Why translate European playwrights?

Especially for the III Festival of Contemporary Playwriting Drama.UA writers translated plays from British, Polish, Swedish, and German playwrights. In this way there was an All-Ukrainian premiere of eight new European plays during the festival in the form of staged readings and special performances. The particularity of dramatic works lies in the fact that unlike other literary forms they are made not only for reading but also for performance. This difference requires a separate approach to theatrical translation.

During the roundtable "Why translate European playwrights?" discussion centred on:

• Particularities of playwriting as a separate genre of literature;
• Initiatives of discussions about translating drama for theatrical production;
• How can new European drama interest Ukrainian theatre and the Ukrainian audience, and also the role of the translator in the selection and popularization of new European drama;
• How to facilitate communication between translators and theatres and encourage new productions of European plays in Ukraine.

Among those invited to the discussion were translators: Larysa Andrievska, Khrystyna Nazarkevych, Mariana Prokopovych, Natalka Sniadanko, Kateryna Onishchuk, Olena Kontsevych, Vasyl Mytsko, Olesia Kamyshnyova, Lev Hrytsiuk; theatre scholars: Maia Harbuziuk, theatre scholar and editor of Protsenium, Nina Bichuia, writer and literary director of the Theater of the Young Spectator in Lviv, Julie-Anne Franko, theatre scholar and translator, Myroslava Overchuk, literary director of the Zankovetska Theater; theatre directors and actors: Volodymyr Kuchynskyi, artistic director of the Les Kurbas Lviv Academic Theater, Mykola Bereza, actor and director of the Les Kurbas Theater, Iryna Volytska, director of Theater in a Basket, and Lidia Danylchuk, actress of Theater in a Basket.

Moderator – translator, coordinator of the project, "Scandinavian Drama," Sofia Kosarchyn.