See the 2011 Tadoussac brochure / Voir la dépliant 2011

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Call for Submissions: The Glassco Playwrights’ Residence in Tadoussac 2012

Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal is now accepting submissions for the 2012 Glassco Playwrights’ Residence in Tadoussac. The residency will take place September 10th to the 20th, 2012 at the home of the late Bill Glassco in Tadoussac Québec.

The Glassco Playwrights’ Residence in Tadoussac allows Québec and Canadian playwrights and their translators, as well as adaptors, to come together for ten days in Tadoussac, Quebec, to work in depth on their translations/adaptations.

The chosen participants are provided with a unique opportunity to focus on translations of contemporary French and English plays from Quebec and Canada, as well as theatrical adaptations, and to share expertise in a retreat environment.  Linda Gaboriau, one of the country’s most respected translators and Governor General Literary award winner, hosts the colony and serves as mentor and Translation Dramaturg on all the projects.

We are accepting submissions of plays that are slated for translation or adaptation. The project must have committed interest from a theatre company for a possible production. Please send us a short description of the project, the name of the translator and playwright, and details of the production interest.  One of the selection criteria for translation projects will be the availability of both the playwright and the translator to attend the residency together.

For more information on The Glassco Playwrights’ Residence in Tadoussac, please visit www.playwrights.ca/thecompany/coreactivities/tadoussac.html

Deadline for submissions: April 20th , 2012.
Please reply by email to: emma@playwrights.ca
Subject: The Glassco Playwrights’ Residence in Tadoussac.

The Glassco Playwrights’ Residence in Tadoussac is made possible in partnership with the Cole Foundation and the support of the family and friends of Bill Glassco.

Look forward to hearing from you,
Emma Tibaldo,  Artistic and Executive Director
Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal  (514) 843-3685

Appel de projets : la Résidence Glassco des dramaturges à Tadoussac 2012

Le Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal vous invite à déposer vos demandes de participation à la Résidence Glassco des dramaturges à Tadoussac 2012. La résidence se tiendra du 10 au 20 septembre 2012 dans la maison familiale du regretté Bill Glassco à Tadoussac, au Québec.

La Résidence accueille à Tadoussac, pendant dix jours, des auteurs dramatiques du Québec et du Canada, en compagnie de leurs traducteurs ou adaptateurs pour travailler en profondeur leurs projets de traduction ou d’adaptation.

Les participants sélectionnés se voient ainsi offrir une occasion unique de se concentrer sur la traduction de pièces contemporaines en français et en anglais du Québec et du Canada, ou sur l’adaptation pour la scène de textes divers, tout en partageant leur expertise dans un environnement propice. Linda Gaboriau, traductrice renommée, lauréate à deux reprises du prix du Gouverneur général du Canada, est l’hôtesse de la colonie et agit comme conseillère dramaturgique.

Nous n’acceptons que les soumissions de projets de traduction ou d’adaptation déjà en chantier. Les projets doivent avoir suscité l’intérêt d’une compagnie de théâtre pour une éventuelle production. Veuillez nous envoyer une brève description du projet, en indiquant les noms du traducteur et de l’auteur, ainsi que les détails de l’intérêt manifesté en vue de sa production. À noter qu’un des critères importants de sélection des projets de traduction est la possibilité pour le traducteur et l'auteur de participer ensemble à la même résidence.

Pour plus d’informations sur la Résidence Glassco des dramaturges à Tadoussac, consultez www.playwrights.ca/thecompany/coreactivities/tadoussac.html

Date limite des soumissions : 20 avril 2012
Veuillez soumettre votre demande par courriel à : emma@playwrights.ca
En indiquant en objet : Résidence Glassco des dramaturges à Tadoussac

La Résidence Glassco des dramaturges à Tadoussac est rendue possible, grâce au soutien de la Fondation Cole et de la famille et des amis de Bill Glassco.

Dans l’attente de vous lire,
Emma Tibaldo, Directrice artistique et exécutive
Playwrights’ Workshop Montréal  514 843-3685

Emma Tibaldo and I meet for lunch every now and then. It’s a way for us to stay in touch, to catch up on what the other is doing, to gossip a little, to get into a few heated discussions and to make plans. We talk dramaturgy, play development and, of course, translation. At one such lunch, way back in June of 2009, we ended up discussing the actual process of translating. That lead us to wondering about where the next generation of translators would come from and then to a long discussion about whether translation for the stage can be taught. The next picture had Emma suggesting that I consider the possibility of teaching a Master Class in Translation as part of a series of events she wanted to launch called Exploring Practice.

Well, to make a long story short, after a few more meetings and brainstorming sessions, Emma came up with the brilliant idea of a Translation Unit. Modelled on the paradigm of the Playwrights Unit, the idea was to bring 7 or 8 theatre artists together who were interested in translation but who had little or no experience doing it. We would meet once a month over a period of 8 months and, in a safe place, explore and question issues around the practice of translation as well as “try” it out. There would be some theory and as much practice as we could fit in.  People were asked to submit a letter outlining why they were interested in becoming a member of the Unit and to include a project they were interested in working on. The translations could be either from French to English or vice versa. That’s how the Translation Unit came to be.

As it turned out, the Unit included a broad range of projects that made the work absolutely fascinating and stimulated us all. The time we spent on each and every one of them was beneficial not only to the individual translators but to the entire group. 

The 2010-2011 Translation Unit was made up of :

• Luciana Burcheri who worked on a French translation of Vittorio Rossi’s Paradise by the River
• Amy Chartrand decided to work on Evelyne de la Cheneliere’s TYA play, “L’Heritage de Darwin”
• Micheline Chevrier brought a translation/adaptation of Roch Carrier’s “La guerre, yes sir!” to the Unit
• Alexis Diamond worked on Pascal Brullemans TYA play “La Ballade de Viperine”
• Alex Haber ‘s project was Pierre-Michel Tremlay’s “Le Rire de la mer”
• Manon St-Jules worked on translating Claudia Dey’s Trout Stanley into French
• While Lib Spry brought a translation/adaptation of Moliere’s Tartuffe to the Unit
• Jeremy Taylor decided to tackle legendary Quebec playwright Claude Gauvreau’s “Les oranges sont vertes”

To my knowledge, the PWM Unit is absolutely unique. It’s a first time, in this country, that a group has been formed to explore the art and craft of translation for the stage. Hats off to Playwrights’ Workshop Montreal !

-Maureen Labonté

2010-2011 Maureen Labonté Translation Unit Testimonials

Jeremy Taylor
The primary challenge of my particular piece was finding a way to make Gauvreau's unique poetry work in English.  I knew that would be a challenge going into the workshop, and although I was pleasantly surprised at how well his words could occasionally work in my draft translation, I still believe that reaching the level he achieves in the original language would take years if not decades of drafting and redrafting.
One of the significant and unexpected stumbling blocks that came up for me time and time again was how to determine Gauvreau's meaning without being able to speak directly to the playwright.  Particularly dense passages of automatic writing would often seem random to me, with no coherence to the imagery, metaphor, and so on, and I had a hard time knowing whether it was my second-language French letting me down or whether he was in fact being intentionally chaotic.  Translating without fully understanding the text is difficult enough; doing so without understanding whether or not the text is meant to be understood was, at times, next to impossible.

Alexis Diamond
I have to say that I had very clear goals for the Unit, because there were specific challenges in the text I was looking at. So I wasn't surprised by the level of difficulty in that sense. What I found very valuable was being to check in with the group, so I didn't get off on a tangent or stray to far from the text as I followed one idea or another. It was very valuable to hear the text read out loud in the original language, as well as my rough translations in English. I really enjoyed the ongoing discussions of how and when to render the text as closely as possible to the original and when to adapt the text in English. This came up in all the work, as well as my own. When is the author making a specific choice that has to be respected vs. when is the author merely following grammar rules? That sort of question.

Luciana Burcheri
The translation unit was a very stimulating experience both intellectually and individually. Being in front of a page or a computer screen is quite solitary.  And adapting and translating is also quite personal, most often related to one's own personal experience of language, thus being very subjective. It was extremely helpful to take this very subjective activity out of the office and out of one's head and into Playwright's unit. Maureen, Emma and all the fellow translators created a very safe and respectful atmosphere where we could share ideas, question concepts, debate a little even, and most important of all, have the guidance and reassurance that we were on the right track.

Lib Spry
I loved this workshop despite my personal work and time demands.
The most important thing I learned in the Translation Unit was the difference between translation, adaptation and inspiration. While the detail work demanded is the same, the approach is different from very precise and exact choices of a translation through to the writer’s freedom to play as s/he wishes in a play “inspired” by someone else’s work. An adaptation is somewhere in between and only to be done if the adaptor can find a way into the piece that works. I think an Adaptation Unit would be a grand idea.The challenge is to juggle the meaning, the rhythm and the sense of the original with the comprehension of the other language audience.

Amy Chartrand:
The first hurdle in working through my translation project was confronting the inflexibility of an essence that lives in language, in dialects, in syntax and in words.  To put it differently, I found it a mind-boggling feat to lift the characters from the page when they are the lines on the page.  I initially thought that the solution was to cull an equal character from the English language, but it is not the task of the translator to create.  I think that working from this realization freed me a little. In the end, I've learned that character emerges, miraculously translated, as the summary of a thousand negotiations.  I've learned that my task as a translator is to tackle these thousand negotiations one by one, remaining at every step true to the characters in their original form, to the playwright and to the linguistic communities who welcome them to the stage.

Manon St-Jules:
The process in any kind of creative work is personal to each individual: same goes for translation. Although we're dealing with an important number of defined elements (structure of story, characters, language), the way of reinterpreting them into another language and cultural context is personal to each translator. And the work needs to be particularly meticulous! I was surprised to discover how much work has to be done and how many questions need to be asked before a solid rough draft can be achieved. And that’s way before getting to Draft 1, 2 and 3!
Other useful information discussed in the Unit: the business end of translating for the theatre. For instance, what’s the going rate for translating a play, what are the residual agreements, how do you make sure you’re paid for a translation you’ve completed when you’re pitching the script and the company decides to produce. All very good to know!

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