Room 400 | Fine Arts Building The 1968 Off-Broadway hit Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris had a long afterlife with numerous revivals and a film version. But the musical currently exists in a state of suspended animation because the Brussels-based Brel Foundation (managed by Brel’s daughter France Brel) has not granted rights for productions since 2017. This talk will explore the complicated cultural exchange in which translator Eric Blau and adaptor/performer Mort Shuman used localization to make Brel’s songs legible to an American audience, while creating a fantasy of Frenchness and maintaining some aspects of Brel’s Franco-Belgian identity. Sponsored by the Department of Theatre & Film Studies, the Department of Romance Languages, the Willson Center for Humanities and Arts, and the Hugh Hodgson School of Music Friday, March 21 2025, 10:20 - 11:20am Dr. Daniel Smith Michigan State University Website
