Chins UP! Shoulders Back!

Staged Reading & Discussion
November 4, 2022
7:30 PM

by Ainur Karim
translated by Ellen Vayner and Slava Faybysh

Since our inception, The Scoundrel & Scamp Theatre has been thrilled to present new works of translation and adaptation with such beloved works as The Little Prince, Blood Wedding, and The Crack: Among Wild Animals.

This season we are excited to present to our audiences the winner of our third annual plays-in-translation contest hosted in collaboration with the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA).  This year’s competition winner, Chins Up! Shoulders Back!, has been selected from a diverse field of plays translated into English that speak to the theme “from spark to light”: emphasizing growth and change, in styles ranging from whimsical to dark, from inspiring to threatening.

The Kazakh play Chins Up! Shoulders Back! features a cross-generational Kazakh history that is largely unknown in the West. Based on real-life events, the play features three educated women who were forced to give up their previous careers in order to adapt to a collapsing society. Along with approximately one million other Kazakhs (80% of whom were women), they turn to ferrying goods over the border to keep their families and the country afloat.

In 2019, three middle-aged women grant an interview to a doctoral student studying chelnoki – educated women who worked for the state before the collapse of the USSR and turned to “marketeering” in the aftermath of the fall – and in doing so, allow us a glimpse into the personal and political realities of workers in an illicit economy. Chins Up! Shoulders Back! offers audiences slices of women’s lives at a moment of seismic change, in which their communities’ evolution, growth, and survival is tied to their own.

For Scoundrels ages 15+

Directed by Tioni Collins

Showtime:
November 4, 2022 at 7:30 PM

Runtime:
Approximately 90 minutes.

Audience: 
Best enjoyed by Scoundrels ages 15+  

Regular Ticket Prices
$15 for the reading & discussion

Free for for ALTA guests

Free for Scoundrel Society Members

Questions? Call our Box Office at 520-448-3300.