A staged reading of Villa Dolorosa (Three Botched Birthdays) by Rebekka Kricheldorf translated from German by Princeton Translator-in-Residence Neil Blackadder. Kricheldorf is an award-winning playwright known for inventive and often humorous drama. Villa Dolorosa is a free adaptation of Chekhov’s Three Sisters. Where Chekhov, in a tragicomic mode, depicted the plight of three sisters at the turn of the twentieth century with limited capacity to give their own lives meaning, Kricheldorf writes a comedy about three early-twenty-first-century sisters who could easily make different choices — but fail to. Directed by Blackadder and performed by Princeton students.
Content warnings: The play frequently refers to suicide, and there are references to sudden death in a car accident, sex work, and depression.
Cosponsored by Princeton’s German Department.
Tickets & Details
The event is free and open to Princeton University students, faculty, staff; no tickets or registration required.
Get directions to the Godfrey Kerr Theater Studio in the Lewis Arts complex.
COVID-19 Guidance + Updates
Per Princeton University policy, all visitors are expected to be either fully vaccinated, have recently received and prepared to show proof of a negative COVID test (via PCR within 72 hours or via rapid antigen within 8 hours of the scheduled visit), or agree to wear a face covering when indoors and around others.
Accessibility
The Godfrey Kerr Theater Studio is an accessible venue. Guests in need of other access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at 609-258-5262 or email LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week in advance of the event date. Visit our Venues and Studios section for accessibility information at our various locations.
About Neil Blackadder
Photo courtesy Neil Blackadder
Neil Blackadder is a German to English and French to English translator and the author of Performing Opposition: Modern Theater and the Scandalized Audience. Specializing in theater translation, Blackadder has experience collaborating on fully staged productions as well as readings of his translations, working with a number of theaters in New York City, Chicago, Portland, Washington, D.C., Berlin. and elsewhere. His translations of prose have appeared in journals including Two Lines, Tupelo Quarterly and Chelsea. He has twice held residencies at the Banff International Literary Translation Centre and Writers Omi at Ledig House. His work has often been supported by the Goethe-Institut, as well as by the Consulate General of Switzerland and the Austrian Cultural Forum and the PEN/Heim Translation Fund. Blackadder is the recipient of a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts literature fellowship in translation to support the translation from the German of the novel Fatherland by Anne Weber. In 2019 he retired from a 25-year career teaching theater at Knox College and Duke University and is now based in Chicago, where he’s translations editor for Another Chicago Magazine. He is the Translator in Residence for Princeton’s Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication for spring 2023.