. Linda is Chairwoman of the Playwrights’ Studio Scotland and has worked for the British Council in Mexico City, Teluca and Bogota. She works in schools and colleges, encouraging new writers to find their own voices. In 2009 she delivered the keynote speech to the Playwrights’ Guild of Canada. She is currently under commission to Magnetic North, and the Traverse Theatre. Her new play Sex and God for Magnetic North will be produced and tour in 2012.
Linda was the Creative Fellow at Edinburgh University’s Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities 2010-2011. Any Given Day will be produced by Magic Theatre Co. San Francisco in April 2012. |
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Rory Mullarkey (Translator THANKSGIVING DAY) is a playwright and translator. Translations include Remembrance Day by Aleksey Scherbak (Royal Court) and Pagans by Anna Yablonskaya (Royal Court, reading). Rory has worked regularly as a translator from Russian for The Royal Court Theatre, Belarus Free Theatre and Radio Russia. Plays include Single Sex (Manchester Royal Exchange), The Grandfathers (National Theatre Connections) and contributions to Decade (Headlong) and Come To Where I’m From (Paines Plough). Rory was writer-on-attachment at the Royal Court Theatre, London in 2010, is the current Pearson Playwright in Residence at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, and is under commission to Headlong, Hampstead Theatre and The National Youth Theatre. |
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Taher Najib (IN SPITTING DISTANCE) is an actor and playwright. He acquired his professional education from actor Doron Tavori who became his mentor. He wrote and directed the play I Will Betray My Land. As an actor he has participated in plays at the Acco Festival, at the Palestinian National Theatre in Jerusalem, the El-Hakawati Theatre in Jerusalem and Paris, at the Habima National Theatre and the Laboratory Theatre in Jerusalem. He has also played lead roles in several films. |
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Giorgos Neophytou (DNA) is a playwright from Cyprus. His plays include: A Sunday Sketch, A Hijacking, In The Kingdom of Cyprus, Manolis!!!, The Change, Full Meze, About Love and Not Only, and DNA which was awarded the Prize for Best Playwriting at the bi-annual THOC Theatre awards for 2009-2011. He is a member of the Cyprus Playwrights Association, was a member of the Artistic Committee for THOC (Cyprus Theatre Organization - State Theatre) from 1991-93 and served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the THOC from 2003-2006. Since 1998 he has served as Patron for Cyprus at the Biennale of Wiesbaden “New Plays for Europe” and he is currently the President of the Cyprus Centre of International Theatre Institute and member of the Executive Council of the ITI worldwide. He has also written for television including the comedic series "Topsy Turvy," "Taxi Station," and "Sweepings." |
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Angela Rodel (Translator THE EYES OF OTHERS) earned a B.A from Yale University and an M.A. from UCLA, both in linguistics. In 1996 she won a Fulbright fellowship to study Bulgarian at Sofia University. She returned to Bulgaria on a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship in 2004 and has been living in Sofia and working as a literary translator. In 2010, she won a PEN Translation Fund Grant from the American PEN Foundation for Holy Light, a collection of stories by Georgi Tenev – the first time a Bulgarian work has received this award. Her translation of Milen Rouskov’s novel Thrown into Nature was published by Open Letter Books in 2011. Open Letter Books will also publish her translations of two other novels: Zachary Karabashliev’s 18% Gray in 2012 and Angel Igov’s A Short Tale of Shame in 2013. The UK publishing house Istros Books will publish her translation of Virginia Zaharieva’s novel Nine Rabbits in 2012. Angela’s English translation of the play The Apocalypse Comes at 6 P.M. by Georgi Gospodinov was presented at hotINK 2011; her translation of Ivan Dimitrov’s play The Eyes of Others has been selected for 2012. Her translations of Ivan Hristov’s poetry appeared in the 2011 edition of Two Lines, a leading anthology of literature in translation. Her translations of stories by Rayko Baychev, Georgi Tenev, and Yana Punkina were recently featured as part of Granta Online’s “Bulgaria Week” in August 2011 (granta.com). |
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Aleksey Scherbak (COLONEL PILATE) lives in Latvia and is the author of 11 plays which have been staged in the United Kingdom, Belarus, Latvia, Russia, Ukraine and Sweden. Awards include: The Grand Prize in the Belarus Free Theatre's International Contemporary Drama Competition for Halt, the Russian 'Honour, Duty and Virtue' prize for Colonel Pilate, the International Drama Competition at Badenweiler, Germany for Mister, the Russia-based Eurasia International Drama Competition for Colonel Pilate and Strana screenplay competition for Halt and White Raincoat. Recent Theatre includes: Remembrance Day (The Royal Court Theatre; nominated for Evening Standart Award for Best Play); Tango with Strok (The Mikhail Chekhov Russion Drama Theatre, Riga); Halt (The Mikhail Chekhov Russion Drama Theatre, Riga /Slonim Drama Theatre, Belarus/ Sacvoyge Theatre, Kiev/ New Riga Theatre); Colonel Pilate (Dailes Theatre, Riga). Several of his plays have been presented at the Ljubimovka Drama Festival in Moscow, the Omsk International Drama Lab and the Prem'yėra.txt festival. Aleksey represented the Baltic States in the Eurepica: Challenge project at the Belarus Free Theatre and Manteatern, Lund ( Sweden, 2009/ Italy, 2010/ Poland, 2011/ UK, 2011) with his play, The Details by Letter. |
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Ros Schwartz (Translator IN SPITTING DISTANCE) is a professional translator from French since 1981, Ros Schwartz has translated a wide range of Francophone authors including Andrée Chedid, Sébastien Japrisot, Catherine Clément, Malika Oufkir, Aziz Chouaki, Yasmina Khadra, Dominique Manotti (whose Lorraine Connection won the 2008 International Dagger Award), Jaqueline Harpman, Fatou Diome, Sembène Ousmane and Claudine Vegh. She recently published a new version of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s The Little Prince, described by Sandra Smith in the Times Literary Supplement as a “first-class interpretation of the emotive content, lyricism and shape of the original”.
Her translation of Lebanese writer Dominique Eddé’s Kite will be published this Spring by Seagull Books.
For the theatre, Ros translated A Little Grain of Sand by Christophe Allwright, which played in Chicago in 2003. She was Chair of the Conseil Européen des Associations de Traducteurs Littéraires (CEATL) from 2000-2009 and is currently Chair of English PEN’s Writers in Translation committee. She publishes frequent articles and gives workshops and talks on literary translation around the world. She is the organiser of a translation summer school in association with the Universities of London and Westminster, and is involved a a number of translator training and mentoring activities. In 2009 the French government awarded her the distinction of Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres for her services to literature. |
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Jean Tay (THE SHAPE OF A BIRD) graduated in 1997 with a double-degree in creative writing and economics from Brown University, USA. For her fiction, she was awarded Weston Prize for Fiction from Brown, as well as the 1st and 3rd prizes for NAC's Golden Point Short Story competition in 1995 and 2001 respectively. Her plays have been performed in Singapore, the US, the UK, and Italy. These include Water from the Well (1998), The Knot (1999), Plunge (2000), Everything but the Brain (2005, 2007) and Boom (2008). Jean has also written the books for the musicals “The Admiral’s Odyssey” (2005) and Man of Letters (2006), as well as the children's musical Pinocchio (2010). In 2000, The Knot was awarded 1st prize for Action Theatre's 10-minute Play Competition and selected as a finalist for the Actors Theatre of Louisville's 10-minute Play Contest. She has been nominated three times for Best Original Script for the Straits Times' Life! Theatre Awards, and won for the play Everything But the Brain in 2006. From 2006-2009, Jean was attached to the Singapore Repertory Theatre (SRT) as resident playwright. She participated in the month-long International Playwriting Residency organised by the Royal Court Theatre in London in 2007 and the LaMama International Playwriting Retreat in Umbria, Italy in 2010. Her play Boom is currently being used as an 'O' and 'N' Level literature text for high school students in Singapore. |
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