 Okay, hi everyone and welcome. Thank you so much for being here. My name is Sarah Cameron Sunder and I am an interdisciplinary artist working across many platforms. Today we are talking about why the American theater needs Nova Laureate Jung Fossa and this is really a roundtable on bringing plays and translation to our stages here in the US and you're going to hear from a lot of amazing people. Again, my name is Sarah Cameron Sunder. From 2003 until 2013, a major focus in my work was translating and directing the texts of Jung Fossa so that they could be experienced by audiences here in New York City where I am and across the US. And I had a profound experience the first time I read a play by Jung Fossa in 2003 and that is why I just knew I had to make this happen. And so together with Onaguto, I formed Oslo Elsewhere and together with Marie Louise Miller, both of whom you're going to hear from later today, or in a few minutes, we created the translation think tank and we had some success. We got Fossa his first positive English language reviews in major press outlets, but then after five US premiere productions with the last one happening in 2013, his work just didn't quite catch on like wildfire in the way that I anticipated. But now here with this Nobel Prize win, I'm thinking and I think a lot of people are thinking maybe there's a chance that it could take off in a different way right now. So I argue that the American theater really needs the voice of Jung Fossa right now. And if this is a moment for Fossa, then maybe that means that it can be a moment for other amazing artists who are writing in a language other than English, and that those translations can be produced and we can get some attention here. So we are going to hear a very quick excerpt of Fossa's work to just give you a taste of his writing. Then we're going to be joined by a couple of collaborators from the first Fossa productions, and then we're going to open it up to a bigger conversation around translation in the US with an amazing group of translators and producers. Before we move on to that, I just want to acknowledge that all of us here, except for one person who's calling in from Norway, but the rest of us here are all calling in from somewhere on Turtle Island from various unceded lands. And we want to acknowledge the indigenous wisdom of the elders from the past, present, and future who make our work possible being here today. So with no further ado, I want to bring on Natalia Payne, who is going to be reading from just a little piece of Death Variations. Natalia Payne, the daughter, the role of the daughter in our 2006 production. And this little section is focused on the daughter, but you're also going to be hearing her read the text of the older woman that comes in and out as we go along. So it's just this short little section, enjoy. And he comes walking towards me with rain in his hair. One night he comes walking towards me. In his own light, he comes walking. In that music that's his own, he comes walking. And the rain in his hair will always be there. His hair in the rain one night, right there, right then. She walked out into the night, into the rain, into the wind. Because most things change, vanish, turn into something else. That which never changes is rain in his hair. One night, right then, right there, he came walking towards me. His hand waving. She must have walked down to the harbor, walked along the wharf. Because his hair in the rain is there. Like heavenly light. Because love resembles death. The way his hand waving is also always there. His hair in the rain and just one night of rain. She walked along the wharf, in the rain and the wind, in the darkness, in the pitch black darkness. I can see everything becoming calm. And nothing becomes clear like pain and rain in his hair. She walked there along the wharf, in the darkness, alone in the night. And far, far away, he comes walking towards me in his very own light. And there, inside that luminous sleep, in the darkness there, in the luminous darkness there, we find the great desire, the desire in that great sleep. Awesome. Thank you, Natalia. Thank you so much. This is a really kind of poetic section. It's towards the end of the play. Let's bring on Marie and Anna, if you can turn on your camera, who are two of my amazing collaborators from these early years. And yes, I would love for you to just share quickly what are your biggest takeaways or take away, biggest takeaway from working on those first couple fossil productions or that first fossil production in 2004. Anna, do you want to start? Yeah, I can start since I don't see Marie is on yet. It was an incredible thing when Sarah and I started this. These two theater professionals who both have this desire to do fossa and is what brought us together. We didn't know each other before we heard about each other through knowing that each of us wanted to do fossa in New York. I think one of the biggest takeaways for me that have been ever since then is the understanding of how translation allows you to understand how different it is for different cultures to understand each other. And I remember specifically because I myself have grown up in kind of a bilingual way because I'm from Norway and then I spent many years in the US. So for me, it was normal to know that words are not always have the same meaning in different languages. But it was mind boggling to me and kind of had it wasn't epiphany for me when someone on the production would ask me, yeah, but Anna, what is the literal translation of this word? I can't remember what the word was. It was something simple like, let's say like knowledge. And they wanted to know the literal translation from Norwegian to English. And I said, well, there is no one literal translation of a word. It can be translated probably into five to 10 different words. And and the understanding of that I started taking in for the other person. And even for myself, too, I understood, okay, well, then, if we have such a hard time understanding even how many variations we have in our language, then of course, we have a hard time understanding each other as different cultures. And I think that was that was that was a big thing to me. And I feel like you and Foss's work is actually very good in order to focus on that because his language is quite simple. So you think it's simple. But because he writes so much, not just in the words he writes, but in the silences in between and in what's not said, it made it even more important to have those nuances of all the different variations of what words could be what words could mean, and the different variations. I don't know how it was for you, Marie. Yeah, that's interesting. I also speak two languages. And I think that I don't speak Norwegian. So I came at this from from the English speaking side. And I think that two things resonated and very much in line with what Anna is saying. There, there are the untranslatable, even even with Foss's work, there are where it seems like there are relatively few words and my goodness, you can get them right. But I think that part of it is the great variation both in English and in Norwegian to convey an idea. But then there are the untranslatable moments, the words that follow and are connected to the melody of a language, the way a language needs to come out of a person to express an idea, write single words, together create meaning. And so part of it is that, and part of it is that there are words that embrace culturally embrace deeper meaning, they embrace history, there are reference for people to something beyond the word itself. And, and the question is, how do you then bring all of that into another language? Or do you not? And then if you don't, do you leave the word in its original language? What do you do? So, and so it's a deeply philosophical question, as well as a linguistic conundrum. But I think it's completely the thing we must do if as a people who are interested in self expression through theater and any other cultural means, that you continuously question your own language, and which words are important, and what weight they carry. And one way to do that is to work on a translation. Hmm. Yes, I remember how Murray, we would always talk about with our translation think tank about the, the act of peace building, I think this was your idea that has stayed with me and I articulated all the time that it's really a by trying to get our heads into the language of how another person thinks that that they create understanding and empathy in a, in a way that is just so important. I believe so, for sure. And it's also a matter, you translate from a culture, but you also translate to a culture. So are you supposed to translate only correctly from the culture? No, you're also supposed to correctly translate to the audience in New York, as it was for us. And both in the words and in the performance, you know, absolutely. And to that end, Natalia, do you want to say anything about your experience? Sure. Yeah, thank you. I mean, I hadn't looked at the text from death variations in over a decade and what really struck me in looking at it, and particularly some of the dialogue earlier in the play, which is, which is not, not quite the same as what I just read, but very short constructions of sentences, incomplete sentences, simple words. But what really struck me as an actor looking at the text was that these lines were all about people trying to connect, trying to express what they were, what they felt in a way that would affect some change on the other person. And then I thought, well, that's really all of dramatic writing is people trying to express struggling to express something. And it just got me thinking about how the role of an actor actually is you are a translator, you're trying to use the words that someone else has written and embody them in some way that seems organic and like you have spontaneously thought of these words, you know, and your work as a character is trying to express some, you know, your inner secret world or your inner secret longings to somebody else. And I was just thinking about, you know, this expression lost in translation that like there, I think there's this perception that like a translated work will always in some way be like the knockoff or like it won't quite be able to capture all of the original essence. And I was just thinking all of theater making is about translation. And I think that's actually a pretty limited view. I think that that struggle to communicate struggle to overcome that gap between us and the other person is actually central to what we're doing all the time as theater artists. And like I think there's a lot of dramatic possibilities in embracing that translation as part of that. Yes, I love that. That's yeah. And it so relates actually to what Fossa said yesterday in his Nobel speech, his lecture that he gave. He was talking about that he was talking about listening, like how all theater is listening, you know, listening to the text, listening to the director, listening to the actors and listening to the audience of the audience is listening back and that that and and yeah, that there's so much, there's so much excitement and room for the or delicacy in that in that act, I guess. Yeah, I love that. Marie, did you want to say something else? No, I'm totally in agreement with that. I think that I think that it's endlessly exciting, actually. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know we can talk about this for a long time. Well, and it's also, yeah, I just, I guess I want to add it. It is endlessly exciting. And we haven't I haven't looked at this work also in a very long time. And I think it really speaks to the the depth of the work that we did together, that it really takes one phone call and it all comes back or hearing your and I so this the depth of the work and what it means to to bring something from one language and culture into and for another and back again with respect for the culture it came from. Yeah, I mean, I think, I suppose the only thing I would add is that someone once said to me, well, the most important thing about a translation is that you make a good play. And I would say, to respond to that, I would say no, actually, the most important thing is that you begin by honoring the artists that created the play in the first place. As otherwise, you're just making a play for the tropes that you already have in operation. And you don't need that other artist, you can work in your own language with someone who wrote in English. Yeah, it's so interesting, though, because that also like the the thing in the process of working with falses texts, the thing that actually made me so committed to bringing his works to in the way he intended was actually that he also trusted me as a director. I mean, I was like a young 27 year old who got the rights to, you know, do this work to translate and direct it, which was kind of wild in a way given how famous he was already. But he said to me every time I would ask him about something, he'd be like, you know the answer, Sarah. And there was something incredible about the trust that he put in me as a director to do it that also just made it made me I like it was just like this mutual trust fest because he he trusted that I could do it, which and so that made allowed me to trust my vision of it, which allowed me to trust the actor, you know what I mean? So it's like became that and that philosophy felt really important in terms of of how it comes into production in a in a different place. So because it feels like a different, it's like a little bit of a different angle than a lot of things that happen in the American theater, I think. But okay, we need to move on. We're going to keep everyone's going to keep staying here, or you can go off camera for a little bit, but we're going to bring on all the translators from other languages to join the conversation. And because I'm part of this is that I, you know, as I've been my I've been working in the visual arts sector a lot over the last 10 years. And so I really went once this whole fossil thing happened and it was announced that he won the Nobel Prize. I've like kind of thrown myself back into this world in a in a different way. And and I really wanted to know, okay, what's happening with theater and translation at this moment. And so I called up my friend Neil and I was like, Neil, what's happening? Can we have a conversation? And he said, yes, we have to bring in Sam. And so we brought in Sam and we brainstormed a little bit. And then they put together this list. And some people I know some people I don't know very well, but I'm excited to know. And I really want to hear from all of you that is this question, these questions of what, what, what is happening right now? What is the state of theater and translation in this country? What I want to I want to know your take on the field right now. And why is it important that the American computer experiences plays from abroad? And how can we move that needle to encourage more plays in production? What, what do you, what do you think? Give me give me your take. We're going to start, we're going to start with Neil. Kick us off. We're going to kind of go make sure we get through and hear from everybody. And then we'll open it up to a bigger conversation. Neil, take it away. Okay, great. Thank you. Great to be here. I'm glad we're doing this. And I'm glad that Fossa is bringing attention to, to playwriting, contemporary playwriting. And I would say that, you know, one of the things I've talked about a lot is this frustrating one way street where the most, the newest American and British plays get produced in Berlin and Paris and Buenos Aires. And the same thing doesn't happen in the opposite direction. That's been, been a, and that's a shame for, for the American theater on the level of both form and of content. My work is mostly translating plays from German and in the German language theater approaches to playwriting and to theater making are greatly different from the what's standard in America. And the expectations of audiences are very different too. So I think that productions of plays from overseas could still significantly expand the diversity of the American theater. And then on the level of content, obviously, theater can be a way to inform people about other cultures and about how those cultures tackle the same issues that we face in the US, whether that's immigration or income inequality or gender relations. As far as moving the needle goes to encourage more productions of plays in translation in the American theater, I've been trying to move that needle along with a lot of people on this call for many years. I've had some success, especially mostly in the fringe and sort of storefront context. We've been thinking about trying to pay more attention to the college and university setting. Now, one of the things there is that a lot of plays do get done in translation in drama and theater departments, Chekhov, Sophocles, Ibsen, but they don't always pay that much attention to the, to the translation that's involved. One final thing I'll throw out is I think one thing that would help to move the needle is if we could get, if we could persuade larger theaters to be more willing to take risks on plays in translation. So for instance, a hip production of a John Fossa play at a large regional theater, I think that that could have a lot of impact. So who's next? Sam is next. Hey, everyone. Thanks for that, Neil. And thanks, Sarah. I want to thank both of you. And I also want to acknowledge the group that my company is production right now. And so I am like definitely the short leg of the stool who kept texting in. Sounds great, guys. So thank you to both of you for really making this happen. I'm Sam Beguel and I'm a translator from French and a co-translator from Spanish. And I run a company called the Cherry Arts and we focus on a lot of things, but you know, our original focus and still our sort of core is producing plays from other languages and translation, contemporary plays. We've done, you know, about eight years, maybe a dozen or two, 15 plays from other countries. It's really exciting. And it came out of, for me, we're based in Ithaca, New York. And for me, it came out of a feeling of kind of non-excitement as a director about what I was getting offered to direct and what you want to make my own way. But also time spent abroad and seeing like, you know, the amount of just as Neil started to say, and Sarah, the amount of variety and possibility on international stages compared to the sort of the very sort of restricted dramaturgy and directing styles that we tend to see in the US. And so that really became my mission and mission of my company. I think, boy, in terms of how to make it happen, it's so difficult. And we've, one thing I can say is that there are a handful of companies who, for whom like the Cherry Arts, mine that do this, and we're all small and we're all kind of like hustling. I think Neil's point, Neil's idea of getting bigger companies to take a risk is like it embedded in the sentence is the problem that where theater is massively underfunded in the United States compared to the kinds of places that we're mostly talking about. The idea of turning to an artistic director and saying like, hey, I'd really like you to take a huge risk on this. They'd be like, why on earth would you think I could do that? You know what I mean? It's people are in a position of programming out of fear. And I think it's a big question of how to get around it. I want to say, as one of the people, Philip Boehm is another one, and the GCS era runs the Chicago based international voices project. We're three who are both translators and run companies that do this production. And so I want to say as a little shout out to the small community of theaters who do this. I recently called around all sorts of people, including Philip and Petruzia and put together an article for American Theater. So you can Google that. I don't think I can put it in, put a link in the chat that everyone will see. But it's called Lost and Found in Translation. And so that will at least give you quick descriptions of the dozen or so companies that are doing this regularly, where we're at. And you can see if one or more of them is in your community. Yeah, we can add, we'll add like a list of a couple links maybe to the HowlRound thing after we finish. Sweet. I'm probably over spoken. Yeah, yeah, it's okay. We do need to move on, but yeah, amazing. Thank you so much. We're going to hand it off to Amelia now to hear her take a quick take on this. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you, everybody. I'm so grateful to be here today, and I'm so excited to be in this room with all of these fabulous and talented people and part of this conversation. So I am a writer, translator from French to English and a theater maker currently based in Washington DC. Over the past 10 years or so, I've translated 15 plays from French into English. And I've been very fortunate to have many of those plays in some form or capacity on a stage in the United States. Many, many of those have been readings. And also, several of those have been as sur-titles, which I thought might be an interesting point to bring into this conversation because sur-titling is very different than translating. I mean, obviously, the act is the same of bringing a story from one language to another, but in terms of the finished product and the audience experience, it's a very, very different concept for an American audience coming to see a work in translation. And I am a passionate advocate for plays in translation for all of the reasons that everyone's been talking about in terms of expanding cultural perspective, both formally and in terms of the social questions that are being raised. And some of the most exciting rehearsal rooms I've been in have been workshopping plays in translation that lead us into these really interesting cultural interrogations of why things are phrased certain ways or what cultural import a certain word has in French that it doesn't necessarily in English and really fallen down those rabbit holes. My favorite thing to do. But obviously, those processes are time-consuming and expensive and really only possible for those who are really committed to furthering this work. So as a stopgap or a way to perhaps broaden audience desire for works in translation, sir titling is an option that's available. And I think that can be an important stepping stone for folks who perhaps are willing to watch a movie in translation with sir titles, but haven't had the experience with the play. So thank you all again. Also, Sam's article was fabulous. Highly recommend the read. I'll pass it along. I agree. Yeah. Sam, Sam, the article made me feel like we were all coming out of the closet together. I don't know what that was, but like, it made us all kind of giddy. Thank you. It's an interesting time to be speaking to you all because in April and May, International Voices Project IVP produced the Palestinian play The Shroud Maker by Ahmed Masoud. April and May. And here we are. And now we're following Ahmed as his own family as in Gaza, and he can't find them. And his university has been destroyed. And if there was ever a richer tie to the importance of doing global work, if there was ever a more religious moment for our company and its history, this is that moment. It's really just a profound place to remember why this work is important. If for no other reason, it's to bear witness to what is happening around the world and why we need to have it in our American consciousness, if for no other reason. The other thing I'm thinking about, Neil, is your comment about spaces, getting it to larger companies. And I don't know that that's ever going to happen. I think the American model is always this number of seats times this much money, so forth. But I think the closer model may be to start moving our productions more. We've gotten them. We put all that money into them, right? We finally got them to a stage. Eight weeks later, we're closed. So maybe there's a better model for us. And I think the exciting thing is through Sam's work is connecting us more to see those possibilities. The other thing I wanted to say based on your conversation is I love working with playwrights, but I have to be honest, I like working with translators more. Translators are several different worlds at once. And watching them through their process is absolutely fascinating. Juggling a certain phrase and understanding its context in one culture and another. And Neil and I in our many debates over the years between the American word and the British word and what it means to this audience and that. Absolutely fascinating. One of the things I always say to my students is, yes, global plays, but yes, translators. These living beings who are in real time living in these liminal spaces. It's to me the most exciting thing. The last thing I want to say is, and I'm probably hitting my two minutes soon. We need global theater in the States because it reflects the diversity of our own culture, our own citizens. If we're not reflecting who our audience is, then what are we doing? Yes, thank you so much. So many things I want to respond to, but we're going to move on first to Kovina. Hi, everyone. And I want to thank Sarah and Neil and Sam. And all of you to be in such a distinguished group of people makes me feel very happy to be here. And I am extremely passionate about this topic. And so I'm very happy to have been asked to participate. So I, like Neil, we've been working hard thinking about how we can get over this reluctance for theater companies to produce plays and translation. And it brings me to questioning, why is it that we need to figure out before we can really get to how to get more plays produced, the idea of why or questioning why people are reluctant to stage translations. And I think it has to do with our educational system. Starting early in elementary school, middle school, high school, where we are taught or students are taught canonical works, but there's no focus given on the fact that a lot of the canonical works that we study in school as we're growing up are works in translation. And so when I teach my first year theater students, for example, my first assignment, the very first day is I send them all out to get a copy of a doll's house by Ibsen and bring it into class. And they bring it into class. And we go around the room. And I ask each of them to read the title of the play. And as we go around the room, we find that sometimes it's translated as a doll house. And sometimes it's translated as a doll's house. And for so many students, that's just a revelation. In other words, we read or audiences go see Ibsen and, you know, other canonical or, you know, great master's works without giving a thought to the fact that it's we're actually reading it or experiencing in translation, even going back to the Greeks and Aristotle, you know, it's all in translation. And once the students realize and see that there are two, at least two different ways of translating the title. And for me, I often begin talking about titles, or that's where I start with my translations, because I find it so important to come up with a proper title. And so we go around the room on this, you know, second day of class when they brought in their play to really think about how the difference between a doll house and a doll's house gives a different interpretation, perhaps, to how someone might approach the play. So as a country where we don't have an emphasis on learning other languages in school or cultural, that the history of American immigration has been about assimilation, not difference, I think that a lot of it needs to move into earlier education, so that students and people sort of grow up more with the idea of of encountering these plays that they're already accepting, that they were actually, they're reading them or experiencing them in translation, and it shouldn't be any different from new plays as well. That's a good point. Thank you. Amazing. Let's move on to Philip. Well, thank you very much. And I'd like to echo everyone's thanks for being included in this group. It's a, it's, it's an important topic. And Sarah, congratulations on the whole force getting recognized, which is partly due to you. I'm Philip Bame. I'm the artistic director of Upstream Theater in St. Louis. And it is literally our mission to bring a world of theater to St. Louis with plays from around the globe. And we've been doing that for 19 seasons. We've produced some 30 US premiers, many of which have been in translation from different languages. I also work as a translator from prose. But my original background in theater comes from Poland, where to echo what Neil was saying, there is much more exposure to world drama, also to different genres of drama. And one thing that we experience when we produce a play from a different culture, we're often exposing our audiences to a different genre and not just our audiences, but also we're giving the artists an opportunity to work in a different way, which for a lot of actors is very refreshing, since so much of American drama is confined to this realism and this realistic style. As to overcoming, you know, getting past these bottlenecks, I think another one involves the fact that the Lord theaters tend to do the same group of plays every season. And so somehow if a play that is from a different culture may be translated from another language can be seen as part of that group, if we can get the organizations like Lord or the theater communications group to advance some of our work. And as Sam was saying, you know, Sam's theater and our theater produced US premiere of the same playwright in the same season a couple years ago. And if other smaller theaters could do this, then I think some of those other larger theaters might catch on. Anyway, I'm going to pass it on, but thank you again. It's great to be with this group. Amazing, such good points. Yes. Taylor, you're up. Hi, just echoing everyone's thanks. It's both an honor and very intimidating to be among all of these wonderful smart practitioners of theater and translation. I'm Taylor Barrett Gaines, I translate from French. And, you know, at the risk of preaching to the choir of people who are already convinced by the power of translated theater, I just wanted to point out my experiences that I think that theater makers are in many ways natural translators, and translators are in many ways natural theater makers. And both people who work exclusively on the translation, I'm thinking of prose side, and people who work exclusively in monolingual theater, both often find themselves having to be advocates for the power of their craft. I mean, how many theater people can you think of who have to really beg for time in curriculum or beg for time in schools or beg for the attention of an audience whose attention is so divided and mostly by screens? And I think that the case that we have to make for each one of those and their power and their importance is very, very similar. And the practices are similar. They're about close, close reading and appreciation for another culture and the positive power of an obstacle and the communication of multiple meanings of a multiplicity of meaning that necessarily has to pass through one or more bodies. And I think that the the advocacy work that's been done on behalf of translated literature for so long, people lamented the fact that only 3% of all published work in the U.S. was literature, was work in translation, and that was all genres combined. And in the last 10 years, there's been a real resurgence of or of an increase in small presses and publishing houses and major publishing houses who are creating imprints so that they can specifically publish world literature. And I don't know exactly how by what mechanisms that happened, but it was a lot of advocacy work and association work. And now the New York Times puts out a like a preview of books in translation that are coming out for the next the coming season. So I wonder, I just I want to push for more advocacy between these two milieu that I think are really, really interconnected in a lot of ways. Thank you. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Thank you, Adam. Hi, everyone. So pleased to be here. And again, thanks to Sarah, Neil and Sam for pulling us all together. So I translate from Spanish, primarily from Latin America. I'm the senior dramaturg for Playmakers Repertory Company and the founder and editor of the Macurian theatrical translation review. And I guess to add to an echo in many ways, a lot of what's already been said, you know, anywhere that I have worked or lived, whether it's been in Latin America and East Asia and Europe, theater professionals have always talked about how important work in translation has been to their own work. And I think that the US theater is greatly impoverished by that lack of encountering other cultures, other ways of thinking dramaturgically, of thinking theatrically. We do a disservice to ourselves, to our collaborators and to the field as a whole, if we're not constantly seeing what's going on in the rest of the world. In terms of moving the needle, as several of you know, I've been trying to do this for quite a while now. And I've come to the conclusion that really the only way to do that is to play the long game. And what I mean by that is to work with students who are going to be the next generation of theater artists, the next generation of artistic directors. And like Cabina was talking about, every one of my classes, I focus on translation and try to introduce them to translation as a concept. And I've gone over my time, so I'm going to shut up now. Oh, it's so good though. Oh my gosh, we're gonna have great conversation after this. Alright, last up, Andrea. Hi. Thank you, everybody. It's great to hear from everyone. I don't think, I don't know that I could have much to add different, you guys covered a lot of things I would say, but just to say my playwright, a translator from Spanish English, and I used to, I created and used to run the LARC's US Mexico Playwright Exchange. We translated many, many plays through that program and worked with bringing Mexican playwrights to the US, to New York to work with US playwrights. And a lot of things happen in that room, right? So in terms of why it's important, I mean, of course, like I think Anna said at the beginning, you know, just knowing that there are more than one, there's more than one meaning for a different word. When I grew up bilingual, that was all like obvious to me or, and it's, it's a, I feel like it's a function of US, people in the US thinking that they don't need to know about the rest of the world. It's like a little bit, not individuals, but sort of our attitude as a nation. I'd go visit family in Chile, we'd see news of the entire rest of the world, because when you're in, you know, the bottom of the southern hemisphere, you need to know what's happening when you're not a global power, you kind of need to know what everybody else is doing. And we've had sometimes the privilege and some of the blindness of not needing to always know that in the US and I think it's related. But that also just that it's important to be uncertain. It's important to know that you don't always have all the knowledge, right? That this word, everything, every idea, every concept contains multiplicities and we don't always know all of them. Everything is a prism. In terms of our work as artists here, there's like a legibility question too as a playwright. You know, when you, they're literally artistic directors, I had a friend who was writing about Puerto Rico, an artistic director of a very well-known theater company said, didn't even know that Puerto Rico was a was a colony of the US. They, you know, and so it's just sort of like, how can our work as like, okay, me as a Latino playwright be legible or anybody who's engaging with ideas or other places or other languages, how is it going to be legible? People are even aware of the rest of the world. And of course, like what it does for us as artists, like Adam was just saying, like it's impoverishing our theater to not understand and not inhabit and engage with this theater from the rest of the world. The rest of the world is learning from the rest of the world and we're not always, as a playwright, I always give like the dancer metaphor and you move with different choreographers. I used to do dance when you learn a new choreographer's way of moving through the world, you, yeah, it changes you. It gives you new muscles and for actors and directors as well. Enough, I've gone over. Thank you. Well, we're done with our little strict time limit moment. We've gotten, we've gotten to hear from everybody. Such amazing comments and thoughts. My brain is spinning. Does anyone have anything they want to respond to that they heard first off that surprised them or made them think something else that they wanted to comment on? Well, I would like us to maybe talk a bit more. Obviously, it'll be just in general sense, a general sense for now, but the idea of that Patricia brought up of trying to do sort of touring productions. I guess I'm particularly wondering whether Sam and Philip as people who run theaters, how plausible is that? I mean, I know that in the German language theater, I mean, big complicated productions routinely get restaged at another theater in another city in another part of the country. And in the case of a production done at the cherry, I would think that having that taking it to St. Louis would not be primitive, although I understand, of course, that we don't have the arts, the government grants, we don't have ensembles hired, you know, that are all paid by the theater. But anyway, I just wonder what others think about that and how plausible it might be. We've often considered this type of exchange. And in fact, I tried to develop a regional exchange because another benefit would be for actors, one problem that I think afflicts our U.S. theater in general is this notion that regional theaters are no longer regional. Actors, these larger regional theaters are casting out of New York and they're casting someone who, say, came from St. Louis, moved to New York to get cast and has been sent to Cincinnati. So and that deprives a lot of artists who are most committed to their communities of the chance to work in their community. So efforts to try and create regional webs would I think be possible if we could find the funding. Sam may have some thoughts about this and sometimes it could be there might be a certain foundations that would be willing to support this. Sam, what do you? Yeah, I mean, I think, I mean, what I would zoom out in a little maybe and say that the part of the whole structure of the sort of U.S. theater movement is really unlike the rest of the world, which tends to be about touring, you build a production and then it tours and everybody is set up for that. And here, the idea is like you write a play and then, you know, in a moment of great success, the production doesn't go to 50 places, but it gets 50 productions at 50 different theaters. And so the thing about touring is that there is just no infrastructure for it. There's no, it's a brand new conversation to people. Co-productions is a thing that people do. And that and that and I think that's the way you'd have to think about it. And that would be the we should talk about. Yeah. But it does, it becomes a lot about it becomes a lot about people's schedules and it becomes about shipping it shipping a set and housing actors and then is that less expensive actually then simply have it getting a new production of the same of the same play at the new theater, which is what everybody is used to doing. So not to like, you know, crap on the idea, but it is, but it all but it has it has challenges. I had a couple of productions remounted in Houston, but the idea of doing a co-production would take advance planning, I think, and splitting the funding sources. Yeah. Maybe it's a very U.S. of us, but I dream of, oh, our production is going to get attention for this play and then other people will produce it more than I tend to dream about, well, tour this production just but maybe because of the infrastructure and how many battles can you fight? I know the new plays network has done that, right? The rolling premier idea. Yeah. There's definitely a model for it. And you're right, Sam, which is the lesser of two beasts that you want to slay. You know, it's all going to take that underpinning of admin. I do think, though, that there's the chance for a different kind of funding in that model than general production funding. So I think it's more of a yes and that we continue to do what we're doing on our own and our traditional models are producing ourselves. But then I think there are these select opportunities, the right play at the right moment. It's all got to come together where two, three, four of us can roll that U.S. premiere through. And the good thing is, I know it on Mayan, right? We work out of Instituto Cervantes. It has a beautiful space and they're very open. It's a small space. It's limited. Neil knows this well, but it's space and it's well known and it's viable. But a number of things would have to come into play. I do think it may be the right model, though, for some projects. I love it. Kobina, I see that you want to also make a comment here. Yeah. Well, I wanted to just talk about a few past festivals that I've worked on. I didn't say before, but I translate from Indonesian. And so it's very hard to find audience interested in Indonesian plays. But I worked on Festival of Indonesia, which was a two-year national program that toured contemporary theater pieces around the country. And also there was Festival of India and I also worked on Festival of Korea and these other festivals, which is a model that no longer is taking place in terms of this cultural soft power diplomacy going on. And it's just wondering that might be some way of thinking about moving forward, more plays in translation through some kind of festivals, festival structure. And I don't know if that's still possible, if people will still fund those. But that was just an idea I had listening to the rest of you. I did have another thought on this, that the future of theater, at least for Chicago, is either the smaller productions or very large. We have lost what we'll call the middle class. It's gone. There's no mid-sized theaters, really, to speak of, one or two. But for a smaller, newer company, producing new work can be a way to create identity and to find a new audience. There's a real power in that new, and I think we need to sell that idea better. I don't know who the we is, but I know in Chicago, definitely we can do that. Collective we. It's all of us. I know, Sam, you have another comment. I just want to note that in the chat on the live stream, Patsy has suggested also that maybe we could learn from museums how they share exhibits. That's a great comment. Zara in the live stream has also said, given the many challenges faced by the insightful speakers here, is there any hope at all for plays translated from non-western languages? That's also a great question. I want to acknowledge that we wanted to have representation from the global, more representation from the global south here, and weren't able to drum that up, but this should be a conversation that is for all languages all over, obviously. Sam, and then Andrea, did you have another thought, too? Can we hear from you guys? That was very quick. I just had the thought, honestly, and to Kupina's point that that countries aren't spending the money to, it shouldn't be incumbent. I mean, that's a recipe, again, for not the global south to be represented if we're only turning to countries who have money to promote their culture in the United States to pay for these productions, but that is often part of what makes it happen. My thought is that, if anybody know, who knows somewhat the melanin of the Ford Foundation? What this actually needs is like $7 million for one enormous foundation to decide that we need international voices on mainstream American stages, and then we can spread it around, make huge programs, and have rolling world premieres and have it all happen, but I have not got that phone number, so whoever does, please email all of us and let's make it happen, because it really is about funding in this town, in this country. That's to connect to what Patsy said in the chat, that these festivals, I was talking about the festival of Indonesia and Korea and India, were connected to museum exhibits, too, so they had performance parts and museum parts, and they all toured simultaneously, so that is one way that it has been done in the past, at least. Yeah, I want to also just think about that from an interdisciplinary perspective. I think there's really room, you know, we are all kind of reimagining the American leader right now, and where is there room for this cross-disciplinary conversation? But Andrea, I've been cutting you off, go for it. No, no, you haven't, you haven't. The lark is gone, and that's very sad to me, but for many reasons, to many playwrights, but one of the things that happened there that I think was very useful, because we would have these gatherings, and you would have people in the space for 10 days, actors, directors, translators, translating playwrights, and original language players, all got very invested about these projects, and they actually worked on them, and then what would happen is they would take them, and that driving passion is often what ended up getting them produced. One of the, from our very first year, our dad is an Atlantis, ended up getting one of these rolling-roll premiers all around. Several of the plays or participants of the programs took them to theaters, so that was one way, but you have to have the spaces, those laboratory spaces, where people can come together, can encounter it, can play, can virtually feel what it's like to do this. The actors who get so excited because they get, as Latino actors, they're getting limited roles, but suddenly they get to play 500 different kinds of beautiful abstract roles and different kinds of language. The LARC was also a place we had Arabic language translation program, had Chinese, had Russian, had Mexican, so you would, and we would all often go and attend each other. There was a lot of cross-pollination, there was plays happening between Russia and Mexico and Portugal, sometimes the same play getting translated into all languages. My play with Chilean American characters speaking in Spanish was translated into Russian, into Russian and Spanish, you know, it's whatever, rush, rush, rush-lish, I don't know. So, but we have to have those spaces for play. And so, yes, funding is a big thing, but like it doesn't always have to go straight to production. The seeds for that can come out of that interaction. Neil is asking Sam and me about whether we would be less likely to produce a play from Indonesia than one from Austria in terms of thinking about our audiences. I think that at least the way we approach is if the play will resonate with the audience in St. Louis, then it could easily be from Indonesia or from Austria. The last play we did was from Argentina. We've done plays from Cuba, we've done plays from Croatia, but the main idea is that this play will somehow mean something in St. Louis that will move our audiences and move them to think, which is our tagline. Yes, move them to think. Sam, were you trying to say something? I was just agreeing. If anything, absolutely. If it spoke to the audience, we would, if anything, be more likely to program something from Indonesia than Norway. I have some translations to send, you guys. Yes, we should all be exchanging those translations. I love it. I love it. Yeah, room for play. There are so many good things here. I had a thought and I lost it because there are so many things coming into my brain right now. Maybe we can ask Adam to talk a bit more about this whole idea of trying to get the next generation of theatre makers to be more open to plays in translation than the crusty old people that are holding those positions now. Can you talk a bit concretely about some of the programs that you've been involved in or that you can envisage? Well, yeah, something that is very much in the seating stage at the moment. There was a small conference in St. Louis at Washington University and out of that has come an idea similar to what we were trying to do several years ago, Neil with the theatre and translation network, but rather than working with theatres and embassies and cultural institutes, in this case, putting together a small group of universities across the country that would commit to having something akin to the national new play network, a play or a series of plays in translation that would be done on each of those campuses. Ultimately, you would want to create the kind of ancillary programming that Cabina and others have been talking about. If you can combine that with interdisciplinary buy-in from across the campus and elevate the notion of theatre and translation that is then reflected in a museum exhibit that has other kinds of activities surrounding it, this could be something incredibly rich. Again, you've got to get the powers that be to put the money into doing it and that's sort of where we are at this stage in thinking about this. I would like to share one thing and I'm sorry that I can't turn on the camera because now I'm on the airport bus, but in Norway, which is where I'm from and where I now live again, they have like here there is a touring program for theatres called the school lunchbox and basically it's theatre productions that are so small to travel around that the actors travel it around themselves in basically either maybe a little van or sometimes even just a regular car and they have with them everything they need for the performance and they drive around to schools and do these performances. Now in Norway this is obviously something that's sponsored by the government but what it inspires I think is to there is a possibility of thinking of touring in a very simple way and even when I worked in theatre in Norway before I moved to New York, I worked at something called Rikstheatre which is a theatre that travels with performances all around Norway because we're a long big country and you can't afford to have a theatre, the government couldn't afford to have a theatre in every little town, so this was a touring company and the performances were made to be easy to tour. The production I was in, I played Sulvai in Pergint and which was one of the bigger productions but it was basically something we just put into sports halls like different kind of sports halls around the country and then we would do the play for two nights three nights and then pack it up and move on to the next town. So I wonder if that's part of a solution is also to find a way to think of touring in a more compact way than maybe what we tend to do and then as you were mentioning before if there can be collaborations then the money from maybe four or five different theatres can go into making a show happen and then it can play around at all of these theatres and it might end up actually becoming more cost-effective for everybody. Thank you Anna, yes I think that there's um yeah there's so many possibilities and we're in this real moment of transition for the for the theatre and so how do we like rethink the way things are working and the way that things can work and um it's really it's I think there's some possibilities and I guess I'm gonna I'm gonna start wrapping us up because we're at three oh five so we've gone over our hour but um but I would love to keep thinking with all of you and I also want to acknowledge that there are some folks on the live stream who are also part of our community or who are watching the live stream who are also part of our community, Yoni I know is there and I'm sure there are others because I'm not in that chat but um but thank you all for tuning in and um and I think it's a broader conversation then you know we have this amazing group here but it's much broader than that and we should all continue to keep talking and I um and especially it's so great thank you HowlRound for having us on this platform I think when you know Marie and Anna and I were having these conversations about um about uh translation back in the early aughts we didn't have HowlRound and we didn't have um this online platform to be able to get together so easily so that's like a kind of amazing development that we can just like gather for a meeting so quickly and easily so let's keep doing that um and then also that like I'm gonna I know I'm gonna I have this renewed passion for trying to get Ewan Falsa out into the U.S. right now because of this if there ever was a moment this is it with this nobel right so um so I'm gonna if any of you and and and I really feel like that opens up a broader thing it's not just about Falsa it's about the bigger international theater landscape so um you know in the spring we're hoping to put together some stuff that will be in relationship to his works um I I'm really excited to help him take off like wildfire here and I'd love to work with you or have you all be involved in that in some way or continue at least continue this conversation you know um so so let's keep in touch I feel like there's things happening in the chat that I should be aware of is that does anyone want to pop in with the last last thing to say before we before we sign off Sam yeah I'm sorry I'm being that guy I just wanted to say that um you know Philip mentioned that his uh company has Argentine play coming up Argentine Argentine makes an unbelievable theater Patricio's uh amazing festival as in the spring the cherry has a new Italian play we're just finishing the translation in the spring so patronize your and we do live stream that's very good so patronize your local international theater making companies because we need it anyone who comes to see us to see our shows you can get in we'll give you a special free ticket if you come from this group there you go amazing St. Louis does that hold for all the people who are watching the live stream too if they show up uh we're going to do we're opening a play called don't wait for the Marlboro man in April it's a Luxembourg playwright and if they show up and they mention this this this uh howl around then they're our guests same with the cherry I mean let's do a group trip amazing okay thank you all so much for joining us and and oh I also wanted to say if anyone wants to read my foster translations let me know I'll send them your way and I would love to read all your translations so maybe we can have our own little exchange or fake you know figure out how to how to share those so yes you're welcome sorry it took me so long um all right team here we go on with our day have a wonderful weekend thank you so much and we'll stay in touch I go