Neil Blackadder

J Mus 08

Professor of Theatre,
Knox College

Translator from German and French
(ATA-certified Ger > Eng)

Translation


Theatre research

Dramaturgy

Directing

Teaching

Faculty profile
on Knox website

Contact:

nblackad@knox.edu

Office: (309) 341-7502
Cell: (309) 299-0184


Knox College Box K-93
2 E. South St.
Galesburg, IL 61401
Tatto in TheatreForum


Nick Hern cover
SNP Electric Pear


Hare and Blanca


Translation

Drama:

Tattoo by Igor Bauersima and Réjane Desvignes
    - from German, Tattoo
Published in TheatreForum #35 (2009), with my introduction, "Art and Morality: The Plays of Igor Bauersima and Réjane Desvignes."  Translation completed with a fellowship to the Banff International Literary Translation Centre, Banff, Canada, June 2008.

The Lovers by Margareth Obexer
 - from German, Die Liebenden
Commissioned for Obexer's residency at Dartmouth College, Spring 2009.

Rosa and Blanca
by Rebekka Kricheldorf
 - from German, Rosa und Blanca
Produced at Knox College, Feb. 20-23, 2008.

The Sexual Neuroses of our Parents by Lukas Bärfuss
- from German, Die Sexuellen Neurosen unserer Eltern
Published by Nick Hern Books (2007), available in US through TCG.
Productions:
- Gate Theatre, London, Aug. 31-Sep. 29, 2007
- Electric Pear Productions, New York, Nov. 6-22, 2008
- Luna Playhouse, Glendale, CA, Aug. 7-22, 2009.
Also presented in staged readings, October 2006, at Goethe-Institut Chicago at the School of the Art Institute, and at CUNY's
 Martin E. Segal Theatre Center,
New York, as part of European Dream '06.  Translation sponsored by the Goethe-Institut.

The Ballad of the Pine Tree Killer by Rebekka Kricheldorf
- from German, Die Ballade vom Nadelbaumkiller
Published in The Mercurian vol. 1 no. 3, March 2008.  Excerpts published in LMDA Review (The Newsletter of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas) 18.2 (Summer 2008), along with "'A Fundamental Resistance': An Interview with Neil Blackadder by Beth Gallagher."
Presented in a staged reading at HERE Arts Center, New York, May 2006, as part of New German Voices 2006 reading series in German Theatre Abroad's Stadttheater New York.

Cold Cargo by Maxim Biller
- from German, Kühltransport
Presented in a staged reading at CUNY's Martin E. Segal Theatre Centrer, New York, May 2006, as part of the reading series Dis-Location and Re-Invention - International Plays about the Experience of Immigration, co-sponsored by the New Group and the Immigrants' Theatre Project. Translation sponsored by the Goethe-Institut.

Oswald and Zénaïde, or Asides by Jean Tardieu
- from French, Oswald et Zénaïde, ou les apartés
Published in Absinthe: New European Writing 4 (2005).

Dog, Woman, Man by Sibylle Berg
- from German, Hund, Frau, Mann, inspired by Yael Hedaya's story "Housebroken"
Available for download from the Goethe-Institut's Theater Library website.

Prose:

"Inspired by Football" by Ralf Rothmann
- from German, "Erleuchtung durch Fußball."
Published in Stand 7 (2007)

"Rue Laferrière" by Jacques Réda
- from French.
Published in Two Lines XIV (2007).  Republished in France: A Traveler's Literary Companion, ed. William Rodarmor and Anna Livia (Whereabouts Press, 2008).

"The Speech-Animal" by Sibylle Lewitscharoff
- from German, "Das Sprachtier."
Published in Chelsea 80 (2006)

"Prevent Forest Fires!" by Christoph-Wilhelm Aigner
- from German, "Verhindert Waldbrände!"
Published in Thorny Locust 12 (2004)


Theatre research

Book:

Performing Opposition: Modern Theater and the Scandalized Audience (Praeger, 2003)

A study of the hostile initial audience response to certain key European plays between the 1880s and the 1930s (Hauptmann’s Before Sunrise, Jarry’s Ubu Roi, Synge’s Playboy of the Western World, O’Casey’s The Plough and the Stars, and several plays and operas co-written by Brecht during the Weimar Republic).  I analyze the scandals provoked by these works in the contexts of changing norms of audience behavior and the evolution of theatrical practice.

Reviewed in Modern Drama, Theatre Journal, Theatre History Studies, Brecht Yearbook, New Theatre Quarterly
Particip@tions, Theatre Survey & Choice

Selected articles, chapters, reviews:

Performance review: Waves devised by Katie Mitchell after Virginia Woolf's novel, and Martin Crimp's Attempts on her Life directed by Katie Mitchell, Theatre Journal, March 2008

Book review: Bertolt Brecht’s Dramatic Theory by John J. White, Text & Presentation 2007

Performance review: Lessing’s Emilia Galotti directed by Michael Thalheimer, Theatre Journal, May 2006


“What’s so great about new plays?” LMDA Review (The Newsletter of the Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas) 16.1 (Fall 2005/Winter 2006)

“Merdre! Performing Filth in the Bourgeois Public Sphere,” in Filth: Dirt, Disgust, and Modern Life, ed. William A. Cohen and Ryan Johnson (University of Minnesota Press, 2005)

“Shakespeare on Stage in Pre-War Germany: From the Memoirs of Fritz Kortner,” The Upstart Crow 23 (2003)

“A Decade in Helms Country: North Carolina’s Manbites Dog thrives with homegrown support,” American Theatre March 1998


Dramaturgy

Dramaturg: 24Seven Lab workshop, New York, July-August 2005

Script-reading: member of Literary Wing of Lark Play Development Center; also script-reader for New York Theatre Workshop and Flea Theater, New York, summer-fall 2005

Dramaturg: Carousel by Rodgers and Hammerstein, directed by Jeff Storer, Duke University, 1996

Dramaturg: Oscar Over Here by Romulus Linney (world premiere), directed by Jeff Storer, Duke University / Manbites Dog Theater, 1995

Dramaturg: Measure for Measure, directed by Devon Allen, Duke University, 1994



Directing

Knox College:

Director: Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, trans. Kristin Johnsen-Neshati, 2009

Director: Tartuffe by Molière, trans. Richard Wilbur, 2008

Director and translator: Rosa and Blanca by Rebekka Kricheldorf, 2008

Director: Nora by Ingmar Bergman, adapted from Henrik Ibsen's A Doll House, 2006

Director and co-translator (with Carl R. Mueller): Round Dance by Arthur Schnitzler, 2005

Director and translator: staged reading of Dog, Woman, Man by Sibylle Berg (inspired by a story by Yael Hedaya), 2002

Co-director (with Robert Whitlatch): The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare, 2002

Co-director (with Elizabeth Carlin Metz): War and Peace, adapted from Leo Tolstoy by Helen Edmundson, 2001

Director and co-translator (with Colin Duckworth): Chamber Theatre: Five Plays by Jean Tardieu, 1999


Teaching

Theatre professor at Duke University 1994-98, Knox College 1998-

Areas of specialization include modern and contemporary theatre, dramaturgy, and playwriting

Courses currently taught on a regular basis (descriptions):
THEA/ENG 123 Introduction to Drama and Theatre
THEA/ENG 209 Beginning Playwriting
THEA 240 Dramaturgy
THEA/ENG 309 Playwriting and Screenwriting Workshop
THEA/ENG 375 European Drama and Theatre: Rise of Realism to 1945
THEA/ENG 376 Modern Drama: 1945 to the Present





Last updated:
December 8, 2009