Play On Shakespeare Launches New Partnership with Ojai Playwrights Conference

​Play On Shakespeare has expanded its programming by launching new partnerships - including with the award-winning Ojai Playwrights Conference - to commission contemporary playwrights as part of a rigorous translation process that engages Shakespeare's works as new plays. 

In the pursuit of expanding access to these timeless stories, Play On Shakespeare sets out to build deep and meaningful partnerships with mission-aligned organizations to create contemporary modern-verse Shakespeare translations that offer the linguistic immediacy of a new play.

“What we've learned over the past ten years is that translation is not a novelty, but a vital artistic practice necessary to the vibrance of the Shakespeare experience and to audiences' connection to the story,” says Play On Shakespeare's new Executive Director, Taylor Bailey. “The discoveries writers make when they walk with Shakespeare are not incidental — they are essential. Theater is stronger, braver, and more honest when more voices, aesthetics, and lived experiences are invited into this work.” 

Play On Shakespeare's partnership with Ojai Playwrights Conference will commission four modern verse Shakespeare translations. The award-winning commissioned playwrights include:

Julia Izumi translating The Winter's Tale

JuCoby Johnson translating Romeo & Juliet

MJ Kaufman translating Henry IV, Part 1

Anne Washburn translating Richard III

This new playwright cohort will convene for the first time in Ojai, CA this winter in a residency co-facilitated by Play On Shakespeare and OPC. The mission of Ojai Playwrights Conference is to create a body of brilliant new plays that reflect our diverse, dynamic, and ever-changing world. “In the Ojai Playwrights Conference we have found a partner who shares our commitment to creative rigor, and as an organization, is as human-first as we are. A big part of the joy of Play On Shakespeare is the way we take care of artists,” Bailey explains. “By commissioning new work with partners across the field, we're building a living repertoire of translations that theaters can choose from, each one shaped by a different playwright's encounter with Shakespeare. Ojai Playwrights Conference meets our mission with the dramaturgical expertise of new plays. We are thrilled for Ojai to become one of our newest partnerships and to develop four new translations in collaboration with their team.”

This project will build on Play On Shakespeare's established ecosystem of modern-verse translations created by playwrights and dramaturgs aspiring to secure and sustain the continued production of Shakespeare. Additional commissions are in the works as Play On Shakespeare continues its effort to normalize Shakespeare in translation and bring living playwrights back into the Shakespeare production process.