Foreign Affairs Seeks £10,000 to Fund UK Theatre Translator Mentorship

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The company will mark International Translation Day with an event at Jermyn Street Theatre and return to stage with a translation of Danish playwright Anna Bro's work.

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Foreign Affairs, winner of the International Award at The Stage Awards 2026, has announced a fundraising campaign to sustain its Theatre Translator Mentorship. Alongside this, the company will continue its workshops for young adults with migration experience and its creative residency for international playwrights and will return to the stage for the first time in three years with a translation of a critically acclaimed Danish play.

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The Theatre Translator Mentorship is the only programme of its kind in the UK dedicated to helping emerging theatre translators develop their skills. This year, having not secured foundation funding, the company is looking to raise £10,000 to put the mentorship on a secure and sustainable footing. Since launching in 2016, the mentorship has supported 23 emerging theatre translators working from 16 languages, and mentees have gone on to work with UK theatres including the Royal Court, as well as internationally in the USA and elsewhere. Donations will fund specialist application writers, advice from consultants and producers, and regular mentee check-ins.

The company will then join forces with Jermyn Street Theatre on 1 October to celebrate International Translation Day (30 September), bringing theatre-makers, translators and industry professionals together for a working conversation about how translated plays reach new audiences - and what is gained, and lost, in the crossing. The afternoon opens with a hands-on workshop rooted in Foreign Affairs' practice, followed by an industry panel discussion exploring what it takes to stage plays in translation in the UK today. The day closes with an informal networking session.

Throughout October and November, Foreign Affairs will continue its free workshops in Hackney for young adults (18–30) with migration experience. The workshops create a safe space for participants while nurturing emerging theatre makers and culminate with a community sharing in December

Next year – following a successful collaboration in 2026 – Foreign Affairs is again partnering with Italian cultural production company PAV to present the London edition of Playground, a European development programme supporting emerging playwrights. The project brings playwrights, translators, and theatre-makers together for cross-border workshops, rehearsals, and public showcases. This year's edition will focus on Italian playwrights, culminating in a shared reading.

In the Spring, the company is set to return home to the Rose Lipman building in Hackney for the first time in three years with a production of Rædsel (Horror, Working Title ). The show is a bold, honest, and at times darkly funny look at anxiety, personifying it as a chaotic voice that invades the protagonist's thoughts and actions. Written by Anna Bro and translated from Danish into English by Paul Russell Garrett , the show premiered at Teater Grob (now Blaagaards Teater) in Copenhagen in 2020 to critical acclaim.

Trine Garrett, Co-Artistic Director, said 'Nearly 16% of the UK population was born abroad, and in London that figure is closer to 40%*. Yet less than 5% of the productions on our stages are in translation. That gap tells you that translated theatre is still hugely undervalued, even though it's one of the most direct ways theatre has to bring other cultures and perspectives into the room.

“This year, without foundation funding, we've had to put our Theatre Translator Mentorship's 7th edition on hold – a hard decision to sit with as we mark its 10th anniversary, and a sharp reminder of just how fragile the structures supporting this work really are. It sits alongside everything else we do to open theatre up to different voices and experiences: our workshops with young adults with migration experience, our Playground residency with PAV, bringing European playwrights into dialogue with UK theatre-makers, and now, finally, getting back on stage ourselves after three years with Horror, a Danish play that speaks to something very universal in its own right. All of it comes from the same belief: that the stories worth telling don't stop at the UK's borders, and neither should the people telling them.”

Foreign Affairs is a theatre company led by Camila França (Brazil/Portugal) and Trine Garrett (Denmark), based in Hackney, East London. They stage international plays in translation – work that resonates across languages, cultures, and communities often in unexpected spaces creating close-up encounters between global stories and local audiences. They also share their 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 – they challenge whose voices are heard and who gets to belong on UK stages and beyond. In 2026, Foreign Affairs won the International Award at The Stage Awards.

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_Originally reported by [BroadwayWorld](https://www.broadwayworld.com/uk-regional/article/Foreign-Affairs-to-Launch-Fundraising-Campaign-for-UK-Theatre-Translator-Mentorship-20260928)._