Springing into Spring! A Host of Events

The UK Spring is almost making its presence felt, and as usual for this time of year, team OOTW are busy. There are so many events coming up that we wanted to put them all in one place. Please do join us!

An Evening with Out of the Wings, 10 May 2024

Join for our annual celebration of Out of the Wings, when we welcome new members, introduce our 2024 Festival, look forward to the launch of our next set of publications with Inti Press, and enjoy our multilingual open mic session (which is for translators of all and any languages). We will kick off with some welcomes and informal mass play readings, before handing over to our open mic-ers (sign up for the open mic on the night). This annual evening event began as our ‘Winter Warmer’ during the 2021 lockdown, and since then has served as a friendly and informal get-together for friends and colleagues, old and new.

• The event is open to all and is free. You can sign up here.  

Almiro Andrade at Out of the Wings Late, Omnibus Theatre 2023

Feminist Translation in Practice, 21 May 2024

Out of the Wings member Sophie Stevens is organising this event, to be held at the Institute of Languages, Cultures and Societies, Senate House, London. This half-day symposium on feminist translation in practice will bring together researchers, practitioners, translators, students and theatre-makers to exchange ideas and ways of working. The events will include a workshop on practising feminist translation in theatre, a roundtable on feminist translation practices and publishing, and a sharing of new work in translation. These sessions will include dialogues between researchers and practitioners and between authors and translators, with input from authors in Uruguay and Brazil. In each of these activities, the aim is to explore how feminist translation practices have an impact on how translators produce new translations, and how these practices can be extended to transform ways of working with others when it comes to publishing a text, or staging a translated play.

• Information and booking can be found here. 

Sophie Stevens (left) and Camila Ymay González (right) rehearsing for the OOTW2023 festival. Photo (c) Terry Cripps.

Viva Portugal at Omnibus, 2–14 July 2024

Viva Portugal, created by Out of the Wings members Susannah Finzi, Almiro Andrade and Rachel Toogood, celebrates fifty years since the ‘Carnation Revolution’ of 1974. Two playwrights re-tell history through a different lens. One imagines the preoccupations of the dictator in his hours of insomnia. The other sees a real event from the point of view of its unacknowledged heroine. Viva Portugal will also feature visual art, theatre workshops and much more, all centred around the London borough of Lambeth, known for its local Portuguese community.

• Information and booking can be found here. 

Worldmaking on Stage: Theatre Translation Practice and Future-making, 16 July 2024

Once again, we will launch our Festival with a forum that brings together practitioners and researchers to engage with ideas on staging, teaching, and researching translated theatre. The call for submissions is attached, and the deadline is 26 April. The forum has been a central part of our annual festival and wider activities for many years, and is always a rich, eclectic and sometimes surprising event. Presentations have included talks, poetry and short play-readings, papers, and provocations. We look forward to receiving another great selection of proposals for 2024, from anyone with an interest in theatre in translation.

• Information about the Forum and how to submit a proposal can be found here. 

BCLT summer school theatre workshop, 22–26 July 

William Gregory will be leading The British Centre for Literary Translation (BCLT) theatre translation workshop. This is the only the third time the prestigious BCLT Summer School has featured a theatre strand, and comes after a two-year hiatus. The 2024 Summer School is 100% online, and open to anyone in the world. A range of bursaries are also available. Registration is open until 14 April. 

• Information can be found here. 

April table read, 26 April 2024

Our next table read is on Friday 26 April at 1500BST, in London and online as usual. More information soon: stay tuned. 

Out of the Wings Festival, 16-20 July 2024

We will be announcing the plays for the 2024 OOTW Festival in May, but in the meantime, booking is already open for die-hard fans! Over one week, we will present staged readings of five plays from five different countries, all in UK-premiere English translations. In 2023, these ranged from an early-C20th classic from Nicaragua to contemporary work from Catalonia. Where will we go next? Early information, and the all-important booking links, can be found here. 

We look forward to seeing you at some – or all! – of these events. And as always, you can stay in touch via our social media and by email at these links.

Until next time!