“Fabulamundi Workbook: Contemporary Playwriting and Theatre Translation in Europe. A Report on Current Systems, Conventions and Perceptions”
By Margherita Laera, University of Kent
http://www.critical-stages.org/22/fabulamundi-workbook/
This study was funded by Creative Europe and commissioned by the Fabulamundi network (www.fabulamundi.eu), with partners in Austria, Germany, France, Italy, Czech Republic, Spain, Poland, Romania and the UK.
This report aims to help practitioners and scholars navigate and compare the conventions, systems, institutions and perceptions that regulate the field of contemporary playwriting in these different national contexts. The report includes the views of dozens of experts in each country and is the result of sustained international collaboration.
Mapping different national ecologies, structures and traditions enabling the production and mobility of plays through the use of questionnaires and one-to-one interviews with key stakeholders in each context, the report presents qualitative and quantitative data gathered on how each theatre culture supports living dramatists, how it organises its education system, what conventions drive the production and translation of contemporary plays and what perceptions are held by gatekeepers, theatre-makers and other cultural operators about the theatre system in which they work. Drawing on the existing network of partners, venues, playwrights, translators, directors and performers working with the Fabulamundi network, the study evaluates and compares cultural practices and institutional habits in the field, and concludes with a list of best practices for a sustainable field.