The Lark to Celebrate 10th Anniversary of Mexico/U.S. Playwright Exchange

The Lark has announced the 10th Anniversary celebration of the México/United States Playwright Exchange.

For a full decade, this synergetic program has brought Mexican writers to the U.S. and U.S. writers to México to work together and with a community of bilingual actors and stage directors on translating their plays. The shared artistic process is aimed at creating a deeper understanding between our countries and cultures.

From December 4-7, 2016, The Lark will bring together the program's artists and audiences for a festival featuring readings of excerpts from 38 of the plays translated through this program. Events are open to the public and free of charge.

The festival is, first and foremost, a celebration of extraordinary work and the vitality of global exchange. For ten years the artists, along with the creators and shapers of the program, have striven to create ongoing and open channels of artistic collaboration between México and the United States. While in the short term the annual festivals operate with the objective of creating stage worthy translations, the greater goal of the program has always been to break down the barriers and build bridges between our cultures. The exchange seeks to create a platform where artists, who may not have otherwise crossed paths, can meet in pursuit of a shared vocabulary with which to address the challenges of the 21st century. In our country's current political climate, this goal of seeking to better understand one another is more important than ever.

"This program does the opposite of building a wall: we celebrate and believe fiercely in the power and necessity of close dialogue between Mexican and U.S. artists, and our larger communities," said Andrea Thome, Program Director of the México/U.S. Playwright Exchange. "When you work directly with a writer whom you're translating, you learn that you can't assume what they mean; you have to ask questions, to pay close attention to what their intentions are, what their words and gestures mean in the context of their world and their souls. Now, more than ever, this kind of deep listening to each other is crucial."

Thome, a playwright and translator, serves on the Advisory Board of The México/U.S. Playwright Exchange, along with Maria Alexandria Beech(Playwright, Translator), Mariana Carreño-King (Playwright, Translator), Migdalia Cruz (Playwright, Translator), Ana Graham (Artistic Director, Por Piedad Teatro Producciones), Daniel Jáquez (Director, Translator), Debbie Saivetz (Director), and Caridad Svich (Playwright, Translator).

Throughout the duration of the program, The Lark has worked with artists from theater companies nationwide, including The Goodman Theatre (Chicago, IL), LATC and Latino Theatre Company (Los Angeles, CA), the Denver Center (CO), Borderlands Theater Company (Tucson, AZ), and Miracle Theater (Portland, OR).

Some of the plays translated through the program are Absence by Victor Hugo Rascón Banda, translated by Caridad Svich (Borderlands Theater, 2015), A Lover's Dismantling: Fragments of a Scenic Discourse by Elena Guiochins, translated by Andy Bragen (Halcyon Theatre, 2012), Deserts by Hugo Hinojosa, translated by Caridad Svich (staged reading, Aguijón Theater Company and Goodman Theatre, 2010), Leakage(s) and Anticoagulants by David Gaitán, translated by Julián Mesri (California Institute of the Arts, 2014), and Our Dad is in Atlantis by Javier Malpica, translated by Jorge Ignacio Cortiñas (Theatres at 45 Bleecker, 2008; published in American Theatre, 2008).

But no less important than the plays themselves are the bi-national relationships that are formed through the process of translation, which we hope will last a lifetime. It has never been more important to bring artists from México and the U.S. together to find common ground and promote peace and mutual understanding. A decade's worth of work is only the beginning. The Lark hopes to continue the México/U.S. Playwright Exchange for many years to come.

The 2016 México/United States Playwright Exchange will open with a book launch on December 4 celebrating the publishing by NoPassport Press of plays translated through this program, followed by three evenings of readings, conversation, and community gathering. The December 7th reading will be followed by La Celebración, an annual party with food and dancing, featuring the music of Jarana Beat. La Celebración concludes the Exchange each year as a way of ending each festival on a note of jubilation. The vibrant and necessary conversations that emerge as a result of the preceding days are always cause for celebration, and The Lark values the opportunity to give that space.

Please join us in celebrating the collaborations that have kept the program vital for a decade.

IF YOU GO:

All public events will take place at 7:00pm in The Lark's BareBones Studio, located at 311 West 43rd Street, Fifth Floor. The Schedule of the festival will be as follows:

December 4th
Opening Reception and Book Launch: Join us to celebrate the publishing by NoPassport Press, founded by playwright and long-time Exchange participant Caridad Svich, of eight plays translated through The Lark's México/U.S. Playwright Exchange.

December 5th
Readings of excerpts from plays translated through The Lark's México/U.S. Playwright Exchange during the years 2006-2008.

December 6th
Readings of excerpts from plays translated through The Lark's México/U.S. Playwright Exchange during the years 2009-2011.

December 7th
Readings of excerpts from plays translated through The Lark's México/U.S. Playwright Exchange during the years 2012-2014, followed by La Celebración.

For a list of plays, playwrights, translators, and for reservations, visit www.larktheatre.org. All seats are free but reservations are required.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM DIRECTOR

Andrea Thome joined The Lark in 2006 as the Program Director of the México/United States Playwright Exchange and translation lab. She is a Chilean/Costa Rican-American playwright who grew up navigating the multiple landscapes and languages that inhabit her plays. Her play Pinkolandia was awarded The Lark/Mellon Foundation's Launching New Plays fellowship and received a rolling premiere at INTAR Theater (New York), Salvage Vanguard Theater (Austin), Two River Theater (Red Bank, NJ), and 16th Street Theater (Chicago). Other plays include Troy (Public Theater/Public Works) created in community with NYC community members, Undone (New Dramatists' Whitman Award, Kilroys' List 2014; Queens College Theater, Victory Gardens' Ignition Festival, The Lark); her farce Worm Girl(Cherry Red Productions, DC) and her multidisciplinary work-in-progress, The Necklace of the Dove (Mabou Mines Resident Artist, 2013 & 2015, New Georges Audrey Residency 2016-17). Currently, Andrea is writing a contemporary 'translation' of Shakespeare's Cymbeline for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. Andrea's theatrical translations include Guillermo Calderón's Neva (Public Theater, Center Theatre Group), Rodrigo García's You Should Have Stayed Home, Morons (Center Theatre Group), David Gaitán's Paradise by Design (CalArts), Ximena Escalante's Real Andromaca (PEN World Voices Festival, hotINK), and Richard Viquiera's H (The Lark). Andrea co-directs the all-women satire collective FULANA (www.fulana.org), and has created several community-based plays with youth. Her fellowships include NYFA, the City of Oakland, New York University (MFA Fellow), Women's Project Lab. She is a New Dramatists alumna (2009-2016), and an Audrey resident at New Georges.

ABOUT THE LARK

The Lark is an international theater laboratory, based in New York City, dedicated to empowering playwrights by providing transformative support within a global community. Founded in 1994, The Lark provides writers with funding, space, collaborators, audiences, professional connections, and the freedom to design their own processes of exploration. The guiding principal of The Lark's work is the belief that playwrights are society's truth tellers, and their work strengthens our collective capacity to understand our world and imagine its future.

Last year, The Lark served 929 artists, including 106 playwrights, partnered with more than a dozen theaters and universities, and welcomed 2,618 audience members to 32 public presentations. In the past three years 121 Lark developed plays moved on to 281 productions in 111 cities around the world. In order to provide economic flexibility to writers at different stages of their careers, The Lark has created a portfolio of major playwriting fellowships. The Lark continues to offer a free and open submission process that allows any and all writers to submit to our Playwrights' Week program and maintains free admission to the public for all readings and workshops. Plays substantially developed at The Lark include The Mountaintop by Katori Hall, Guards at the Taj by Rajiv Joseph, brownsville song (b-side for tray) by Kimber Lee, and Skeleton Crew by Dominique Morisseau.

For more information about the artists, initiatives and plays of The Lark, visit www.larktheatre.org.

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