This workshop will explore the ways in which authorship functions by considering different translations and adaptations of one specific Brecht play. We will put these in conversation with each other in order to understand artistic differences and deviations from source material. These intertextual readings of Brecht will help us explore questions including: how have global artists responded to and engaged with canonical text through translation and adaptation? What does it mean to rewrite and/or adapt classic text as a contemporary writer or director? How does language affect meaning and semiotics? How do adaptations influence canonicity, and do they democratise the discourse around classical art and theatre?

Participants will learn:

-An overview of global responses to a canonical work

-How to use close reading and intertextual skills

-Further insights into how practitioners can translate and/or adapt classics

Instructors Emma and Aneesha will include a list of optional reading/watching materials, but the workshop will be self-contained.

Everyone is welcome to attend this workshop! It will largely be based on close read reading and use an approachable but rigorous literary analytical method.

About Instructors Emma and Aneesha of Global Origins
Global Origins is a network and platform for international, multicultural, and diasporic artists that is run by Aneesha Srinivasan and Emma Jude Harris.

Global Origins works with drama schools including RCSSD and Mountview on decolonising the canon and ensuring ethical representation, and have facilitated workshops for theatres including the Young Vic. With their festival series, ARE WE THERE YET? (Bussey Building 2019, upcoming) Global Origins creates opportunities for international artists to develop the stories they want to tell regardless of form, genre, or subject.

Emma Jude Harris has an MA in Shakespeare Studies from Kings College London and an MFA in Advanced Theatre Practice from RCSSD. As a freelance director and dramaturg, she works across forms in opera, early modern theatre, ‘classic’ theatre, and new writing; her practice is based around interrogating and disrupting canonical work. Directing includes: Breech (Painkiller Podcast) The Telephone (online livestream); The Agency (Tête-à-Tête); Cabildo (Arcola); and sorry did I wake you (Tristan Bates). Work as a research consultant includes Absolute Hell (National Theatre) and Venice Preserved (Royal Shakespeare Company).

Aneesha has an MA in English Literature from Newcastle University and an MFA in Writing for Stage and Broadcast Media from RCSSD. Recent directing credits include Grindr Survivr: The Play (2020) and Before I Was A Bear (2019) at the Bunker Theatre. Her writing has been longlisted by Tamasha Playwrights, the Yard Theatre and the Old Vic 12.