Research Portfolio
Artistic Projects
Mystical Ecstacy
An accessible performance paying homage to the female writer of the Spanish Golden Age.
(2024) Created and performed by Paula Rodríguez. Music by Arthur Astier. Featured at Bush Theatre, FesteLon Festival, Brighton Fringe, Cervantes Theatre (London), International Festival of Classical Theatre in Almagro, Clásicos en Alcalá, Jornadas de Teatro Clásico (Málaga), exlimite (Madrid), Noche de Juglares (Zaragoza), and more.
Text Fragment
In those golden centuries,
women wrote
in a world that wouldn't embrace them.
A world that understated them.
Being an author and a woman,
was a rupture, a challenge, a prayer.
Female poets, playwrights, novelists,
Many of them took their vows, perhaps, to escape the marital yoke
and fulfil their true calling, writing.
Not all restricted themselves to piety,
they spoke of human passions,
risking severe punishment.
Today, we can only glimpse at their lives,
every verse they wrote
is a witness to their struggle,
is a relic that speaks to us,
is a victory.
Rosaura
Life is a Dream retold through its female protagonist perspective.
(2017 -2019). Based on Life is a Dream by Calderón de la Barca. By Paula Rodríguez and Sandra Arpa. Production by Teatro Inverso. Featured at Corral de Comedias de Alcalá, International Festival of Almagro, Festival de Olite, Festival FesteLon, Women War (London), University of Canterbury (Kent), University of Delaware (Ohio), international tour.
Text Fragment
“Woman I want to be, to my shame – for a woman I am not, nor man: I am a Beast, I am a shadow, I am rage. A third costume seen in the regalia of war, that tightens my heart. Rain, rain, rain, from the well of your tears, mother, mother of the dawn, mother of the soul. How alone and empty I feel, such a monster, such anger, such pain. Now my fist clenches, now my heart trembles, now my life unravels. A monster with three heads, this is the image of Rosaura. All see her, see her and touch her; for the circus of War approaches ..."
Wonders
Cervantes' Wonder vs the virtual era
(2019 -2021) Based on texts by Cervantes. Created and performed by Paula Rodríguez and Sandra Arpa and featured at Exlimite (Madrid), Festival Tercera Semana (Valencia), and more.
Text Fragment
She shares the room of the soul and of the mind
with the divine and moral philosophy.
She paints the day in the middle of night,
where the darkness seems the brightest honesty
and transforms daylight into silent dusk.
The flow of the floods she takes to ecstasy,
she rules among the streams- and waterfalls,
she reduces wild fury to gentleness
and reconciles opponents, without laws.
She gives and takes the weapon and caresses,
she opens all the secrets, but to close them,
in her, there are no limits no defence.
Todo No Basta
Becket & Calderón, Women & Power
(2013) Performance based on texts by Beckett and Calderón. Directed by Nuria Alkorta, Cia Delabarca, performed, devised and co-produced with Paula Rodríguez. LAVA Valladolid.
Vengadas
An artisitc project exploring violence and trauma from the Spanish Golden Age to today, drawing inspiration from canonical Spanish works from the early modern period by authors such as Lope de Vega and Miguel de Cervantes.
Educational
(2019 -2025) Aimed at university students to engage with Spanish Golden Age texts to explore modern-day social and political justice and sponsored by The Association for Hispanic Classical Theatre (AHCT), US, Ohio Wesleyan University, MacEwan University, Toronto, and UCL.
Mad for Love
(2023) BADA Production
Contemporary adaptation of La Dama Boba by Lope de Vega. Translation by John Farndon. Dramaturgy and direction by Paula Rodriguez. British America Drama Academy, London.
Blood Wedding
(2022) RCSSD Production
By Federico García Lorca, translated by Ben Naylor and Paula Rodriguez. Embassy Theatre, Centra. Directed by Ben Naylor and Natasha Fedorova.
Medival Ballads: Shadow of Myself
(2019) Delaware Ohio Production
An interdisciplinary student show which modernises medieval Spanish romances through original music adapted narration, and puppetry. Funded by Hispanic Theatre Internship, supervised and produced by Prof. Glenda Y. Nieto-Cuebas from Ohio Wesleyan University.
WORKSHOPS
2025 Creative writing inspired by the Golden Age, exploring Ibero-American 16th & 17th plays for contemporary writing. EMAD (Uruguay), DGEAT (Argentina), TEP (Portugal). Promoted by Fundación Festival Internacional de Teatro Clásico de Almagro.
2018-2025 Reinventing Spanish the classics, examining the foundations of Spanish Golden Age theatre, and further classical legacies with a view to social and political transformation in the present day at Texas Tech University(US), Queen's University and University of St Andrews.
2022 #MeToo Movement and the Comedia, exploring feminist approaches towards the reinvention of Spanish Golden Age stories, supervised by Prof. Ana Mendez at Syracuse University, New York.
2020-2022 Coriolanus, exploring the political relevance of Shakespeare's play in Spain today, working with director Ben Naylor (RCSSD & BADA) at Jornadas de Teatro Clásico Málaga and Teatro Pavón Kamikaze Madrid.
2018-2022 Shakespeare workshops, for Ukrainian refugee children at Sofia (Bulgaria) and for young children with autism in London and internationally. Flute Theatre.
TALKS
2022 Master Class: Reinventing Spanish Golden Age Classics Today
Organized by Professor Maria Dominguez, Arizona State University (US), and Professor Ted Bergman, St. Andrews University (Scotland).
2022 Panel Speaker at Creating Experiential Learning Projects in the Classroom
The Association for Hispanic Classical Theater (AHCT) Annual Conference, Almagro International Classical Theatre Festival, Spain.
2019 Tell Thy Story
Presenter, producer, and director. An event focusing on Global Shakespeare, celebrating migrants across the UK. In collaboration with 1 Day Without Us and Deli Theatre.
ACADEMIC WRITING
Nieto-Cuebas, G.Y., Lew, J., Rodríguez, P., & Treadway, H. Medieval Ballads in Miniature and Our New Gold: Collaborative Theatre Projects in the Digital Era. Comedia Performance, 19. Available at Scholarly Publishing Collective. 2022.
SELECTED CITATIONS OF MY WORK
Multilingual Adaptations Lech, K. Multilingual Dramaturges: Towards New European Theatre. Springer. 2024.
Why Doesn't the Comedia Work on Screen? Samson, A. Short Film Presentation. Available on YouTube: https://youtu.be/lb1oek7hnL4. 2024.
Social Justice in Spanish Golden Age Theatre. Edited by Erin Cowling, Tania de Miguel Magro, Mina Garcia Jordán and Glenda Y. Nieto-Cuebas. University of Toronto Press. 2021.
Claiming Their Voice: Foreign Memories on the Post-Brexit Stage, Lech, K. Migration and Stereotypes in Performance and Culture. Springer. Discusses Paula Rodríguez’s multilingual theatre work in the context of Brexit. 2020.
Female Empowerment in Classical Spanish Theatre. Gielink, S., & Burr, J.A. Digital Commons @ OWU. Explores Paula Rodríguez’s contributions to classical Spanish theatre through feminist reinterpretations. 2019.
Taking Center Stage: Early Modern Women’s Tragedies on the Contemporary Stage. Fernández, E. Romance Quarterly. Taylor & Francis. 2018.