OUT OF THE WINGS FESTIVAL 2026

PRESENTED BY OUT OF THE WINGS

Join Out of the Wings for its 10th annual festival of UK-premiere play readings from Ibero-America.

Out of the Wings returns for its annual festival of Ibero-American playwriting. Celebrating our 10th festival, we present readings of plays from five different countries, all in English translation, and in the UK for the first time.  

The plays of OOTW2025 traversed continents and centuries, the real and the dreamed, the playful and the poignant, from the Salem witch trials seen through a Spanish lens, to a comic dystopian future from Brazil; from the dreams of a literary giant in Portugal to the longings of youth in Chile; from the delight of 1940s radio theatre from Colombia to a comedic road-trip from Mexico to the Arctic. Join us in 2026 for more journeys of discovery, imagination, and surprise.  

In tumultuous times, the plays of #OOTW2026 bring provocation and challenge, distraction and delight. From Chile and Catalonia, The Rape of a Theatre Actress and Six Acres of Olive Trees unflinchingly confront gender-based violence; from Mexico, Murder with Malice calls out injustice for chicanos in the US; from Uruguay, Emotional Terror turns a break-up into comic creativity, and from Portugal, one master artist riffs joyously on another in The Rake Absolved.

The play readings are one element of #OOTW2026’s six-day programme of theatre in translation. This unmissable flagship event in the OOTW calendar begins with the OOTW Forum at King’s College London, then continues with practical workshops, and opportunities to meet the OOTW team. Join us as we showcase the diversity of playwriting in Iberia and Latin America across a week of creativity, and cross-border collaboration.   

Born out of a collaboration between its co-founders and the Royal Shakespeare Company’s acclaimed Spanish Golden Age season, OOTW has been bringing English translations of theatre from the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds to the UK and beyond since 2008.  

FESTIVAL LINE UP:

14 JUL: Six Acres of Olive Trees by Aina Tur, translated by Rachel Toogood

15 JUL: Murder with Malice by Victor Hugo Rascón Banda, translated by Carlos Morton

16 JUL: The Rape of a Theatre Actress by Carla Zúñiga, translated by Fran Olivares

17 JUL: Emotional Terror by Josefina Trías, translated by Sophie Stevens

18 JUL: The Rake Absolved by José Saramago, translated by Margaret Jull Costa

All plays at #OOTW2026 will be presented as staged readings.  

Pictured: Carly Fernandez, Ángel López-Silva and Elena Sanz in Daniel Dannery’s Wanted a pillbox, ended up with a plastic bag, translated and directed by Mary Ann Vargas, at the 2022 OOTW Festival. (Photo: Terry Cripps.)