Drama & Theater with John Freedman​

STATUS UPDATE: FOUR (SEPT. 2011)

September 6, 2011

Stage Four of the project has now been completed. All seven translations are in hand and are being prepared for readings throughout Russia during the 2011-2012 season, as well as for nationwide distribution on compact disks that are handy and easily accessible for theater artists.

• Sergei Task translated Chuck Mee's Big Love.

• Yevgeny Kazachkov translated Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics.

• Nina Belenitskaya, working from Alexandra Belenitskaya’s line-by-line translation, translated Deborah Zoe Laufer's End Days.

• Yury Klavdiev, working from Maria Nikolaeva’s line-by-line translation, translated Suzan-Lori Parks's The Book of Grace.

• Mikhail Durnenkov, working from Yekaterina Raikova’s line-by-line, translated Annie Baker's The Aliens.

• Ivan Vyrypaev, working from Anna Shulgat’s line-by-line, translated Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio.

• Maksym Kurochkin, working on a basic text devised during face-to-face sessions with John Freedman, translated Adam Rapp's Nocturne.

The first public readings will take place at the Festival of Young Theaters of Russia in Omsk, Oct. 22 to 30. Next will be readings in Moscow at the Playwright and Director Center on Nov. 22 and 23. In St. Petersburg the influential new On.Teatr, in collaboration with the St. Petersburg State Academy of Theater Arts, will conduct readings from Nov. 25 to 27 as part of a parallel international conference on contemporary American drama. We are currently negotiating readings in Krasnoyarsk, Orlov, Saratov, Yekaterinburg, Tomsk and other cities. These will take place in the first half of 2012 when these cities and theaters host annual festivals in which our plays can make an organic contribution.

Some of our plays are being considered for inclusion in a program of new American drama in Russian hosted by the famous Russian-language Ilkhom Theater in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. Furthermore, several Russian theaters have already expressed serious interest in staging the plays. This came about even before the translations were completed, based on the authority of the project, its writers and its translators.

Finally, we are happy to announce that Annie Baker will attend the readings in Moscow and St. Petersburg in November. This has come about thanks to additional funding provided by the Trust for Mutual Understanding administered by CITD.​

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STATUS UPDATE: THREE (May 2011)
May 15, 2011

Stage Three of the project is now in full swing. All four of our line-by-line translators have delivered texts to our adapting playwrights. Two of the three translators who are creating straight Russian translations from the English have delivered final texts.

• Sergei Task has translated Chuck Mee's Big Love.

• Yevgeny Kazachkov has translated Nilo Cruz's Anna in the Tropics.

• Nina Belenitskaya is completing her translation of Deborah Zoe Laufer's End Days.

• Maria Nikolaeva delivered her line-by-line of Suzan-Lori Parks's The Book of Grace to Yury Klavdiev.

• Yekaterina Raikova delivered her line-by-line of Annie Baker's The Aliens to Mikhail Durnenkov.

• Anna Shulgat delivered her line-by-line of Eric Bogosian's Talk Radio to Ivan Vyrypaev.

• John Freedman is working on a live translation of Adam Rapp's Nocture with Maksym Kurochkin.

All translations shall be completed by early September, after which they will be presented at special readings and festivals in at least seven Russian cities. We already have commitments from the Festival of Young Theaters of Russia in Omsk, which runs from Oct. 22 to 30. We also have agreements with the Playwright and Director Center in Moscow and On.Teatr in St. Petersburg for late November. There is a good chance that the St. Petersburg State Academy of Theater Arts will join On.Teatr to conduct a parallel conference on contemporary American drama. We are currently negotiating readings in Krasnoyarsk, Orlov, Saratov, Yekaterinburg, Tomsk and other cities. Many of these readings will probably take place in the first half of 2012 when these cities and theaters host annual festivals in which our plays can make an organic contribution. 

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STATUS UPDATE: TWO (Feb. 2011)

A Fact Sheet, February 7, 2011

We are happy to announce that the second major stage in the New American Plays for Russia project is complete.

The plays and playwrights, with the translators chosen to work on the texts, are as follows:

• Suzan-Lori Parks, The Book of Grace – adaptation by Yury Klavdiev with Maria Nikolaeva 

• Annie Baker, The Aliens – adaptation by Mikhail Durnenkov with Yekaterina Raikova 

• Eric Bogosian, Talk Radio – adaptation by Ivan Vyrypaev with Anna Shulgat 

• Adam Rapp, Nocturne – adaptation by Maksym Kurochkin with John Freedman

• Chuck Mee, Big Love – straight translation by Sergei Task 

• Deborah Zoe Laufer, End Days – straight translation by Nina Belenitskaya 

• Nilo Cruz, Anna in the Tropics – straight translation by Yevgeny Kazachkov

The seven plays listed reflect an improvement over our original plan of a two-tiered translation process that would have created eight literal, line-by-line translations, followed by four producible adaptations that would have emerged from that list of eight.

Instead, we will now create producible translations of seven plays.

Three plays will be translated directly by Russian playwrights who have a fluent command of English.

Four plays, because of their linguistic and structural complexity, require more than just a straight translation to do them justice. Major contemporary Russian playwrights, working from literal, line-by-line translations created by professional translators, will create new Russian adaptations of these four works. Please note that the playwrights and the translators will stick as closely as possible to the original.

All seven translations will be completed by September 2011 and will be included in a series of readings held in some seven or eight Russian cities throughout the coming fall. All translations will be included in a dual-language CD published by the Center for International Theater Development and distributed to theaters all over Russia for free. This non-commercial CD will include the seven Russian translations as well as all 23 of the original English texts that were nominated for consideration. We plan to publish the seven translations in a book that will be available to libraries, theaters and interested individuals.

Please note that the New American Plays for Russia initiative does not include provisions for productions. It is our hope and goal, that Russian theaters, once made aware of these plays through our program, will contact writers' agents, and productions will follow.

Also please note that the New American Plays for Russia initiative was not a competition. Russian readers, all of them theater professionals – dramaturgs, directors, critics, translators, playwrights – considered each play on the basis of its potential for reaching, and communicating with, a Russian audience in the current context of society and theater today in Russia. Many plays praised highly by readers were not recommended for translation because of cultural differences, language barriers or thematic concerns. 

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The Translators:

• Yury Klavdiev will adapt Suzan-Lori Parks’ The Book of Grace from a literal translation by Maria Nikolaeva.

Klavdiev is one of Russia’s top playwrights and screenwriters. His plays have been produced throughout Russia, Europe and the United States. Films based on his screenplays have won awards at various European film festivals. His personal style is equal parts violent and poetic, and he has a spectacular ear for dialogue and conflict in action.

Nikolaeva is one of Moscow’s most sought-out interpreters. She has translated for numerous American film directors working in Moscow and has been Tom Stoppard’s translator in Moscow. She was the interpreter in October for the visit of the American partners in Moscow.

• Ivan Vyrypaev will adapt Eric Bogosian’s Talk Radio from a literal translation by Anna Shulgat.

Vyrypaev is a major Russian playwright and screenwriter. His play Oxygen is a landmark of the so-called “New Russian Drama” and his works have been performed all over the world. He is a master of plays featuring several characters, but which are structured, in essence, like monologues.

Shulgat is a dramaturg, translator, theater critic and arts manager who has collaborated with the Likhachev Foundation, Azbooka Publishers, Vita Nova Publishers (St. Petersburg), and Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. She has published more than a hundred essays and articles on theatre and literature in Russia and abroad, as well as a dozen translated books.

• Maksym Kurochkin will adapt Adam Rapp’s Nocturne from a literal translation by John Freedman.

Kurochkin is acknowledged as one of the most inventive and powerful playwrights in Russia today. He is capable of writing expansive, large-stage works (Kitchen), small-stage experimental pieces (Vodka, Fucking and Television), subversive boulevard drama (Repress and Excite), and tongue-in-cheek, experimental works on futuristic themes (The Schooling of Bento Bonchev). Kurochkin is an inventor of language and structure and yet has the ability to reach large audiences at the same time.

Freedman is an author, translator, the theater critic of The Moscow Times and the Director of the New American Plays for Russia initiative.

• Mikhail Durnenkov will adapt Annie Baker’s The Aliens from a literal translation by Yekaterina Raikova.

Durnenkov, sometimes working with his brother Vyacheslav and sometimes working alone, is the author of over a dozen works that have had an appreciable impact on Russia drama in the last half-decade. His plays have been produced in numerous theaters in Moscow, including the Moscow Art Theater, and his play Drunks, written with his brother, was commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2009.

Raikova is the primary interpreter at the Saratov Youth Theater, where she worked as a dramaturg on Sam Shepard’s The Curse of the Starving Class for Lee Breuer in 2010, and acted as Breuer’s personal translator during his 6 weeks of rehearsals.

• Sergei Task will translate Chuck Mee’s Big Love.

Task is a playwright and Russia’s premier translator from English into Russian, with dozens of plays and hit productions to his credit. He regularly translates film scripts for the Moscow International Film Festival. He is the founder of the WILL agency of drama in Moscow.

• Nina Belenitskaya will translate Deborah Zoe Laufer’s End Days.

Belenitskaya is one of the most interesting of the young Moscow playwrights. Her play 03 (Emergency) was staged at the prestigious Playwright and Director Center and she wrote dialogues for Vladimir Pankov’s popular production of Passageway at the same theater. Her play My God Pavlik, produced at the Joseph Beuys Theater in Moscow, was nominated for a Golden Mask award in 2011.

• Yevgeny Kazachkov will translate Nilo Cruz’s Anna in the Tropics.

Kazachkov is a young playwright and screenwriter who has attracted attention with his plays at the prestigious Lyubimovka young play festival. He was one of the collective of authors that created the play 1612, a joint Russian-Polish work that was performed at Teatr.doc in Moscow and Ad Spectores in Wroclaw. He is the instigator of Pecha Kucha Night events in Russia.

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STATUS UPDATE: ONE (Nov. 2010)

My team of Russian readers is currently evaluating the plays that were nominated for the New American Plays for Russia initiative, which is funded by the U.S. embassy in Moscow under a grant from the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission and organized with the help of Philip Arnoult's Center for International Theatre Development. (See entries below for detailed information on the project.) Our readers in the first stage are:

     Pavel Rudnev, Translator, Art Director of the Meyerhold Center, Moscow

     Sergei Task, Playwright, Translator, Founder of the Will Agency, Moscow

     Natalya Druzhinina, Executive Director of the Real Theater Festival, Yekaterinburg

     Georg Genoux, director, founder of the Joseph Beuys Theater, Moscow

     Pavel Shishin, Literary Director of the Fifth Theater, Omsk

     Nikolai Pesochinsky, Docent, St. Petersburg Academy of Theater Arts; Provost, Academy of International Relations

     Yury Urnov, Director, Artist in Residence, Towson University

Almost  every writer invited to participate in the initiative responded by sending his or her play - or plays, as the case may be. Here is the final list of American plays (provided in the order that I received them) that are now under consideration for translation into Russian:

1 Darci Picoult, Lil's 90th 
2 Sarah Ruhl, Eurydice 
3 Suzan-Lori Parks, Book of Grace
4 Suzan-Lori Parks, Topdog/Underdog
5 Gina Gionfriddo, After Ashley 
6 Chuck Mee, Big Love
7 Chuck Mee, True Love    
8 Adam Bock, The Receptionist 
9 Deborah Zoe Laufer, End Days
10 Rachel Axler, Smudge
11 Melissa James Gibson, Current Nobody
12 Caridad Svich, Instructions for Breathing
13 Lameece Issaq, Food and Fadwa
14 Eric Bogosian, Talk Radio 
15 Tracey Letts, Superior Donuts 
16 Edith Freni, Total Power Exchange
17 Lisa Kron, Well
18 Lisa Kron, In the Wake 
19 Lisa Kron, 2.5 
20 Nilo Cruz, Anna and the Tropics
21 Adam Rapp, Red Light Winter
22 Annie Baker, Circle. Mirror. Transformation.
23 Annie Baker, The Aliens

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POST ONE
Basic information for New American Plays for Russia, supported by a generous grant from the U.S. Embassy, Moscow, under the auspices of the U.S.-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission. 

The New American Plays for Russia project was conceived to develop quality Russian translations of contemporary American plays. Considering the deep respect for, and ongoing popularity of, theater and drama in Russia, and considering the profound interest that Russians have in contemporary American culture, this project will provide an important bridge between the two cultures. In a cultural form that is esteemed in Russia, this will provide for Russians insight into the rich diversity of voices, viewpoints, beliefs and cultures that make up American society today.

John Freedman, American author and critic, in collaboration with Philip Arnoult's Center for International Theater Development (CITD), will curate the program, which enlists the expertise of four of America's most prestigious play development organizations (The Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, The Humana Festival of New American Plays, The Sundance Institute, and New York Theatre Workshop).

• Stage One. Two dozen contemporary American plays are nominated for consideration by the four American play development organizations.

• Stage Two. A Russian board, consisting of English-speakers, works with Freedman to select eight plays to be given literal (line-by-line) translations.

• Stage Three. A larger board of Russian partners chooses four finalists from the eight literal translations. These four works, which shall be considered those most likely to reach a broad Russian audience, shall be fully translated and adapted by prominent Russian playwrights.

• Stage Four. The finished adaptations/translations shall be published and distributed throughout Russia by CITD in electronic form (compact discs and the internet) and print media (a book). The four plays not chosen for adaptation/translation shall be made available to writers or theaters wishing to take on this task.

• Stage Five. A series of festival readings in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Saratov, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok and Perm presents the works to key Russian partners in important cultural centers.

• Work on the project began in the summer of 2010, and is expected to be concluded in fall 2011. 

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U S    D E L E G A T I O N 

Jim Nicola, Artistic Director

New York Theatre Workshop

James C. Nicola has been the Artistic Director of New York Theatre Workshop (NYTW) since 1988. Under his guidance, NYTW has remained steadfast to its founding commitment of nurturing both established and emerging theatre artists, promoting collaboration and bold experimentation with theatrical forms. Mr. Nicola initiated an extensive series of workshop opportunities including summer residencies and minority theatre artist fellowships, and has forged a unique community of theatre artists, the Usual Suspects, a group of writers, directors, designers and actors, who form the core of NYTW’s artist development activities. As Artistic Director, Mr. Nicola has been instrumental in the development of many NYTW world premieres, including Claudia Shear’s Blown Sideways Through Life and Dirty Blonde, Jonathan Larson’s Rent, Will Power’s The Seven, Ivo van Hove’s productions of Hedda Gabler and A Streetcar Named Desire, the American premieres of Caryl Churchill’s Mad Forest, Far Away and A Number, Doug Wright’s Quills and Tony Kushner’s Homebody/Kabul. Before joining NYTW, Mr. Nicola spent nine years at Arena Stage in Washington, D.C., first as a National Endowment for the Arts Directing Fellow and later as a Producing Associate where he directed productions including Marsha Norman’s ’night Mother, Christopher Durang’s The Marriage of Bette and Boo and Emily Mann’s Still Life. From 1975 to 1980, Mr. Nicola was a Casting Coordinator for the New York Shakespeare Festival where he developed his continuing, passionate commitment to new voices in the theatre. Mr. Nicola’s other directing credits include Leonard Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Gilbert and Sullivan’s Trial by Jury at the WPA Theatre, John Guare’s Landscape of the Body at the Studio Theatre, and Ernest Joselovitz’s Flesh Eaters and Jessie’s Land at the New Playwrights Theatre. Mr. Nicola fueled his love of theatre during the early 1970s when he was an Assistant Director at The Young Vic/National Theatre of Great Britain and an Assistant Stage Manager at London’s Royal Court Theatre, where he worked on Athol Fugard’s Boesman and Lena, the first time Fugard had been allowed out of South Africa. Mr. Nicola is a graduate of Tufts University.

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Christopher Hibma, Associate Director

Sundance Institute Theatre Program

Christopher joined the Sundance Institute Theatre Program in the fall of 2005, and currently serves as its Associate Director. Christopher produces Theatre Labs in Florida, Wyoming and Utah and will create two new Labs in 2010 at MASS MoCA and on Governors Island in New York Harbor. His work has supported individual writers such as Annie Baker, Tracey Scott Wilson, Taylor Mac and David Adjmi as well as the creative teams of Spring Awakening, Passing Strange and Grey Gardens. He produces Sundance Institute East Africa, a multi-year program that supports theatre artists of Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda. In 2010, he produced a pilot Theatre Lab for East African theatre artists on the island of Manda off the Kenyan coast. He successfully negotiated Sundance Institute's first Actors’ Equity contract, administers its new commissioning program as well as Sundance Institute Pre- and Post-Lab Support programs.

Prior to the Sundance Institute, he served as the first Managing Director for Theater Latté Da, a Minneapolis-based theatre company. He also served as General Manager for the Minnesota Boychoir, a 50+ year tradition in the Twin Cities. He has produced a variety of events for other organizations such as the Minnesota Chorale and Youth Frontiers, Inc, a non-profit organization that teaches character education in schools. He has been on the directing staffs for Broadway’s The Lion King and numerous productions at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. At the Virginia Opera, Christopher assisted Lillian Groag on Wagner’s Die Walküre. He has also worked as a graphic designer for Marinan Design, a boutique design firm in the Twin Cities. Christopher has created video projections for Maureen McGovern’s A Long and Winding Road at the Metropolitan Room in New York, for Carol Burnett: In Conversation and for Matt Gould’s Free Style, both at UCLA’s Reprise! in Los Angeles. His lives with his partner, Harrison Thompson in New York. 

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Preston Whiteway, Executive Director

The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center

Preston Whiteway was appointed Executive Director in January 2007, after serving the O’Neill as General Manager since 2004, and now leads the venerable and vital institution and its many national programs into the future.  Under his leadership, the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center was awarded the 2010 Regional Theater Tony Award.  Mr. Whiteway joined the O’Neill upon graduating from Duke University, where he received his BA in Economics.  While at Duke, Mr. Whiteway served as the Chair of Broadway at Duke, leading and managing the major arts presenting organization, bringing national touring Broadway shows to the Durham, NC campus.  Mr. Whiteway also worked with National Playwrights Conference Artistic Director, Wendy C. Goldberg, at Washington, DC’s Arena Stage.  Since coming to the O’Neill, he has served on panels at Duke University Theater Communications Group and has been profiled in the New York Times and the Hartford Courant, and serves as a Trustee of the Eastern Connecticut Chamber of Commerce. A native of Virginia, Preston now lives in New London, Connecticut.

 

Amy Wegener, Literary Manager

Humana Festival Of New American Plays & Actors Theatre Of Louisville

Amy Wegener is the Literary Manager at Actors Theatre of Louisville.  In a total of ten seasons with Actors Theatre and four as Literary Manager at the Guthrie Theater (2003-2007), she has worked as a dramaturg on more than 80 workshops and productions of new plays and classics. Before heading north to Minneapolis, Amy was Actors Theatre's Assistant Literary Manager and subsequently Dramaturg/Director of New Play Development (1997-2003).  Her work in Louisville includes evaluating hundreds of scripts that are submitted for the annual Humana Festival of New American Plays and National Ten-Minute Play Contest, serving as a dramaturg on both mainstage season productions and Humana Festival world premieres, and participating in the myriad creative and administrative projects of the Literary Department.  At the Guthrie, she provided dramaturgical support for the theatre's International Travel Commission initiative and managed the University of Minnesota/Guthrie B.F.A. New Play Commissions and workshop process, among other projects. Amy has worked with numerous playwrights on the development and production of their new work, including Allison Moore, Julie Marie Myatt, Deborah Stein, Courtney Baron, Kirsten Greenidge, Dan Dietz, Madeleine George, Kelly Stuart, Victoria Stewart, David Rambo, Melanie Marnich, Mac Wellman, Zoe Kazan, Lee Blessing, William Mastrosimone, Jerome Hairston, and many others.  She has co-edited eleven published anthologies of plays, and frequently worked with The Playwrights' Center while in Minneapolis. Amy is a graduate of Princeton University and holds an M.A. from Northwestern University.

 

Philip Arnoult, Director

Center for International Theatre Development

Philip Arnoult is  widely recognized, nationally and internationally, not only for his efforts to nurture and present new theater and dance from throughout the world, but also for his commitment to long-term, international projects that put artists together to take the first steps toward collaborative projects. 

He founded The Baltimore Theatre Project in 1971, and served as its director for over two decades,  presenting artists from the US and abroad,  working on the cutting edge of both theater and dance forms.  

In 1990 he founded the Center for International Theatre Development (CITD)

He has lectured on new theater and new collaborations throughout the United States and abroad, and has delivered keynote addresses on these subjects at the Ditchley Foundation’s conference in Oxford, England, at the British-Israeli Theatre Association Conference in Tel Aviv, and for the Gulbenkian Foundation in Portugal.

He has served on various policy and evaluation panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, and other state and regional agencies, as well as foundations and trusts in the US and abroad..

He has given lectures and conducted workshops and seminars on international exchange and new theater in Argentina, Belgium,  Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Denmark, Egypt, France, Finland, Germany, Holland, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, Norway, Poland, Portugal,  Romania, Russia, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United Kingdom.

 

John Freedman, Translator, Theater Critic

The Moscow Times, Center for International Theatre Development

John Freedman has spent the last 20 years working to introduce Americans to Russian theater and drama, the last 10 of which he has partnered on numerous programs with Phillip Arnoult’s Center for International Theater Development. John has written or edited and translated nine books about Russian drama and theater and has been the theater critic of The Moscow Times since 1992. His translations of over two dozen Russian plays have been performed in the United States, Australia, Canada and South Africa.

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