I chose to prioritize more conservative translations of Brecht’s source text, and ones that maintain the 1600s essence of the Thirty Years’ War. Rather than relying on more heavily adapted and modernized versions, I am seeking to invite audiences to uncover modern relevance in historical themes. An interesting challenge for the Carnegie Mellon School of Drama production team is to bring these intentions into a textually classical work, designing for and researching a defined era. Culturally, I’d like to give audiences and cast members exposure to the unique German language and lyrics in a context as close to how the source text presents them as possible, thus relying on translations that mirror the nature of Paul Dessau’s original score and Brecht's words in both rhythm and style. The above criteria are matched by the works of Eric Bentley (1955), John Willett (1980), and Michael Hofmann (2006), who each take unique but applicable approaches to translating Mother Courage and Her Children.