Translators and theatre-makers will have the chance to discuss Shakespeare's writing and the challenge of translating classic works during a four-day festival in the beautiful water town of Wuzhen this October.

This is a follow-up to a similar event held last November, in which we used extracts from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth to explore how to uncover the clues that Shakespeare put into his dramatic text, and the details of theatre translation. The Wuzhen workshop later this year will be led by RSC director Owen Horsley and leading academic in theatre translation David Johnston.

The series of workshops is part of our ambitious Shakespeare Folio Project, a decade-long project to translate Shakespeare's works into Chinese. We successfully produced two new translations in 2016. Henry V translated by So Kwok Wan, polished by Nick Yu, directed by Owen Horsley with an ensemble of young Chinese actors, was produced by the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre. King Lear, translated by Daniel SP Yang, edited by Li Liuyi, directed by Li Liuyi with acclaimed Chinese actor Pu Cunxin in the title role, was produced by the National Centre for the Performing Arts. 

The other part of our work with China involves translating classic Chinese plays into English. The first of these was Guan Hanqing's Snow in Midsummer, which was performed in the Swan Theatre earlier this year.