Q&A with the Arts Club Theatre’s Associate Artistic Director and New Play Festival curator Stephen Drover, after the reading of Gilles Poulin-Denis’ Outside. Photo by Pippa Mackie. Directed by Jovanni Sy, this reading featured some of the finest actors in Vancouver: Alessandro Juliani, Kayvon Khoshkam, Pippa Mackie, Kevin McNulty, Adele Noronha, and Alec Willows. Our SM was Liz King.
Sept. 12-14, 2019: At the Arts Club Theatre (Western Canada’s largest company) for a workshop of my translation of Gilles Poulin-Denis’ fierce and magical story of brothers at war over the family land, Outside. It’s funny that, as read by Pippa Mackie, the pivotal character of Virginia – whose incredibly specific bilingual argot seemed to present an almost insuperable translation challenge – is the one everyone connected to immediately. This tells me, I think, that I am on the right track with her.
Our Playwrights Theatre Centre Salesman in China workshop had yet another exceptional Vancouver cast. Back row L-R: Peter Anderson, Conor Wylie, Agnes Tong, Lou Ticzon, Chris Lam, and Tetsuro Shigematsu. Front row L-R: Donna Soares, Susan Hogan, and Hiro Kanagawa. Not pictured: Our dramaturg and workshop director Kathleen Flaherty; cultural consultants Xin Xuan Song, Steven Siyuan Liu, and Fang Zhang Helwig (who will also be translating our text into Mandarin.) Photo by my co-writer, Jovanni Sy.
Sept. 16-22, 2019: At Playwrights’ Theatre Centre with Jovanni Sy for a workshop of Salesman in China, the original play we are co-writing about Arthur Miller directing Death of a Salesman in China in 1983. We have lots and lots and LOTS of work ahead, but we were really encouraged that this is a story worth telling… and that the things we felt particularly good about are the things that worked.
This translation workshop for Sébastien Harrisson’s lyrical and personal From Alaska took place in the London offices of Equity (the UK actors’ union), with me joining in by Skype. L-R: Director John Jack Paterson, James watterson, and Joan Blackham. You were all quite brilliant.
Sept. 17, 2019: Because we needed to work within Equity’s London office hours, this play workshop started at 06:00 Pacific Time. Yeah, you read that right. I was workshopping a play at 6 a.m… Blessed be the excellence of Vancouver coffee. And of British actors, because we got a hell of a lot done in our time together. Thank you, John Jack Paterson, for making it all happen.
This is the World Premiere Production of my translation of David Paquet’s The Shoe, at The Cherry Arts in Ithaca, NY. Directed by Samuel Buggeln. L-R: Amoreena Wade, Josh Witzling,
Meanwhile, I’ve been emailing back and forth with director Samuel Buggeln, fine-tuning the last bits of text for The Cherry ArtsSept. 27 world premiere at ) of my translation of David Paquet’s The Shoe [Le Soulier], which won the 2019 Vancouver Jessie Award for Best New Play. It’s a first for me, to have a world premiere with artists I’ve never even met… but judging by the production photos, the thoughtful correspondence, and the impressive resumés of the artists involved, we are in very good hands. David Paquet is going to see the show and has promised to tell me EVERYTHING!
So there you go. Three workshops + one rehearsal correspondence towards an imminent world premiere. Ten days. Goodnight!