The Translation Workshop will focus on the translation and adaptation of plays through an exchange between Estonian, Slovenian and British writers and translators. The Workshop is hosted by Prešeren Theatre Kranj (SI) in collaboration with Estonian Theatre Agency (EE) and “The Foreign Affairs” (UK) and takes place from 16th to 18th October 2025 in Kranj and Ljubljana.
PARTICIPANTS
Estonian: Piret Jaaks, Justin Petrone, Liis Aedmaa, Liisi Aibel
British: »The Foreign Affairs« (Trine Garrett, Camila França)
Slovenian: Maša Pelko, Julija Potrč Šavli, Barbara Skubic
PLAYS
Maša Pelko: FÜR OFELIJA (MITOLOGIJA UTAPLJANJA) / FÜR OPHELIA (A MYTHOLOGY OF
DROWNING)
Piret Jaaks: KAS LOOMAD OSKAVAD LOENDADA? (Düstoopia. 2019. aasta näidendivõistlusel
äramärgitud töö.) / CAN ANIMALS COUNT? (Dystopia)
MORE ABOUT PLAYWRIGHTS AND TRANSLATORS
PLAYWRIGHT
Maša Pelko
Maša Pelko, born in Ljubljana, 27.5.1992, studied Comparative Literature and Philosophy at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. She graduated from Academy of Theatre, Radio, Film and Television in Ljubljana, a program of Radio and Theatre Direction, by directing the world premiere of a Croatian play Olympia Stadium (Trilogy) by Dino Pešut. She finished her masters by staging an original project titled Three Times Moscow, inspired by Three Sisters by Anton Čehov and Little Moscow by Tomislav Zajc.
Read more
In 2017 she received student award Goldilocks for best direction and performance in total forvPlay a Tumour in the Head! In the following year she was awarded by the same award for best direction and performance in total for Winter’s Tale. The play King of Betajnova was chosen as one of the Accompanying Performances in 49th Week of Slovenian Drama Festival in 2019 and the same year, in March, she received an award for directing an original radio play called The Victims of Radio Boom Boom in UK International Radio Festival in Canterbury.
She directed in Anton Podbevšek Theatre (Gloomy Days, Beautiful Times by short stories of J. D. Salinger, 2019), Theatre Glej (Not Dead Enough / Western, original project, 2020), Prešeren Theatre Kranj (Simona Semenič: beautiful vidas burn beautifully, 2021), Slovenian National Theatre Maribor (Eugene O’Neill: Mourning Becomes Electra, 2022 and Jonas Hassen Khemiri: ≈ (Almost Equal To), 2025), Celje City Theatre (Leo Tolstoy: Power of Darkness, 2022), Slovenian National Theatre Nova Gorica (Shelagh Stephens: Five Kinds of Silence, 2023) and Slovenian National Theatre Ljubljana (Roland Schimmelpfennig: Der Tag, als ich nicht ich mehr war, 2023). Her projects were featured in competition programs of Week of Slovenian Drama Festival and Maribor
Theatre Festival (Borštnikovo srečanje). She also works as a playwright and she received The National Grum Award for Best Young Dramatic in 48th Week of Slovenian Drama in 2018 for her play The Royal Children, which is an adaptation of Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, from a viewpoint of his four children. In 2025 she was nominated for The National Grum Award with a text titled Für Ofelija (A Mythology of
Drowning), that takes an inspiration in a short story by Raymond Carver to dissect the question of domestic violence. She is currently enjoying her maternity leave and finishing a sequel to her last play.
PLAYWRIGHT
Piret Jaaks
Piret Jaaks is an Estonian writer, playwright, and dramaturg. She holds a BA in Theatre Studies from the University of Tartu and a PhD in Theatre Arts from the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. Jaaks is known for her bold and imaginative writing, often exploring social issues through sincerity, humour, and poetic imagery. Her work spans multiple genres – from plays and prose to children’s literature and television scripts. In 2019 she made her debut as a director with a production Beautiful
People (Ilusad inimesed) at Tartu Uus Theatre.
Read more
She published a collection of plays, Sirens and Other Plays, in 2022. Jaaks is also one of the screenwriters of the popular Estonian TV series ESSR (Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as ENSV in Estonian).
Recognition:
• 2024 Medal of Merit of the Estonian Heritage Conservation Society for the creation of
Daughters of Heaven (Taeva tütred)
• 2023 Third Prize at the Estonian Writers’ Union Novel Competition for the novel Daughters of Heaven (Taeva tütred)
• 2019 Special mention at the Estonian Theatre Agency’s New Drama Competition for Can
Animals Count? (Kas loomad oskavad loendada?)
• 2019 First Prize at the Estonian Theatre Agency’s New Drama Competition for Rites of Passage (Siirderiitujad)
• 2017 Second Prize at the Estonian Theatre Agency’s New Drama Competition for Sirens
(Sireenid)
• 2012 Special mention at the Estonian Theatre Agency’s New Drama Competition for What Difference Does It Make Being Hanna Jakobs? (Mis vahet on olla Hanna Jakobs?)
• 2011 First Prize at the Estonian Theatre Agency’s New Drama Competition for To See a Pink Elephant (Näha roosat elevanti)
List of translated plays: https://teater.ee/author-rights/playwrights/piret-jaaks/?lang=en
TRANSLATOR
Julija Potrč Šavli
Julija Potrč Šavli (1979) is a translator from Finnish, Estonian, and English. She translates prose, poetry, children’s books, and drama. She has translated around 70 works so far. Her translations from Finnish include authors such as Sofi Oksanen, Kari Hotakainen, Leena Krohn and Tommi Kinnunen, from English Jack Kerouac, John Barth (co-translation), Etgar Keret, and Janet Frame, and from Estonian authors such as Urmas Vadi, Piret Raud, Andrus Kivirähk, and Piret Jaaks and poets Maarja Kangro, Asko Künnap, and Carolina Pihelgas.
Read more
In 2025 she received the Sovre Award, the highest distinction for literary translators in Slovenia, for her translation of Urmas Vadi’s short story collection A Soul on the Roadside from Estonian. In 2010 she received the Radojka Vrančič Award for the best young Slovenian literary translator. She taught Finnish at the University of Ljubljana between 2009 and 2014. She was on the Management Board of the Slovenian Association of Literary Translators from 2014 to 2024. She also served as a jury member for the Vilenica literary festival from 2019 to 2024. She is currently a member of the Supervisory Board of the Slovenian Section of IBBY and a member of the Slovenian Management Board of Eurodram network.
TRANSLATOR
Barbara Skubic
Barbara Skubic is a dramaturg, writer and translator. She has a BA in dramaturgy and an MA in sociology, both from University of Ljubljana (Slovenia). She has worked as a freelance translator from Arabic and English into Slovenian since 2000. She won the Young Translator Award in 2005 (now Radojka Vrančič Award) for her translation of the Egyptian Nobel Prize Winner Naguib Mahfouz’s novel Pot med palačama (Bayn al Qasrayn) and was nominated for the Sovre Award in 2025 for the translation of Adania Shibli’s novel Zgolj detajl (Tafsil thanawi).
Read more
She regularly works with Slovenian institutional and independent theatres and specialises in translating Slovenian drama into English. She also writes and has been selected for screenwriting labs in Slovenia and abroad. She is interested in most things funny, noir, feminist and post-colonial and likes balancing several projects at a time.
TRANSLATOR
Justin Petrone
Justin Petrone is a native New Yorker, writer, and journalist who has been living in Northern Europe for more than 20 years. With a dozen books to his name and hundreds of articles, he pecializes in travel memoirs and experimental dream fiction. He has also translated several Estonian plays into
English.
TRANSLATOR
Liis Aedmaa
Liis Aedmaa is a dramaturge, director and translator. In 2002 she graduated from the University of Tartu with a degree in art history. She has been the Artistic Director of Ugala Theatre since 2023, after working as a dramaturge there from 2013 to 2023. Before going to Ugala, she studied at creative writing school Drakadeemia. In her work, she explores social issues, mostly using documentary theatre techniques. As a translator she’s translated numerous plays from English and Swedish.
Read more
Recognition:
• 2022 Estonian theatre annual award
• 2021 Viljandi City Theatre Award – for the creation of the production When you come, bring me flowers (Kui sa tuled, too mul lilli)
• 2020 Estonian National Culture Foundation Kristi and Siim Kallas Foundation Scholarship
• 2007 Special mention at the Estonian Theatre Agency’s New Drama Competition
for Cormorants and cow parsnip (Kormoranid ja karuputk)
List of translations and translated plays: https://teater.ee/author-rights/playwrights/liisaedmaa/?lang=en
TRANSLATORS
Foreign Affairs
Foreign Affairs is a theatre company with an adventurous spirit, led by Camila França
(Brazil/Portugal) and Trine Garrett (Denmark). We’re based at the Rose Lipman Building in Hackney, East London. We stage international plays in translation – work that resonates across languages, cultures, and communities. You’ll often find us in unexpected spaces – creating close-up encounters between global stories and local audiences.
Read more
We also share our practice through workshops, training, and mentorship – especially with young and early-career migrant and multilingual theatre-makers and translators. Working with artists, translators, and communities from diverse backgrounds – and through partnerships with local groups, academia, and industry – we challenge whose voices are heard and who gets to belong on UK stages and beyond.
Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.org.uk/who-we-are/