Nicholas Johnson
Nicholas Johnson is an Associate Professor of Drama at Trinity College Dublin, where he has worked full-time since 2008. He co-founded the Trinity Centre for Beckett Studies, within which he co-directs the Beckett Summer School and the Samuel Beckett Laboratory. With Jonathan Heron (Warwick), he co-authored the monograph "Experimental Beckett" (Cambridge UP, 2020) and co-edited the "Performance Issue" (23.1, 2014) and "Pedagogy Issue" (29.1, 2020) of the Journal of Beckett Studies. He is a co-editor of two collections from the Beckett Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research: "Influencing Beckett / Beckett Influencing" (L'Harmattan, 2020) and "Beckett's Voices / Voicing Beckett" (Brill, 2021). He has published widely in journals and edited collections on adaptations and intermedial performances of Beckett, directing and acting Beckett, Beckett and censorship, and the use of performance as a tool for research. A secondary research interest, and the topic of a monograph now in progress, relates to how theatre laboratory work can generate new knowledge for more interdisciplinary contexts in a wide range of fields. Johnson has undertaken numerous practice-based research projects since 2008, including collaborations with literature scholars, art historians, educators, translators, sociologists, historians, computer scientists, and medical clinicians, in which performance has played a crucial role. As convener of the college-wide Creative Arts Practice research theme and as committee member of both the Neurohumanities and Medical and Health Humanities initiatives at TCD, Johnson's research is extending the role of theatre and performance in these alternative settings.
Johnson is a literary translator (from German), with current and past projects on Toller, Kafka, Frisch, Trakl, and Brecht, including the first translation and publication of Brecht's "David" Fragments from 1919-21 (Bloomsbury, 2020). These translation projects signal a further research interest in German Expressionism during the Weimar period, and more widely in modernism's legacy. He is a co-editor of the forthcoming Edinburgh Companion to Modernism in Contemporary Theatre.
Johnson continues to direct, perform, and work as a dramaturg in a variety of theatre contexts in Ireland, Germany, and the UK, and he gives talks and workshops worldwide (including Ireland, Germany, Bulgaria, UK, US, Japan, Turkey, Morocco, India, Poland, Mexico, Israel, and the West Bank). As a dramaturg, he is a regular collaborator with Pan Pan Theatre Company (2012–2021), and has worked with Dead Centre (2017–2019), Dublin Youth Theatre (2019), and OT Platform (2019–20). His directing has appeared at the Samuel Beckett Theatre and Project Arts Centre (Dublin), Lincoln Center (New York), and Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxembourg-Platz (Berlin). His 2017-19 project "Virtual Play" after Samuel Beckett, created in collaboration with V-SENSE, won 1st prize at the New European Media awards. He has held visiting research positions at Freie Universität Berlin and at Yale University.
Johnson is Director of the MPhil in Theatre and Performance (2016-present) and was Director of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning for the School of Creative Arts at TCD (2017-2020). He teaches courses related to theatre practice, modernism, postmodernism, and 20th century philosophy in theatre. In 2013 Johnson won the Provost's Award for Teaching Excellence (early-career award) and currently is active in researching higher education.
Johnson holds a BSc in theatre from Northwestern University and a PhD in drama from Trinity College Dublin. He was a 2004 DAAD Fellow in Berlin, a 2005 George J. Mitchell Scholar at Trinity, and received the inaugural Samuel Beckett Studentship in Dublin in 2006. His interdisciplinary work has been supported by the Wellcome Trust, Enterprise Ireland, and Science Foundation Ireland, as well as internal grants from the Trinity Long Room Hub. He was elected a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 2021.
Address: Department of Drama Studies
Samuel Beckett Centre
Trinity College
Dublin 2
Ireland
Johnson is a literary translator (from German), with current and past projects on Toller, Kafka, Frisch, Trakl, and Brecht, including the first translation and publication of Brecht's "David" Fragments from 1919-21 (Bloomsbury, 2020). These translation projects signal a further research interest in German Expressionism during the Weimar period, and more widely in modernism's legacy. He is a co-editor of the forthcoming Edinburgh Companion to Modernism in Contemporary Theatre.
Johnson continues to direct, perform, and work as a dramaturg in a variety of theatre contexts in Ireland, Germany, and the UK, and he gives talks and workshops worldwide (including Ireland, Germany, Bulgaria, UK, US, Japan, Turkey, Morocco, India, Poland, Mexico, Israel, and the West Bank). As a dramaturg, he is a regular collaborator with Pan Pan Theatre Company (2012–2021), and has worked with Dead Centre (2017–2019), Dublin Youth Theatre (2019), and OT Platform (2019–20). His directing has appeared at the Samuel Beckett Theatre and Project Arts Centre (Dublin), Lincoln Center (New York), and Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxembourg-Platz (Berlin). His 2017-19 project "Virtual Play" after Samuel Beckett, created in collaboration with V-SENSE, won 1st prize at the New European Media awards. He has held visiting research positions at Freie Universität Berlin and at Yale University.
Johnson is Director of the MPhil in Theatre and Performance (2016-present) and was Director of Undergraduate Teaching and Learning for the School of Creative Arts at TCD (2017-2020). He teaches courses related to theatre practice, modernism, postmodernism, and 20th century philosophy in theatre. In 2013 Johnson won the Provost's Award for Teaching Excellence (early-career award) and currently is active in researching higher education.
Johnson holds a BSc in theatre from Northwestern University and a PhD in drama from Trinity College Dublin. He was a 2004 DAAD Fellow in Berlin, a 2005 George J. Mitchell Scholar at Trinity, and received the inaugural Samuel Beckett Studentship in Dublin in 2006. His interdisciplinary work has been supported by the Wellcome Trust, Enterprise Ireland, and Science Foundation Ireland, as well as internal grants from the Trinity Long Room Hub. He was elected a Fellow of Trinity College Dublin in 2021.
Address: Department of Drama Studies
Samuel Beckett Centre
Trinity College
Dublin 2
Ireland
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Books by Nicholas Johnson
The analysis of Brecht's David, along with his notebooks and diaries, reveals significant connections between the reception of the Biblical David and one of Germany's most tumultuous cultural periods. Drawing on theatrical experiments conducted with an ensemble from Trinity College Dublin, this volume includes the first ever translation of the David fragments in English, an extensive discussion of the theatrical afterlife of David in the early twentieth century as well as new interdisciplinary insights into the early Brecht: a writer entranced by the biblical David and utterly committed to translating the biblical tradition into his own evolving theatrical idiom.
This book approaches these two questions under two broad headings: first, "Influencing Beckett," or the ongoing traces of how Beckett constructed his own work by drawing on artists and thinkers near and far, ancient and current; second, "Beckett Influencing," or how his work has unfolded into the contemporary world across genre, across media, and as a source for others' artworks. The third section, "Practitioner Voices," concerns the implementation of such patterns of influence in theatrical practice.
With contributions from eight countries, this volume emerges from the first Beckett conference to be held in Hungary. It captures the international, experimental, and collaborative spirit of the Samuel Beckett Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research.
Papers by Nicholas Johnson
The analysis of Brecht's David, along with his notebooks and diaries, reveals significant connections between the reception of the Biblical David and one of Germany's most tumultuous cultural periods. Drawing on theatrical experiments conducted with an ensemble from Trinity College Dublin, this volume includes the first ever translation of the David fragments in English, an extensive discussion of the theatrical afterlife of David in the early twentieth century as well as new interdisciplinary insights into the early Brecht: a writer entranced by the biblical David and utterly committed to translating the biblical tradition into his own evolving theatrical idiom.
This book approaches these two questions under two broad headings: first, "Influencing Beckett," or the ongoing traces of how Beckett constructed his own work by drawing on artists and thinkers near and far, ancient and current; second, "Beckett Influencing," or how his work has unfolded into the contemporary world across genre, across media, and as a source for others' artworks. The third section, "Practitioner Voices," concerns the implementation of such patterns of influence in theatrical practice.
With contributions from eight countries, this volume emerges from the first Beckett conference to be held in Hungary. It captures the international, experimental, and collaborative spirit of the Samuel Beckett Working Group of the International Federation for Theatre Research.
In the early 1920s in a shattered Bavaria, before he became a famous innovator of the modern theatre, the young Bertolt Brecht was fascinated by the biblical story of David (and was in fierce competition with others working on the same material). Though Brecht's play about David was never finished, several scene fragments survive in German. Two of these fragments are the source materials for tonight’s work-in-progress showcase: “A 1” and “B 10.” Working with an ensemble of actors and designers, Shepherd and Johnson are developing the first English translation and performance of The David Fragments, a process that has also raised new research questions around literary translation, the reception of the Bible, the early career of Bertolt Brecht, and methods of practice-as-research.
CREATIVE TEAM Ben Kidd (director) / Bush Moukarzel (director) / Nicholas Johnson (dramaturg) / Andrew Clancy (designer) / Eugenia Genunchi (design assistant) / Grace O'Hara (props/effects) / Kevin Gleeson (sound) / Eoin Winning (lighting & production management) / Rachel Murray (producer)
ABOUT THE TRINITY CREATIVE CHALLENGE Trinity Creative is committed to making space for creative expression, collaboration, interdisciplinary experimentation and creating platforms to explore and stimulate new developments in creative arts practice. Trinity Creative Challenge is a key initiative of Trinity Creative. Sponsored by the Provost of the University, this funding award aims to foster the development of ambitious and innovative interdisciplinary projects and works, ideally involving a collaboration with, or within, Trinity College Dublin. The award is open to projects and ideas with a focus on interdisciplinary creative arts practices across a wide range of forms including performance, visual art, music, film, design, new media, animation, gaming and creative technologies.
This event presents the first public reading from this creative process, and will include actors performing Brecht's original German, Johnson's new literary translation, and — keeping Brecht's spirit of competition alive — assorted machine-translated versions of the same material. The discussion after the reading to explore these issues will include translator/director Nicholas Johnson, expert in translation studies James Hadley, expert in ancient translation traditions David Shepherd, and expert in computational linguistics Carl Vogel.
Part of Probe: Research Uncovered at Trinity College Dublin. This European Researchers' Night project is funded by the European Commission under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie actions.
18:00 – 19:00 Part I (“Who”)
19:00 – 20:00 Part II (“Moloch”)
20:00 – 21:00 Part III (“Rockland”)
21:00 – 22:00 Footnote to Howl (“Holy!”)