“Barcelona on Stage”

(A Symposium on Contemporary Catalan Theatre)

26 October 2018, INTC Commons

Session 1 (morning)

10 am to 12 pm. International Center Commons

Panel discussion

Moderated by Sharon G. Feldman (University of Richmond)

1. “Vanishing Points: Projections of Exile in Contemporary Catalan Drama,” Helena Buffery (Senior Lecturer and Vice-Head of Research, College of Arts, Celtic Studies and Social Sciences, University College Cork)

2. “Effacing the Folds in Contemporary Catalan Theatre,” Anton Pujol (Associate Professor, Languages and Culture Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte)

3. “Las nuevas dramaturgias catalanas en tiempos revoltosos” (“New Catalan Dramaturgies in Turbulent Times”) Josep Maria Miró (Playwright and theatre director, Barcelona)

Lunch break

Session 2 (afternoon)

3 to 5 pm. International Center Commons

Staged reading in Spanish of Nerium Park, a Catalan play by Josep Maria Miró

Performed by the students and faculty from the Department of Latin American, Latino, & Iberian Studies. Director: Josep Maria Miró (Barcelona), Assistant Director: Ally Charleston (University of Richmond). An open panel discussion with the author and symposium participants will follow.

Organized with the generous support of the Institut Ramon Llull (of the autonomous governments of Catalonia and the Balearic Islands), in addition to the Department of Latin American, Latino, & Iberian Studies; the School of Arts & Sciences; and the Office of International Education.

About the play

Nerium Park premiered on 18 October 2013 at the Sala Planeta (Girona) at the 22nd Temporada Alta Festival. It was awarded the Jaume Vidal i Alcover Ciutat de Manacor Prize and the VII Quim Masó Prize. In this “social thriller” infused with intrigue, Gerard and Marta have purchased an apartment in Nerium Park, a new housing development situated on the outskirts of a large metropolitan area. The months go by, and, because of the economic crisis, no new neighbors arrive. Over the course of twelve scenes, each corresponding to a month of the year, the couple grapples with life in a so-called “ghost estate,” where their surroundings become an exterior reflection of the vacuity of their relationship. The title of the play is a reference to the oleander tree (from the Latin Nerium oleander), a shrub, at once ornamental and toxic, that often populates new housing estates and thoroughfares. Nerium Park invites us to ponder the extent to which dominant cultural expectations surrounding the notion of success –marriage, socioeconomic status, employment, and procreation– often shape our lives in unintended ways.

About the playwright

Josep Maria Miró i Coromina (Vic, 1977) is one of the Spain’s most prominent contemporary playwrights. A graduate in Journalism from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and in Directing and Playwriting from the Institut del Teatre (the Barcelona conservatory of theatre and dance), he is the author of Temps salvatge, Olvidémonos de ser turistas, Cúbit, The Passage, Obac, Nerium Park, Smoke, Archimedes’ Principle, Gang Bang, and La dona que perdia tots els avions. His work has been translated into twenty languages and has premiered in some thirty countries. He has received various accolades, including the prestigious Frederic Roda Prize and (twice) the Premi Born, the most coveted theatre prize in Spain. Miró has also authored several adaptations and has directed his own plays, as well as those of other dramatists. He teaches playwrighting in the undergraduate program in Performing Arts at the ERAM/Universitat de Girona and regularly offers classes at the Sala Beckett (Barcelona), in addition to imparting workshops throughout the world.