Internation New Translation Development Workshop (London UK – Montreal Canada)
March 2020, I was kindly invited by the British Equity WSW London Office to lead some new play development activities.
Taking advantage of this opportunity to introduce British artists to francophone Canadian works in translations. Barbed Wire translator, Johanna Nutter, joined us from Montreal via skype.
Bouche Theatre Collective (Canada) and British Equity (London UK)
BARBED WIRE
By Annick Lefebvre | Translated by Johanna Nutter
Featuring JD Hunt and Stevie Skinner
A strand of barbed wire has started to grow inside you. You’ve got about an hour before your lips are sewn shut. What will you say while you still have the time? What will be your last word? This play is written with gender fluidity in mind.
JD Hunt, Stevie Skinner, & Jack Paterson in London, UK and Johanna Nutter in Montreal, Canada (on tablet)
Gallery
ANNICK LEFEBVRE
Before completing her degree in criticism and dramaturgy, Annick Lefebvre had joined Wajdi Mouawad’s Rehearsal Hall for Incendie (Scorched). In 2012, Annick founded Le Crachoir, a company that examines the role of the author in the process of creating, producing and presenting theatre. She is the author of Ce samedi il pleuvait (Marc Beaupré, Le Crachoir, Aux Écuries, 2013), La machine à révolte (Jean Boillot, Le Préau / NEST-Théâtre, 2015), Barbelés (Alexia Bürger, Théâtre de Quat’sous et Théâtre La Colline, 2017) and ColoniséEs (René Richard Cyr, CTD’A, 2019). Her play J’accuse (Sylvain Bélanger, CTD’A, 2015) received the BMO Dramatic Writing Award, was a finalist for the AQCT Critics’ Award, the Prix Michel Tremblay and the Governor General of Canada Literary Award in 2015. Annick is currently adapting J’accuse for France (Sébastien Bournac, compagnie Tabula Rasa). Her work is published by Dramaturges Éditeurs.
Johanna Nutter
Johanna Nutter is artistic director of creature/creature, a polymorphic company born of Nutter’s passion for blurring lines between established divisions. Her work has toured extensively throughout her home province of Quebec, across Canada and internationally, in both English and French, to such venues as Soho Theatre (London), The Pleasance (Edinburgh), Les Halles (Brussels), and La Licorne (Montreal). Known for her intimate and personal collaborations, recent works include Tree Hug, OSCAR, and the multi-award winning my pregnant brother/my playwright sister (2009 – 2018). She won the PWM/Cole Emerging Translator award and brought CHLORINE (Longpré & Michon), which produced and directed at The Centaur (Brave New Looks 2016). She is currently working on texts by Annick Lefèbvre, Guillaume Corbeil, and Étienne Lepage.
About Bouche & our Partners
Bouche Theatre Collective (Vancouver, Canada)
Founded in 2012, Bouche has been bringing artists and audiences together separated by language, distance, and culture locally, nationally, and internationally. With a specific focus on the cross pollination between Canadian francophone and anglophone artists and the international community, Bouche reaches out through translation, multi-lingual work, and devised creation. www.bouchewhacked.com
British Equity WSW London Branch (London, UK)
The West and South West London Branch of Equity UK. Equity, formerly officially titled the British Actors’ Equity Association, is the trade union for actors, singers, models, performers, directors, choreographers, designers, stage managers, and other creative workers in the United Kingdom. It was formed by a group of West End performers in 1930 and incorporated the Variety Artistes’ Federation in 1967.
