With the aim of supporting playwriting and publicizing the Catalan theatrical repertoire and new Catalan theater at the international level, the Institut Ramon Llull has promoted a playwriting residency in the United States. For twenty days, Josep Maria Miró will have the opportunity to create a new play while being immersed in the New York theater scene, thanks to networking opportunities with local artists and institutions such as the Department of Art of La Guardia Community College, New Dramatists, La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, Soho Rep, The Public Theater and Theatre Lab.
In addition, on November 16 there will be a dramatized reading at The Martin E Segal Theatre Center of one of the Catalan playwright's latest works, El cos més bonic que s'haurà trobat mai en aquest lloc (The Nicest Body Ever Seen Around These Parts), translated by Sharon Feldman. The play, a choral text for a single actor dealing with a topic of current rage, was awarded the Premi Born 2020 and the Premio Nacional de Literatura Dramática 2022.
The project has included the participation of Barcelona’s Sala Beckett through the selection of the resident author and has been produced by PlayCo, a theater center specializing in emerging dramatic creation that aims to increase visibility around underrepresented and unconventional local and international creation. In this way, PlayCo commissions, develops and produces newly created plays by playwrights from the United States and around the world.
Miró's texts have been translated into more than twenty languages and premiered in a hundred theaters around the world.
Josep Maria Miró (Prats de Lluçanès, 1977) is the author of Me, Trans (2023) Remains of the Glowing Night (2021. Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico de Madrid), The Lady Butler (2020), The Nicest Body Every Seen Around These Parts (2020. National Prize for Dramatic Literature 2022 from the Spanish Ministry of Culture / XXV Critics’ Prize for best playwright / Selected by the association of European translators EURODRAM as one of the 3 best texts premiered in Catalonia during the 2021-22 season / XLV Born Prize 2020), The White Room (2020), A Nice Place (2017. Max Prize 2019 / Selected by the association of European translators us EURODRAM as one of the 3 best texts premiered in Catalonia during the 2018-2019 season), Let’s Forget about Being Tourists (2017), Cúbit (2016), The Passage (2015. Frederic Roda Prize 2015), Obac (2014), Tearing Up the Earth (2013. Autor Exprés Prize – Society of Spanish Authors and Editors 2013), Smoke (2012), Nerium Park (2012. Jaume Vidal i Alcover Prize 2013), Archimedes’ Principle (2011. XXXVI Born Prize 2011), Gang Bang [Open until the Angelus (2010-11 Resident playwright at the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya), The Woman Who Always Missed Her Flight (2009. XXXIV Born Prize 2009), and several brief texts. He has also authored several adaptations. His works have been translated into more than twenty languages and have had approximately 100 world premieres and numerous publications.
He has directed some of his own plays, as well as works by other authors. In 2015-16 academic year he joined the faculty at the ERAM, the undergraduate degree program in Performing Arts at the University of Girona, where he coordinates the academic section devoted to Dramaturgy. He regularly teaches courses and workshops at the Obrador de la Sala Beckett in Barcelona, as well as numerous workshops and seminars, both in Catalonia and abroad.
Sharon Feldman (Translator) is Professor of Spanish & Catalan Studies at the University of Richmond, where she serves as Associate Dean of Arts, Languages, and Cultures and holds the William Judson Gaines Chair in Modern Foreign Languages. She has published widely on modern and contemporary theatre from the Iberian Peninsula. She is also an accomplished translator of contemporary Catalan drama, having rendered into English over 30 Catalan plays. Her work has earned her the distinction of “corresponding member abroad” of the Reial Acadèmia de Bones Lletres de Barcelona (Royal Academy of Letters of Barcelona). She is also a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.
