Project Title:  Le Diable en Partage / The Devil on All Sides
Recipient Organization:  Alliance Française
Lead Artist:  Ben Yalom and foolsFURY Theater
Genre and Date Awarded:  Performing Arts, June 2005
To Be Presented:  May 7 – May 28, 2006, Traveling Jewish Theater (TJT)

Collaborating with Alliance Française, playwright Ben Yalom and foolsFURY Theater Company will translate, workshop, and present in San Francisco a work by Fabrice Melquiot, one of France’s most significant young playwrights. The project will culminate with the play’s world premiere and a workshop in playwriting and contemporary French theater by Fabrice Melquiot.

While Fabrice Melquiot’s reputation is growing as one of Europe’s next great playwrights, little of his work has been produced in English.  Ben Yalom met him in Paris in November 2004 and they discovered a shared vision for theater in general and for Le Diable en Partage in particular. Le Diable en Partage is set during the war in ex-Yugoslavia. Its protagonist, Lorko, a Christian, falls in love with and marries Selma, a Muslim. Yalom writes:

As the war breaks out, Melquiot shows us the pressures on their love, their families, and the crumbling world around them in a style that seamlessly blends expressionism, poetry, fantasy, and harsh, raw reality. Written just after the war, Le Diable, makes compelling art of world-altering violence, of fratricidal hatred, and of the literal dehumanization of war. Most important, Melquiot manages this without bitterness, and without clichéd anti-war propaganda, and without demonizing any one side of the conflict. Rather he shows the human cost to all the participants, victims and aggressors of war.

Ben Yalom will translate the play with Melquiot, with assistance from French scholar Marilyn Yalom, and with the support and assistance of language and cultural experts at Alliance Française. When the first draft is complete, foolsFURY’s performance ensemble will present a workshop reading at Alliance Française’s theater in downtown San Francisco.  This presentation of the draft and feedback from participants gathered by the collaborators will be followed by further refinement of the translation, community performances of the ensemble work in progress, and the play’s premiere in a multi-week run. 

Ben Yalom has studied and worked in theater and film as a director, actor, and producer in the Bay Area and France.  A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, his fiction, essays, and translations of plays have appeared in magazines and journals nationwide.  Yalom lived in France both as a child and as an adult.  In the early 1990s, he received much of his theatrical training in Paris, working at the Theatre Ange Magnetique with Antoine Campo, training with Mamadou Dioume of Peter Brook’s Theater Company, and working with numerous LeCoq trained artists. He founded foolsFURY Theater Company, an innovative avant-garde ensemble, in 1998.  Yalom describes the company as being founded on the idea that compelling theater “must go beyond realism, using that style as well as other more physically-based forms to create an electrifying whole that can exist only in the multifaceted and immediate world of live performance.” He teaches playwriting at California College of the Arts. 

Established in Paris in 1884, Alliance Française is the official center of French language and culture. Alliance Française de San Francisco is one of 1,085 Alliances that have been established in more than 138 countries worldwide. It opened in 1889, has more than 1,300 active members, and annually serves some 1,500 students.  Alliance Française de San Francisco offers a year-round cultural calendar of events, including lectures, music, book signings, theatrical performances, art exhibits, film screenings, and other programs.  Alliance also offers a wide array of community classes that go beyond mere language instruction by covering the cultural, business, and professional aspects of France.

Ben Yalom

Theater (Selected)

• Founder and director, foolsFURY, innovative and award-winning San Francisco physical theater company (1998-present)
• Freelance director with Traveling Jewish Theater, Inverse Theater, Playground, Playlab, Combined Art Form Entertainment, Unconditional Theater Company, Abydos, and New Writers New Works among others
• Member, Theater Services Committee, Theater Bay Area (2003)
• Assistant director for Giles Havergall, Juno and the Paycock, American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco, California (1998)
• Assistant to director James Lapine, Golden Child, American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco, California (1998)
• Assistant to director/playwright Octavio Solis, Dreamlandia, American Conservatory Theater MFA program, San Francisco, California (1998)
• Literary department intern, publications writer, teaching assistant, American Conservatory Theater, San Francisco, California (1996-98)
• Literary committee member, Magic Theatre, San Francisco, California (1997-98)
• Associate artistic director/grant writer, Encore Theatre Company, San Francisco, California (1997-98)
• Associate producer, Bay Area Playwrights Festival, San Francisco, California (1998)
• Producer, TalkArtCabaret, bi-weekly evening spoken word, performance art, and storytelling series, Iowa City, Iowa (1995-96)
• Producer, Quarry, new works company for Bay Area playwrights

Selected Publications/Productions

• “The Strange Case of the Jenson Files” produced by foolsFURY Theater (2005)
• Theater Bay Area/Callboard, articles on various topics (2002-04)
• Chemins de Croix, translation of Togoan playwright Kangni Alem play, Exchanges, Works in Translation, (1996)
• Fish Stories, short stories published in 1996 and 1998 issues
• 100 Words, editorial board member for monthly journal of international short fiction and poetry in English and in translation, published by University of Iowa International Writing Program (1995-96)
• Frank: An International Journal of Contemporary Writing and Art, assistant fiction editor for numbers 15 and 16, Paris, France (1993)

Teaching

• Playwriting, California College of Art, graduate MFA program (current)
• foolsFURY, regular workshops in Ensemble Creation, Scene Study, Suzuki and Viewpoints Technique (current)
• Continuing Studies Program, Stanford University, Playwriting Workshop (spring 2005); Physical Theater Intensive (fall 2002)
• Guest Lecturer, Stanford University, Drama 210—The Actor in Performance (fall 2004, spring 2005)
• Summer Discovery Institute, Stanford University, Playwriting (program for high school students) (summer 2004, 2003); fiction writing (summer 2004, 2003)
• Academy of Foreign Languages, English classes at undergraduate level, Volunteers in Asia, Jember, East Java, Indonesia (1989-90)
• Coach and teacher for productions for numerous professional theater companies, including Crowded Fire, Shotgun Players, Inverse Theater, and others.

Awards

• National Endowment for the Arts/Theater Communications Group, Semi-finalist for Career Development for Directors Fellowship (2004)
• Scholarship from the Iowa Foundation, University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa (1995)
• Graduate with distinction and honors, Stanford University, Stanford, California (1992)
• Best Fiction Award for story, “Clear View, Waiting for the Storm,” Fish Stories (1996)