The Lark has conducted international play development and translation programs for most of its existence with the goals of seeding long-term relationships, prompting innovative and entrepreneurial thinking, creating stage-worthy translations of new work and advancing worthy projects to workshops, residencies, productions, publication and the classroom. Visit these links to find about more about some of these programs and activities:

Lark’s International Mission
At the core of the Lark’s mission is our belief that playwrights perform a critical role in society by creating new and vital works for the stage that recall history, describe the world around us and imagine alternative paths to the future. Just as we have gathered a diverse artist community at home in New York City to share and compare perspectives and to form a common vocabulary for improved social discourse, our international programs connect us to multiple points of view in other countries. Despite our different experiences, Americans face common challenges with people in other countries: reinventing democracy in an era of increased global awareness, reconciling market forces with economic disparity and resolving social conflict caused by religious persecution, racism, poverty, lawlessness, migration and war. American theater and literature is driven to a large extent by the theme of the individual’s search for identity in a multicultural landscape; we are therefore intrigued to learn more about the range and variety of perspectives in a global society that is exploring new freedoms and social structures.

Activities
Through a variety of pilot projects and long-term programs, we bring together artists of different backgrounds, cultures and aesthetics to create work that is strong and accessible to multiple audiences. Whether a program or residency takes place on site at the Lark’s play lab facility in New York City, elsewhere in the U.S., or at a theater or university in another country, our values remain consistent with our mission.  We focus on helping playwrights articulate their visions and achieve their self-stated goals to create unique and idiosyncratic plays and projects. Language differences and cultural barriers can make this process more difficult, so we enlist the help of translators, interpreters and members of the community to make sure that each artist has all necessary resources to work on his or her play. Activities supported by this program include “observerships,” creative brainstorming, translation and play development workshops, facilitated planning sessions, and, ultimately, opportunities for playwrights to participate in the rehearsal process for new translations in university and professional productions. The Lark has worked with artists from more than 50 countries in Asia, Africa, the South Pacific, Europe and the Americas, including playwrights from Belarus, Canada, Cote d’Ivoire, Egypt, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Mexico, the Netherlands, Peoples’ Republic of China, the Philippines, Romania, Russia, Singapore, Ukraine and Wales.

Working Philosophy
We recognize that the needs and capabilities of artist communities and the public differ from country to country. We embrace these differences by pursuing common goals of mutual respect and open dialogue. Integral to the Lark’s program strategy is deep support of playwrights and translators as they create works of beauty, depth and relevance. In addition, the Lark actively engages producers, directors, actors and designers in the collaborative processes of playwriting and play translation. By offering cultural leaders a window into these creative processes, we hope to strengthen the capacity of individual artists and entrepreneurs to learn, grow and become leaders in a rapidly changing global context, and to collaborate on fresh, vital, cross-cultural theater projects.

We also believe that continuity and reciprocity are essential components of productive international collaborations and their long-term success. Our goal, therefore, is to establish within each working community a sustainable infrastructure for developing creative relationships over time in reasonable ways, and an atmosphere that is respectful of differing cultural contexts and traditions. We are also committed to collaborating closely with decision-makers at partner institutions to select and assess program participants—some of whom we are getting to know; others who are new to us.

Recent Successes
Lark international collaborations have resulted in the sharing, translation, production and presentation of many plays and projects. Some recent successes are listed below:

•To date, works by 30 Mexican playwrights have been translated into English as part of our annual U.S.-México Word Exchange; many of these works have moved on to subsequent workshops, production and publication

•THE MOUNTAINTOP by Katori Hall was translated into Russian by Tatyana Khaikan and performed in Moscow last year, as part of a pilot translation residency, prior to the play’s production on Broadway. Three other playwrights—Bekah Brunstetter, Robert Kerr and Betty Shamieh—also traveled to Russia to participate in the translation process for their plays.

•A translation into Romanian of Arthur Kopit’s BECAUSE HE CAN, by Mihaela Mihailov, became part of the repertory at the Odeon Theater in Bucharest this past fall, joining works by Lark-affiliated playwrights Doug Wright and David Henry Hwang. This project was the outcome of Round II of the American Romanian Theater Exchange program, or “A.R.T.E.”

•Works by U.S. playwrights Chantal Bilodeau, Henry Gúzman, Samuel D. Hunter, Rajiv Joseph, Saviana Stanescu, and others, have been translated into Spanish and produced in México City

•With the support of a major grant from the Boeing Foundation, the Goodman Theatre partnered with the Lark and five small and mid-sized theaters to present Mexican works (translated into English at Lark’s U.S.-México Word Exchange) to Chicago Audiences

•OUR DAD IS IN ATLANTIS by Javier Malpica (Mexico), translated by Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas, received its U.S. premiere in a co-production of Queens Theatre in the Park and the Working Theatre in New York City before being mounted at numerous theaters nationally

•AMERICAN HWANGAP by Lloyd Suh, the first recipient of the Lark’s Launching New Plays Fellowship, funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, was produced by Tagalag Pilipino at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in Manila last year and will be produced this year in Seoul, Korea

•A delegation of eight U.S. theater artists from the Lark,  led by playwright David Henry Hwang and Lark Artistic Director John Clinton Eisner, traveled to Manila, the Philippines to work with local playwrights in a group called Writers Bloc.

•An anthology of seven plays by Ivory Coast playwright Koffi Kwahulé, translated from the French by Chantal Bilodeau in a series of residencies at the Lark, are published by New York University Press.

•Pilot workshops for Caravan of Dreams, a special initiative to reach Roma (Gypsy) children in Romania, are held in New York City and several sites in Romania

•Our Transylvanian Playwriting Camp brought Hungarian and Romanian playwrights together with U.S. artists.

Revised February 7, 2012