Miriam Ellis International Playhouse
About MEIP (Multilingual European International Playhouse)
MEIP at UC Santa Cruz presents short theater pieces in multiple languages—from classic and traditional works to contemporary, experimental pieces—all with English supertitles. Past programs have included Chinese, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Latin, Portuguese, Punjabi, Russian, and Spanish. Faculty and students regularly create original adaptations and stage works from rich theatrical traditions, such as Kyōgen, alongside selections from Spanish, French, Chinese, Russian, Japanese, and more. With strong community support, MEIP is now an endowed program.
Get Involved
Students can earn up to 5 units by participating on stage or behind the scenes (acting, videography, photography, and more). Talk with your language or film instructor, or email Renée Cailloux, producer and director at meip@ucsc.edu.
Coming Performances
May 2026
Cowell College, Stevenson College and the Department of Languages and Applied Linguistics will present the 23rd season of the Miriam Ellis international Playhouse (MEIP XXIII) in the Stevenson Event Center at UCSC. Fully-staged theater pieces in different languages, with English supertitles, performed by Language students and directed by their instructors.
Interested in participating as an actor, stage manager, videographer or photographer? Contact your language instructor, your film & digital media instructor or Renée Cailloux, producer of the MEIP, and director of the French Play: meip@ucsc.edu
Through the Eyes of the Founder
The use of theater as a pedagogic tool in the acquisition of second language skills has become more widely recognized in academic circles over the past two decades, particularly in England, Australia, and Europe. In the US, occasionally a fully-staged play in a target language will be performed (e.g., Italian at Notre-Dame University: see Ryan-Scheutz and Colangelo, 2004, Full-Scale Theater Production and Foreign Language Learning. Foreign Language Annals, 37: 374–385). Several differing models are discussed and proposed in the literature but in academe there does not appear to be any long-term established program of multilingual theater offered on a regular basis as an important adjunct to undergraduate SLA. In this paper, we will trace the history, functionality, and adaptability of such a project as it is represented by the International Playhouse at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Background
As a senior in high school in New York, I was fortunate enough to receive a scholarship from the French government to the École libre des Hautes Études, Centre d’Art Dramatique. Under the direction of an extremely talented former Asociée of the Academié Française, for several years this grant entitled a group of English-speaking students to participate in a fully-staged theater production in French, an experiment which was invaluable in developing many personal, as well as linguistic and dramatic skills. As a result of this preparation, during my career in higher education, I have worked with groups of motivated students at various institutions to interpret French dramatic texts for public performance. When I undertook my doctoral studies at UC Santa Cruz in 1971, although the campus was renowned for its innovative and experimental approach to teaching and learning, there was no program that resembled what I had been doing. It seemed therefore that establishing theatre performance as an integral part of French language study was a natural next step.
In 1972 “Les Tréteaux d’Essai” (The Santa Cruz Stage) was created; our first program was an Evening of French Music and Theater, with songs and scenes from five plays, performed in a concert version. The following year, we presented La Farce de Maître Pathelin as our first fully-staged production. Audiences were made up of students and professors, with a few members of the general public in attendance. Since these early programs took place before the advent of super-titles, we used detailed program notes in English, as well as a Narrator, who described the action, both in French and in English, before the play has begun and during intermission.
Les Tréteaux d’Essai and the development of performance translation
Almost annually between 1973 and 2001, we presented fully-staged programs in French for mixed audiences of students, faculty, and members of the community. (See Appendix i for a list of some of the works presented by Les Trétaux.) As mentioned above, at first we used Narrators and program notes to translate and summarize plot action in English for non-French speakers. As technology improved, we utilized a computer to project translations on two TV screens, placed on the theater floor, down left and right of the stage, and most recently, since 2001, and the advent of the International Playhouse, we have transformed texts into Power Point presentations and projected simultaneous translations, in the form of super-titles, on a screen above the proscenium. This means of communicating the sense of the piece requires training one or more students to be in charge of operating the computer to match the action. Training consists of attendance at rehearsals at intervals during regular class meetings, and daily during tech week; reading the text in the original and translation (sometimes working on the translation and formatting it); and being present at all performances. This element of the production has proven to be essential for the audience’s comprehension and appreciation of the performance and is integral to the success of the pieces, as one can readily imagine. We have found that the director cannot generally be the titles operator, since he/she has too much of a vested interest in the action transpiring onstage to be able to follow the rhythmic pattern of controlling the essential computer keys in a successful manner. It is much more pragmatic to train one or more students for this crucial task and affords an important learning experience to that individual or those involved in it.
From Les Tréteaux to the IP
In 2001, several colleagues in the UCSC Language Program expressed their desire to participate in the theater project and in May of that year, with Sakae Fujita, Lecturer in Japanese, as co-producer and 3 other directors, we inaugurated the International Playhouse (IP). Our goal was to offer a group of short multilingual pieces on the same bill, designed to reflect the diversity of linguistic and theatrical expression in a multicultural setting, while at the same time undescoring the commonality of the human experience in multiple cultures.
Our first program consisted of comic works in five languages: Chinese, French, German, Italian, and Japanese, directed by Lecturers in each of these fields. The texts ranged from an original Chinese piece written and directed by Jacqueline Ku, who had formerly belonged to a theater troupe in Taiwan, to an adaptation by Giulia Centineo, who led her students in a modern satiric Italian short story that she adapted for the stage. Traditional Kyogen theater was represented in a piece directed by Sakae Fujita, whose students mastered the challenges of stylized movements and inflections of medieval Japanese language to create an authentic performance. German students, under the direction of Judith Harris-Frisk, interpreted Schnitzler’s Reigen (Round Dance), while French participants offered Marivaux’s École des mères (School for Mothers), reminiscent of Molière’s École des femmes and École des maris, in its light didactic message.
MEIP Testimonials
- The International Playhouse gave me the opportunity to deepen my understanding of my target language’s culture, put my speaking skills to the test, and most importantly, it pushed me to put myself out there and try something new. It was an unforgettable experience not only for me as a performer, but also for the lucky audiences who came to enjoy the drama and humor in storytelling from around the globe right here at UCSC. I hope the Playhouse can continue to whisk away performers and audiences alike to new worlds and tell exciting stories across language barriers for many years to come. There’s really nothing like it anywhere else.
-Alexandria Sun, 2019 Participant - During my experience with the International Playhouse, I was able to reach a level of language capacity that I do not believe I would have reached by simply taking the main French grammar courses at UCSC. Since the entire process was conducted in French, from auditions to rehearsals, one has the ultimate opportunity to develop a level of speaking and pronunciation that many instructors do not focus on very much anymore in the class room. I will say that the most challenging part of the Playhouse was trying to convey thoughts and expressions of emotions through a language that is not my own, and to convey a character that has many distinct levels to their personality. This proved to be difficult when combined with the level of memorization, pronunciation drills (French vowels are a killer), and overall theatricalities that are necessary to put on a play of any kind, particularly one that rhymes. However, by the end of our run, I felt that my fluency had improved tremendously and my comprehension had broadened in a way that I could not have attained in a classroom. This gave me more confidence to study abroad, return, and be a part of the Playhouse in another production this year. (I played Argan in LE MALADE IMAGINAIRE in 2013 and Panisse in MARIUS this year). Being involved in the International Playhouse is an amazing opportunity that takes a great deal of dedication and responsibility, but the payoff is more that worth it in the end. (Z. S.)
- UCSC’s International Playhouse is a unique opportunity for language students to expand their abilities in an immersive, exciting, and downright fun setting. I did a lot of activities with the Language Department during my time at UCSC, but Playhouse is by far the most memorable experience I had. Performing on-stage skits in front of a live audience is one of the best ways to learn a language, and I can definitely say that doing so had an outsize impact on my skills as both a student and teacher of language. Playhouse is a blast to watch as well, and has become a widely anticipated community tradition over the twenty years of its existence. I consider my time working with International Playhouse to be one of the formative experiences in my journey towards mastery of a second language, and I highly recommend it to students who are looking for a serious opportunity to improve their skills.
-Bill Flynn, 2010 & 2011 Participant - International Playhouse gave me an opportunity to practice and utilize the language in a new and exciting way. Through rehearsals and performances, I made fast friends with my cast mates and witnessed the linguistic talents of students from the entire department. I don’t believe my undergraduate career in Italian Studies would have been complete without this experience. (M. M.)
- I am delighted to hear that the UCSC International Playhouse is celebrating its 20th anniversary. As a Japanese major, I participated in the Playhouse in 2009, in a play entitled UCSC: The Musical, which was written by Professor Sakae Fujita specifically for the occasion. It was an absolute pleasure preparing for and performing this play, and in many ways the whole experience felt like a celebration of everything we as advanced language students had accomplished during our time studying with the Japanese department. I believe I speak for everyone when I say that it was extremely gratifying to be given the chance to publicly display our skills, and I truly believe that through our performances we were able to convey to the audience some of the joy of studying languages at UCSC. Professor Fujita and the other members of staff are all dedicated and talented instructors, and they worked passionately to help us students cultivate our linguistic abilities. In this way the Playhouse is also a celebration of them, and the ways they continue to inspire in us a love of communication and international exchange. It is my ardent hope that, although the International Playhouse is already celebrating its 20th anniversary, it will be able to celebrate as many more going into the future. In doing so, I am confident that UCSC will continue in the same way to inspire among its audiences a passion for languages, as well as an understanding of the necessity of international engagement.
– Ian Hamilton, 2009 participant - As a Global Economics major, I was never given the opportunity to study any of the arts, only given the opportunity to study a language. Taking part in the playhouse was one of the fulfilling and joyful learning experiences at UC Santa Cruz. I never would have thought that I would enjoy theatre, and I am extremely happy that I decided to go out on a limb and try it out before I graduate. The only regret I have was not taking the class 4 years ago as a freshman. Being part of the International Playhouse taught me not only about theatre, voice projection, makeup, posture, but it also taught me a lot about myself. I learned how to act a little out of character, take myself a little bit less seriously, and most of all be confident in myself. As a Global Economics major, I don’t know what sort of class I could have taken that would have taught me all these traits, now do I know many other classes or majors that teach me these. To anyone who is learning or can speak a foreign language, I strongly recommend them to take this course, you will not regret it. (J.F.)
- In 2007, I played the role of a servant in a kyogen play, a type of traditional Japanese comedic performance. I had such a blast participating in the production. It gave me a chance of a lifetime to learn this ancient art form first-hand. It’s one thing to speak Japanese, but it’s quite another thing to read and memorize a play script in Old Japanese and act out the comedic scenes. As a Japanese-American, I cherish it as one of my most memorable experiences at UC Santa Cruz.
– Mai Ishikawa Sutton, Class of 2009