Roy Chen

Roy Chen, author, playwright and translator, was born in Tel Aviv in 1980. His paternal forefathers settled in the Galilee after the Jews were expelled from Spain over five centuries ago, and his mother’s family immigrated to Israel from Morocco in the late 1940s.

Since 2007, Chen has been the house dramatist for the Gesher Theater in Jaffa. Works of his that have been produced there include: “In the Tunnel”, “Herzl Said!”, “I, Don Quixote”, “Alice”, “The Journeys of Odysseus”, “The Spirit of the Theater”, and most recently, “Someone like Me.” Chen’s “The Draft Dodger,” a comedy that is devoid of political and/or ideological commitment, is currently running at the Tzavta theater in Tel Aviv. Productions of his plays, adaptations and translations have been staged in China, Russia and the United States, among other countries.

Roy Chen taught himself English, Russian, French, and Italian and he has translated into Hebrew classical works of Russian literature by Pushkin, Dostoyevsky and Chekhov, among others, as well as over 40 plays. He lectures on translation, writing and theater.

Photo by: Polina Adamov