DoSEL

Drama of Smaller European Languages (DoSEL) is a cooperation project that contributes to safeguarding the cultural and linguistic diversity in the European cultural space, specifically in the drama and theatre sector, by improving the conditions for transnational creation, translation, and performance of European drama, written in smaller European languages.

The DoSEL project will be implemented through collaboration between European cultural organisations: Prešeren Theatre Kranj from Slovenia (leader of the project), the National Agency for the Performing Arts from Malta, Antzokia Theatre and Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb, the Estonian Theatre Agency, the National Theatre of Kosovo, and Ivan Vazov National Theatre from Bulgaria.

The DoSEL initiative aims to increase the international recognition and accessibility of dramatic works originally written in smaller European languages and to encourage their more frequent staging.

Project activities will include translation of drama texts, translation workshops and artistic residencies, showcasing performances created in smaller European languages at two international theatre platforms (the international showcase at the 55th Week of Slovenian Drama in Kranj in March 2025, a satellite performance presentation at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb in fall 2025, and the International Showcase in Valletta, Malta, in April 2026), training programmes, and experimental research on contemporary European drama. More than 200 playwrights, translators, and other artists and cultural workers will participate in the project.

At the end of the project, a collection of 24 first translations of drama texts will be published. Texts, originally written in Albanian, Basque, Bulgarian, Catalan, Croatian, Estonian, Maltese, and Slovenian will be translated into a major European language (German, French, or English) and one other, smaller European language. These texts will also become a part of a collection of contemporary European drama, compiled and curated with the support of the European Theatre Convention network.

The Fence is an Associate Partner - undertaking research into 1. Success stories of plays originally written in minority languages which have gone on to have wider impact abroad and 2. Labour market conditions for playwrights working in the 8 minority language groups covered.

Results to date were shared at the project showcase in Kranj, Slovenia in April and will be presented at the final Showcase in Malta in April 2026.

The Legend of Europa

A Creative Europe project co-funded by the European Union

Click here for full details of this project

The Legend of Europa is an international theatre project, through which we will create a new play that responds to the foundation myth of our continent. Europa was a princess from Lebanon, who was abducted and raped by Zeus in the form of a bull. The story of a Middle Eastern woman trafficked to a Mediterranean island seems particularly resonant at a time when European identities, migration and diversity have become the focus for intense debate.

Performers and creatives in the project are drawn from The Fence, Border Crossings (Ireland)(project coordinator), Theatre du Soleil (France), Teatro Dell’Argine (Italy) and Riksteatern the National Touring Theatre of Sweden.Riksteatern (Sweden).

The three devising workshops will be led by:
• Michael Walling from Border Crossings (Ireland - Co-ordinator)
• Micaela Casalboni and Andrea Paolucci from Teatro dell’Argine (Italy)
• Dominique Jambert and Vincent Mangado from the Théâtre du Soleil (France)

After sessions in all the partners countries, also involving local communities alongside with the professional artists, the play will have a preview in 2026 in Sweden.

Follow the EUROPA project on Facebook and the CRE-ACTORS blog.

Recent Fence projects

My Heart is in the East

The project My Heart is in the East (MHITE) project centres on a play by Jessica Litwak that deals with Muslim-Jewish relations across centuries. MHITE shines a light on a cultural heritage neglected by most Western narratives: La Convivencia, when Moslems and Jews were able to co-exist fruitfully for centuries. Not through rose-tinted spectacles, but by the working out of differences in religion, gender, social status through the transformative power of language and the imagination. MHITE seeks to explore a shared identity around what binds us rather than divides us – both 1000 years ago and today. MHITE is a collaboration between The Fence, The HEAT Collective and Az Theatre, involving Fence members Jessica Litwak (New York), Fred Fortas (Paris), Jonathan Chadwick and Jonathan Meth (London) and has been developed at La Mama in New York and at Bazar Café in La Charité sur Loire, France, with a staged reading with live music at the Clapham Omnibus in London.

A without décor presentation was performed at the Mind The Gap Studios in Bradford, UK and at The Manchester Jewish Museum, UK in June 2023, and in August 2023, for La Mama Umbria at Cantiere Oberdan in Spoleto, Italy.

CRE-ACTORS

The Fence network was delighted to collaborate with Border Crossings (Sligo / London), Théâtre du Soleil (Paris), Teatro dell’Argine (Bologna) on CRE-ACTORS: Training intercultural theatre-makers for a diverse Europe, with support from EU Erasmus+.

Running from September 2020 for 2 years, the project facilitated the exchange of best Vocational Educational Training practice between key organisations working in collectively created theatre that engages with social and cultural diversity, internationalism and minority communities.

More details can be found here: https://issuu.com/border-crossings/docs/cre-actors_e-book

 

 

 

International Dramaturgy Lab

Brainchild of Fence member and dramaturg Hanna Slattne, The International Dramaturgy Lab (IDL) was an exciting experimental initiative developed in collaboration between an international array of dramaturgical organizations and networks, including The Dramaturgs’ Network UK; Literary Managers and Dramaturgs of the Americas (LMDA) USA, Canada, and Mexico; The Fence; STOD Finland; and the Danish Dramaturg Network. The aim was to connect dramaturgs, directors, playwrights, theatre makers, and thinkers around the topic: What does it mean to work dramaturgically across borders? 80 people drawn from the above organisations divided along areas of intersecting interest into around 15 Groups of about five people each, worked together, culminating with presentations made at the LMDA conference in Mexico City 2021.

Plays for Young People

Plays for Young People 3 was the third Fence collaboration with AFTEC in Hong Kong for Autumn 2021 which brought together emerging translators in Hong Kong to engage first-hand with international playwrights from UK, Moldova, Malaysia, drawn from The Fence. As a bilingual Life Learning Theatre with a special focus on youth development, AFTEC has created this event to draw together those with a shared passion for theatre and the understanding of the need for quality plays written specifically to be performed by young people. AFTEC strongly believes in widening the vision of young people to beyond this city’s borders and to comprehend and recognise other cultures, their similarities and diversities. By working closely with practitioners and playwrights from these countries, we hope to be able to take further steps in a sustainable journey in which the plays, in English and in translation, will be offered to schools, youth centres and tertiary institutions for staging and meaningful discussions.

Boom! Creative Encounter with UK and Dutch playwrights

The Fence, the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the United Kingdom, and Dutch Performing Arts together collaborated on Boom! a project that explored the shared (colonial) heritage of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, while looking to the future. A diverse group of three UK and four Dutch playwrights began by meeting together in Rotterdam to encounter one other, learn about their shared colonial history, and to explore what might be interesting to each of them to write about. Maaike Bergstra, Gable Roelofsen, Jude Christian, Neske Beks, Chinonyerem Odimba, Enver Husicic and Uma Nada-Rajah. With COVID the planned staged readings of extracts in London didn’t happen – instead we ran a series of online laboratories, with translations provided by Henriette Rietveld.

 

About Fence Projects

Fence members come together to generate a variety of theatre projects.

They decide what they want to do and with whom. Fence projects can come from anyone and anywhere across the network. Some have been collaborative writing projects; in some cases Fence members have translated each other's work for subsequent commercial production or festival performance; some projects have been pilot or full-scale productions.

Past Fence projects and collaborations

 

2019	Die Berater, Theater Matte, Bern. Commercial production of Ulrike Syha's translation of Neil Fleming's play The Consultant
2018	Festival du Mort, La Charité sur Loire
2018	Sight/Unseen, London
2018	Plays for Young People 2, Hong Kong
2017	Ireland Has Struck Oil, London
2017	Hopper Project, La Charité sur Loire
2016	Plays for Young People 1, Hong Kong
2013-ongoing	Collaborations with Eurodram, the European theatre translation network
2013	Malaysia
2013	Non, Teatro Orologio, Rome. Bi-lingual play written by Sara Clifford and Denis Baronnet.
2012	Swimming Pool, Avignon. Co-written theatre. Written by Svetlana Dimcovic, Fred Fortas, Christophe Cherki, and Nadu Nelzy, as a result of a Fence collaboration with Etc_Caraïbe at Fence 13 in Guadeloupe. Directed by Svetlana Dimcovic
2012	Erasmus partnership: Graz, Istanbul, Amsterdam, Bucharest, Brighton
2008 & 2010	HotInk theatre festical, New York: plays in translation. Over the years, hotINK has introduced New York audiences to the plays, translations, and direction of many Fence members, including Minja Bogavac, Dieter Boyer, Paul Brodowsky, Edward Buffalo Bromberg, Neil Fleming, Andreas Flourakis, Ahmed Ghazali, Doug Howe, Nikolai Khalezin, Ewald Palmetshofer, Tee O'Neill, Kaite O'Reilly, José Maria Vieira Mendes and Christian Winkler.
2005-6	Janus Project: plays in translation performed at Leeds, Tampere, Amsterdam and Graz