Performance Classicists
Roster of Classicists with Backgrounds in Theatrical Performance and Classical Performance Reception
The colleagues listed below are willing to share their knowledge of classical antiquity and performance with individuals —by collaborating with directors, actors and designers, and by writing reviews of performances—interested in staging works that are set in the Greco-Roman world, draw on Greek and Latin literary texts, and/or feature clsssical figures and themes.
Andújar, Rosa M.
Princeton University
Rosa Andújar’s academic interests range broadly across ancient Greek literature, but she is particularly interested in the performance and politics of Greek tragedy. She is a graduate of Wellesley College (BA in Classical Civilization/Mathematics, 2003), King’s College, University of Cambridge (BA Hons in Classics, 2005), and Princeton University (MA in Classical Literature and Philology, 2008). While a student at the University at Cambridge, she performed in the Chorus of the 2004 Triennial Cambridge Greek Play, Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, staged in the original Ancient Greek and directed by Annie Castledine. Rosa has also served as the Page and Stage program scholar for the Newark Public Library, where she led reading groups that explored twentieth century African-American adaptations of Greek plays, such as Lee Breuer’s Gospel at Colonus and Will Power’s The Seven. She is currently the Greek language consultant for Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare’s An Iliad, which will be performed in October 2010 at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ.
Bond, Robin
Associate Professor, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand
I graduated at the University of Nottingham in 1966 with a degree in Classics, took up a lectureship at the university of Canterbury (NZ), completed a doctorate on Stoic influence on Horace's Satires while on the staff and have taught Classics at Canterbury ever since.
One of my passions over the last thirty-five years or so has been the translation and direction for the stage of ancient drama for the modern audience. The titles I have staged and/or been involved in are Euripides’ Helen, Trojan Women, Iphigenia in Aulis, Electra, Cyclops andBacchae, all seven of Sophocles’ surviving tragedies, Aeschylus’ Oresteia, the Prometheus Bound, Aristophanes’ Frogs and Wasps.
On the Latin side, I have done Plautus’ Amphitryo and Seneca’s Medea. I’m about to start work on Euripides’ Hippolytus with the intention of following that up with a translation and production of Seneca’s Phaedra. Most of these productions have been joint productions by the Free Theatre, Inc., of Christchurch, New Zealand and the Department of Classics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand. I’m also interested in putting on a production of Euripides’ Herakles with Ian Storey of Trent University, Peterborough, Canada in the fall of 2011.
In addition to translating and directing these productions, I have acted in a large number as well, playing Menelaus in Euripides’ Helen, Old man in Iphigenia in Aulis, Old Man in Electra, Silenus in Cyclops and Cadmus inBacchae, Agamemnon in Aeschylus’Agamemnon, Ajax in Sophocles’ Ajax, Teiresias in Oedipus the King, Oedipus in Oedipus at Colonus, Philoctetes in Philoctetes, this latter directed by Peter Falkenberg of Theatre and Film Studies a Canterbury, Aeschylus in Frogs,and, most recently,Philocleon in Wasps.
Currently, as well as continuing with active work in the theatre, I am attempting to document at least some of my productions for publication in relevant and appropriate journals.
Cohen, Amy R.
Associate Professor of Classics and Director of the Greek Play, Randolph College
Educated at Yale and Stanford, Cohen focuses on the interpretive implications of the original conventions of Greek drama. She and her students put that work on its feet by continuing the College’s Greek Play tradition, begun in 1909 by Professor Mabel K. Whiteside. Directing the plays provides insight into the realities facing the ancient playwrights, and her research continues to argue that you cannot understand the plays without understanding how they were played. She has now directed seven full original practices productions of ancient Greek plays: Antigone, Iphigenia at Aulis, Libation Bearers, Bacchae, Clouds, Sophocles’ Elektra, and Alcestis, with the eighth, Hecuba, coming in October 2010. Her recent scholarship is on what her new discoveries about Greek dramatic masks mean for our understanding of the theater and the plays.
An award-winning teacher, she has been honored by her institution for the work she does in outreach to the community on the liberal arts and on classical culture. Cohen is also the organizer of the first Ancient Drama in Performance: Theory and Practice, a conference bringing together scholars and practitioners of ancient drama. She is eager to be of use to anyone who wants to share ideas about the power of the ancient plays to speak to modern audiences.
Dodson-Robinson, Eric
University of Texas
Eric Dodson-Robinson recently earned his Ph.D. in comparative literature at the University of Illinois. His dissertation is a study of violence and identity in the Western dramatic tradition from Aeschylus to Shakespeare. He is now entering his second year as a faculty member at the University of Texas, where he has created and taught two courses that focus on the reception and performance of the classics: Revenge Tragedy, Stage and Film, and Shakespeare and the Classics. In both classes, students learned about classical and early modern drama through the performance of key scenes, the close reading of text and performance, and longer research papers. He is planning a class for spring 2010 that will be devoted entirely to performance. He has presented conference papers about the following topics pertaining to ancient Greek and Roman drama and its performance and reception: the self and violence in Senecan tragedy; the relation of Senecan to early modern drama; the performance of Seneca; barbarians in Attic tragedy; Shakespeare’s and Plautus’ treatment of comic violence. He has one article about Seneca’s Thyestes under review, and recently submitted a book review of Edith Hall’s Theorising Performance. He is currently developing his dissertation into a book, finishing a Lacanian reading of Euripides’ Bacchae, and completing a review of Joachim Dingel’s Die Relative Datierung der Tragödien Senecas.
Dudek, Jaclyn
A native of Detroit, Jaclyn is an instructor, artist, translator, andactive member of the Detroit/Ann Arbor theater scene. In addition to classical theater, her research interests include comparative mythology, and etymology. She began her serious study of theater while still in high school at Carnegie Mellon’s pre-College summer program. It was there that she fell in love with Shakespeare and also learned that she had a “mid-western accent,” much to her surprise. She began her academic studies at Cottey College for Women and then received her B.A in Classics from the University of Michigan, where she was active in the RC players and Shakespeare in the Arb under the direction of Kate Mendelhof. As a graduate student at Wayne State University, she toured with Detroit Classical Theater Company in conjunction with the Athens Centre under the direction of Arthur Beer. Her duties included company member and dramaturge for the 2008 summer season, with performances in Spetses and Athens. She has translated the Bacchae for the stage and is currently working on a project adapting Euripides’ Orestes. Favorite performances include “Puck” in Midsummer Night’s Dream and “Moth” in Love’s Labors Lost.
Foka, Anna
Honorary Research Fellow in Classics, University of Liverpool
For my BA degree in Theatrical Studies (Athens, Greece), I read ancient drama alongside ancient Greek and Latin, literary criticism, linguistics of drama, history and cultural studies. My MA dissertation explored the socio-political context of Greek Tragedy, while for my PhD (Liverpool, UK) I researched Greek Comedy, in particular the divergences and continuities that characterized the Athenian social discourse in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE through the representation of ideological and socio-political alterity on the comic stage.
My doctoral thesis investigates Ancient Greek Comedy (Old, Middle and New), focusing on the continuities and discontinuities that characterized the Athenian social discourse in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE. Through a thorough survey of the genre, including both complete plays and text fragments (the most recent corpus of fragments by Kassel and Austin, 1996-present) and drawing on the theoretical currents of New Historicism, post-structuralism and contemporary theories of humor, my research addressed the representation of ideological and socio-political Otherness on the comic stage. It focused on the construction of Otherness among different segments (urban and rural classes, foreigners, prostitutes and the elite) of ancient Greek society, as reflected in Greek Comedy. At the moment, I am preparing three articles for publication, two of them based on my doctoral research and one on the reception of Classical Drama as found in Woody Allen’s Mighty Aphrodite.
In terms of future research, I plan to explore the representation of alterity through humor, specifically comic performances, in the ancient world. This is a topic that has been very little explored within Classical studies and, more generally, the sociology and historiography of the ancient world. I will concentrate in the investigation of marginal characters (e.g. foreigners, prostitutes, slaves) in Greek Comedy and Hellenistic Mimes, Roman Comedy and Mimic Theatre, and early Byzantine Mimes in order to chart the ways in which comedy contributed to the construction and perception of alterity in diverse social and cultural contexts. My research will offer therefore a unique opportunity to explore and analyze, from a diachronic perspective, changing socio-cultural attitudes to perceived “minorities” and “disenfranchised” segments of society and is thus ideally placed to inform and enrich in a meaningful way current debates on the strategies contemporary societies employ for addressing issues of discrimination, censorship, and the representation of alterity in modern performance arts.
Gillespie, Caitlin C.
University of Pennsylvania
I am a current Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania. My dissertation addresses the divergence between the representation of Julio-Claudian women as exempla during their lifetimes and Tacitus’ negative characterizations of these same women in the Annals. Additional interests include Euripides, Senecan drama and the anonymous Octavia, and issues of gender, female communication, and theater as a collective experience. In addition to scholarly interests surrounding issues of gender and the representation of women in material culture, dramatic performance, and historiography, I am an artist myself. For more than a dozen years, I have been involved in modern dance and theater as a dancer, choreographer, and producer, among other roles, in Chicago, at Harvard University, and at the University of Pennsylvania. I have interned with Hubbard Street Dance Chicago, and the Irish Modern Dance Theater in Dublin, Ireland. My work as a choreographer includes assisting in an adaptation of the Medea myth for Harvard University’s Experimental Theater. As a spectator, I have followed the work of director and playwright Mary Zimmerman, modern dances such as Paul Taylor’s “Promethean Fire” and the mythological roles danced by Martha Graham, as well as other directors, choreographers, and performers whose modern, often experimental works incorporate ancient texts and adapt classical figures or themes. My experience as performer, choreographer, advisor, and spectator of the arts has prepared me to contribute to modern productions and adaptations of ancient works and myths, particularly those involving dance.
Green, Peter
University of Iowa
I have been much involved in acting and direction,inter aliaboth at school (Charterhouse), university (Trinity College, Cambridge) and in the R.A.F. postwar before demobilization (productions ofHay FeverandThe Doctors’ Dilemmain Mingaladon, Burma, yet!). This experience came in handy later not only for lecturing (everyone could hear me; it was a performance) but also for playwriting (knowing what dialogue would work on stage and what wouldn’t). Most recently that resulted in a version for stage of Aristophanes’Lysistrata(brilliantly directed earlier this year by John Given at ECU with an inspired lead actress), which taught me (a) that youcanwork with the author’s own dialogue but (b) that the Greek chorus as such is a no-no on the modern stage, and needs to be broken up into individual characters. This play is available for production. Requests for it, or for stage-versions of other plays (or for general advice) very welcome—preferably by e-mail; at 85 I don’t get around as much as I used to.
de Jesus, Carlos A. Martins
University of Coimbra
Carlos A. Martins de Jesus has a BA degree in Classics from the University of Coimbra in Portugal, and is currently a PhD student in Greek Literature in the same university. For his MA degree he translated Aristophanes’ Wasps, a play that he has staged and directed with Thiasos (2008), the Greek and Roman theatre company of the University of Coimbra. For that company, he has also directed and performed in Euripides’ Suppliant Women (2006) and Hippolytus (2010), as well as two dramatizations called Martial on Stage (2004) and Theocritus and Virgil (2005). He has also published reviews on Greek and Roman plays staged in Portugal over the past few years.
During the last seven years he has been one of the mentors of the International Festival of Classic Drama in Portugal, the only one of its kind in that country, where both Greek and Roman plays are staged in unconventional venues (such as museums, archaeological sites or smaller towns) so that this kind of theatre may reach a larger public, including schools.
Klein, Sophie
Boston University
Theater is my academic and creative passion. I am a doctoral candidate in Classical Studies at Boston University and a playwright. I teach ancient drama and explore its modern meaning and relevance through my own dramatic work.
I am currently writing my dissertation, which investigates dramatic and social performance in Horace’s Sermones. My main research interests include Greek tragedy, Greek satyr drama, Roman comedy, Roman verse satire, and Augustan poetry. I also work on topics in the classical tradition. I am especially interested in examining the ways in which ancient characters and themes reappear in modern dramatic genres. This past April, for example, I delivered a paper, entitled “Animaniacs and Ancient Greek Satyr Drama,” at Rutgers University.
In addition to my academic research, I have written several plays inspired by classical literature. I am an associate member of the Dramatist Guild and my work has been performed at major venues across the United States, Canada, and the U.K. My most recent play, The Spitting Image, was produced by the Manhattan Repertory Theatre in New York City and was a finalist for the 2009 Arthur W. Stone New Play Award. The Happy Medium Theatre Company will produce its New England premiere in March 2011.
I have worked with a number of theater companies in the past, including Brown University’s Shakespeare on the Green, the Looking Glass Theater Company, and the New York Public Theater. For the past five years, I have also been a member of the literary wing of the Lark Play Development Center. I read and evaluate plays about both classical and modern topics. I contribute my insight as a classicist and a playwright to decoding ancient allusions and addressing issues of staging, from the role of the chorus to the representation of gods and monsters.
I am eager to get involved in more productions and help bring ancient stories to life. I would be especially excited to collaborate with directors, actors, and designers, and I would also gladly attend and review performances.
Kovacs, George
Assistant Professor of Ancient History and Classics, Trent University,Peterborough, Ontario
George Kovacs teaches Greek and Latin literature and theatre. He is particularly interested in the practical aspects of ancient dramaturgy and stagecraft. He has acted in, directed, and translated numerous ancient plays for a modern audience in Peterborough and Toronto in Ontario and in St. John’s Newfoundland. Productions as director include the Euripidean Rhesus (St. John’s 2001), Euripides’ Andromache (Peterborough 2009), and Aristophanes’ Wasps (Peterborough 2010). The last two were for the Classics Drama Group, a student theatre troupe at Trent with which he has been involved for over 12 years. He is currently preparing a performance of Menander’s Dyskolos (as “A Man Who Hates People”) for 2011, both as director and translator. Publications in preparation includehis doctoral dissertation on the staging and reception of Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis, as well as articles on “Performance” and “Reception” of Greek tragedy for Wiley-Blackwell’s Encyclopedia of Greek Tragedy. With C. W. Marshall, he is the co-editor of Classics and Comics (OUP 2011), which explores the engagement of antiquity in modern comic books.
Kretler, Katherine
Dartmouth College and University of Chicago
Katherine.Kretler@dartmouth.edu
I am currently teaching in the departments of Classics, Philosophy, Humanities and Writing at Dartmouth and finishing up a Ph.D. in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. My dissertation explores the virtues of Homeric poetry as solo performance rather than as a text to be read—not in terms of “orality,” but in terms of what makes them good scripts for an actor. In particular, the scripts are aimed at producing certain uncanny and otherwise disorienting effects. Part of fleshing this out involves a closer look at Plato and Aristotle, who after all had access to live performance. In addition, I am intrigued by the possibility that thinking about other kinds of performance (tragedy, ancient dance, modern stand-up) and visual art can assist us in appreciating the Homeric poems as scripts—and vice versa. From time to time I also perform Homer.
Lippman, Mike
Professor of Classics, University of Arizona
Mike Lippman focuses on Greek Drama, particularly Comedy, but also works on 5th century Greek history, Plato and Petronius. His Greek Drama courses range from fifteen to five hundred students at various levels, from introductory freshman courses to advanced graduate courses in the original Greek. He covers not only the original ancient productions but also modern reproduction and adaptation of ancient texts, as well as modern films that are influenced by or thematically to ancient counterparts (such as his article on Tony Soprano as an Aristotelian tragic hero, “Know Thyself, Asshole!”). He has worked on several student productions of Aristophanes and Euripides, as well the Committee on Ancient and Modern Performance’s production of the Cyclops. He has also worked with Aquila Theater on their Page and Stage project. He occasionally acts as a dramaturge for plays both ancient and modern (more the former than the latter) and will be doing so this spring for Luis Alfaro’s Oedipus El Rey at Borderlands Theater in Tucson. In conjunction with this project, Borderlands will also be producing several staged readings of his new translation of Oedipus Rex.
Maitland, Judith
University of Western Australia
Judith Maitland received her bachelor’s degree in 1962, and after raising her family resumed her studies, completing her MA at the University of Western Australia. Her first full time appointment was at the University of Adelaide, where she completed her PhD while carrying out the duties of Tutor. In 1989, she was appointed Senior Tutor at the University of Western Australia, where she stayed until her retirement in 2007. In 1990, Robin Bond, whose work in the presentation of Greek drama needs no introduction, spent his study leave in Western Australia, and as part of his leave activities translated and directed Plautus’ Amphitruo. Dr. Maitland was happy to act as producer and stage manager as well as taking a small part in the production.
The success of the venture encouraged Dr. Maitland to make a classical play an annual event, and for ten years she presented Greek and Roman comedies with the assistance of students and colleagues. Very soon a core group of regular contributors formed, most of whom appeared or assisted in nearly every play. In the beginning, several colleagues assisted in the translations, but as time went on student numbers increased and staff numbers fell, so the translations are largely the work of Dr. Maitland. This was no hardship, as by the time the translation is finished the staging has sprung to life. Shameless typecasting ensured that the actors appeared to their best advantage, and soon was established a regular and enthusiastic public. We learned as we proceeded, but by far the greatest discovery was the difference when the plays were set to music. Suddenly scenes took shape, choruses achieved full expression, and passages designed to be sung and danced became easy to remember. For a company with no budget, music was an unbelievable luxury; we had the good fortune to have a musician amongst us.
The group stuck to comedy; one year Dr. Maitland directed Medea for another group but formed the opinion that Greek tragedy contradicts the conventional wisdom, that comedy is more difficult than serious theatre. Indeed, such were the rigors of bringing this play to the stage that Dr Maitland is convinced that Medea is the Scottish play of the ancient world.
The plays:
1991 Women in Power (Eccleziazousai)
1992 The Rope (Rudens)
1993 Clouds (Nephelai)
1994 Casina
1995 euFemisms (Thesmophoriazousai)
1996 Medea, Lysistrata
1998 The Bloggs Brothers (Adelphoi)
Marshall, C. W. (Toph)
University of British Columbia
Since 1988, I have directed over a dozen ancient plays for the modern stage. Many of these I have also produced. My translations of Trojan Women and Hecuba have been staged by others; and I have directed my own translations of Children of Heracles and Sophocles’ Electra. My productions of Asinaria and Curculio allowed me to premiere new Plautine translations by Peter Smith. I have also directed modern plays: in 2009, I directed the Canadian premiere of Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love, and in 2010, I directed the world premiere of a new version of the Misanthrope by Tony Harrison.
Between 1987 and 1996, I taught and performed comic improvisation regularly, founding troupes that are still performing in Canada and the UK. Favorite acting roles include Bassanio in Merchant of Venice, and Mark Antony in Julius Caesar, both with Shakespeare by the Sea in St. John’s, and Miles Gloriosus in a Vancouver production of Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. I have also participated in many staged readings, and written essays for programs, etc.
I have published widely on all ancient playwrights in academic journals, with a particular emphasis on understanding ancient stage conventions (particularly the use of masks and role doubling). My book, The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy, appeared in 2006, and I have co-edited collections on comics and television. I have regularly consulted on theatre productions for school, university, community, and professional productions.
Matteo, Chris Ann
Stone Bridge High School
Chris Ann Matteo’s involvement with drama stems from her first being cast in her sixth-grade’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While she had auditioned for the roles of Hermia and Helena, she was cast as Lysander; since that time, she has been fascinated with gender identity and theatre. During high school, she centered her performing arts experience in choir, participating in Women’s Chorus, Concert Choir and Jazz Ensemble. She sang the role of Sandy in Grease (even though it was higher than her range). At UCSC, she studied under Mary-Kay Gamel, and began her interest in classical mythology and film. Her doctorate at Princeton centered on narrativity rather than drama, and Matteo continues to write about classical and world literature. She began collaborating with Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington D.C.) when she was teaching Latin at Edmund Burke School; following the Spring 2006 performance of Aeschylus’ The Persians, she hosted Erin Gann, who had played the defeated Xerxes, for a multidisciplinary lunchtime talk. She now works at Stone Bridge High School, and she has continued her work with theatre there. In Fall 2009, the school produced As You Like It. Matteo was dramaturge and along with her director, Glen Hochkeppel, the school hosted a master class with STC repertory actor and teacher Floyd King. Matteo also gave a mini-lecture to the cast on the symbolism of the goddess Diana and gender identity in the play. She has published literary criticism on the classical tradition in British literature, and provided the contribution for STC’s Audience Guide for William Congreve’s The Way of the World for the 2008–2009 performance season.
McDonald, Marianne
Professor of Theatre and Classics, University ofCalifornia, San Diego
A member of the Royal Irish Academy, with about 250publications, Marianne McDonald is a pioneer in the field of modern versions of the classics, besides an award winning playwright and translator of Classical drama. In addition to her articles and book chapters, her published books include Euripides in Cinema: The Heart Made Visible (Centrum Press, 1983), Ancient Sun, Modern Light: Greek Drama on the ModernStage(Columbia University Press, 1992); Sing Sorrow: Classics, History andHeroines in Opera(Greenwood, 2001); and The Living Art of Greek Tragedy (Indiana University Press, 2003); with J. Michael Walton, Amid Our Troubles:Irish Versions of Greek Tragedies(Methuen, 2002); and the Cambridge Companion to Greek and Roman Theatre (2007). Her performed translations (three a year since 1999 nationally and internationally with many published) include: Sophocles’ Antigone, dir. Athol Fugard in Ireland (1999); TrojanWomen(2000 and 2009); Euripides’ Children of Heracles (2003); Sophocles’ Oedipus Tyrannusand Oedipus at Colonus (2003–2004); Euripides’ Hecuba, 2005, Sophocles’ Ajax, 2006, Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis and Bacchae, 2006, 2007, 2009; Euripides’ Phoenician Women (2009); Medea (2007); Seneca’s Thyestes (2008) and, with J. Michael Walton, Aeschylus’ Oresteia and Aristophanes’ Frogs (2007); Helen (2008); Orestes (2010); versions and other works: The Trojan Women (2000); Medea, Queen of Colchester (2003), The AllyWay(2004); …and then he met a woodcutter (San Diego Critics’ Circle: Best New Play of 2005), Medea: The Beginning, performed with Athol Fugard’s Jason: The End(2006); The Last Class (2007); Fires in Heaven (2009), and ATaste for Blood(2010).
On the web:
http://homepage.mac.com/mariannemcdonald
http://www.thetheatreinc.com/
http://www.mmcdonald.info
http://www.mariannemcdonaldtheatre.com/
Moore, Timothy J.
Professor of Classics, University of Texas at Austin
Timothy Moore (http://uts.cc.utexas.edu/~timmoore/) holds a B.A. in Latin and History from Millersville University and a Ph.D. in Classics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has performed in many plays, including ancient Greek and Roman tragedies and comedies, and he has served as a consultant for theater companies performing plays with Classical themes. The performance of ancient drama, especially its musical aspect, is one of his primary research and teaching interests. He has written numerous works on ancient and other drama, including The Theater of Plautus: Playing to the Audience, Music in Roman Comedy, a translation of Terence’s Phormio, and works on the comparison between European and Japanese comic theater. He teaches courses and has lectured widely on ancient theatrical performance and on the similarities and differences between ancient and modern theater.
Nikoloutsos, Konstantinos P.
Assistant Professor of Classics, Saint Joseph’s University
konstantinos.nikoloutsos@sju.edu
Konstantinos Nikoloutsos (Ph.D. Birmingham, 2004) previously taught at Florida Atlantic
University, where he played a leading role in establishing the Classical Studies Program, and at Berea College. In addition to major articles on Tibullus, he has also published on the reception of Euripides in Argentine cinema. Currently, he is acting as the guest editor of a special issue of Romance Quarterly devoted to Latin American adaptations of Greek and Roman drama. This fall semester, he is producing Effie and the Barbarians, an adaptation of Euripides’ Iphigenia among the Taurians, written and directed by Mary-Kay Gamel (University of California, Santa Cruz).
Pearcy, Lee T.
Episcopal Academy, Newtown Square, Pennsylvania;
Research Associate, Bryn Mawr College
Pearcy is the author of numerous articles and books on classical reception, including a series of articles on classical drama in Philadelphia during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and books on English Renaissance translation (Mediated Muse: English Translations of Ovid 1560–1700, 1984) and classical education in America (The Grammar of Our Civility, 2005). His translations and original poetry have appeared in Aileron, Pawn Review, Window, the Penguin Classics Greek Anthology, on the Diotima web site, and elsewhere, and his adaptations of Aristophanes’ Clouds and Frogs and Plautus’ Curculio and Rudens have been produced by students at the Episcopal Academy. In 1986, he was part of a team of scholars advising a production of Oedipus the King at the Wilma Theater in Philadelphia. In 2009, he contributed to a Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminar, “Greek Drama in 19th Century America: Academic and Professional Stages,” at Northwestern University. Pearcy’s research also focuses on Greek and Roman medicine and Latin poetry.
Perris, Simon
Victoria University of Wellington
Simon Perris teaches Greek and Latin languages and literature in the Classics Programme at Victoria University of Wellington. His background is classical and musical rather than theatrical: his first degree was a BMus in Composition, followed by an MA (Victoria) in Classical Studies and a DPhil (Oxon) in Classical Languages and Literature.
As an occasional poet and sometime musician, he takes a keen interest in the musopoeic side of classical reception. He learned and taught classical piano for some years and has an equal appreciation for classical music, choral music, jazz, and classic rock. He is also a proficient guitarist, drummer, and church chorister.
These days, his research interests encompass Greek poetry and the reception thereof, particularly performance and translation of Greek drama. His 2008 doctoral dissertation, “Literary Translation and Adaptation of Euripides’ Bacchae in English in the Modern Era,” was effectively a cultural history of Bacchae in the latter half of the twentieth century. He has published or forthcoming articles on performance reception theory, translation of Greek drama, and Euripides.
He would happily advise on the performance of ancient literature, especially with respect to translation and/or staging.
Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin
Margaret Bundy Scott Professor, Department of Comparative Literature, Hamilton College
My background is in the study of Greek tragedy, but I have more recently turned my attention to the performance of tragedy, ancient and modern.
My Ph.D. is in Comparative Literature from the University of Chicago; from my dissertation on Aeschylus, I moved on to Euripides. My first book, Anxiety Veiled: Euripides and the Traffic in Women, applied certain terms from feminist criticism to the ancient plays. My first venture into performance was an essay on the male actor of female roles (“Embodying Tragedy: the Sex of the Actor,” Intertexts 2.1, 1998: 3–25). Since that time I have begun to work on the reception of ancient plays in the 20th and 21st centuries, focusing mostly on the political or ideological framework. I have worked on Charles Ludlam, Rita Dove, as well as stagings of the Trojan War plays as a means to critique current wars. As chair of the Committee on Ancient and Modern Performance, and as a participant in the Open University’s research network on reception, I am actively involved with the study of performances of tragedy.
I would be happy to consult with directors or to review performances in the upstate NY or greater metropolitan NY areas.
Ryan, Cressida
Oxford University
cressida.ryan@classics.ox.ac.uk
I first worked on opera and Greek tragedy during my MPhil in 2001–2002 (under Simon Goldhill), when I studied Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex and Lee Breuer / Bob Telson’s The Gospel at Colonus. I have also worked on Mark-Anthony Turnage’s Greek and Handel’s Serse.
The final chapter of my PhD (to be submitted April 2010) focuses on Antonio Sacchini’s opera Oedipe a Colone. I study both the libretto and the score, providing a musicological reading of the opera as well as a reading of its more obvious Sophoclean resonances. This interdisciplinary approach characterises all of my work. In order to sustain such work I have collaborated with the Music department at the University of Nottingham, which included giving a research paper in their Music on Screen and Stage seminar series. Other events at which I have spoken with a musical bent include:
· April 2009 “Seria-rising Sophocles: Oedipus at Colonus in Enlightenment opera” (Classics Department Research Workshop, University of Nottingham).
· February 2008 A session on music at the CRSN training day (Nottingham)
· May 2007 “Developments in Reception Studies–Music” (Current Debates in Classical Reception Studies, Open University)
· April 2003 “Herodotus, Handel and Hytner. Xerxes, Serse and the burning of the bridge” (Classical Association conference, Warwick)
I have been involved with the performance of Greek and Roman drama since being in the JACT Greek Summer School production ofMedeain 1997. Subsequently, I worked with three Cambridge Greek plays, taking a chorus part inTrojan Women(1998), and working backstage onElectraandOedipus Tyrannus. I have twice directed George Ruggle’sIgnoramus(2000, 2002) and continue to pursue an interest in Neo-Latin drama. I was also the founding president of the Cambridge University Classical Drama Society in 2001. In recent years at the JACT Greek summer school I was musical director of our own translation ofLysistrataand directed theOCin Greek. My research has focused on sixteenth, eighteenth and twentieth century performances of Greek and Roman drama, as I aim to combine performance and scholarship history and practice.
Sandis, Elizabeth
Oxford University
elizabeth.sandis@classics.ox.ac.uk
Elizabeth Sandis is an active researcher and practitioner in both the field of ancient drama and,
more recently, that of Early Modern drama. She has studied Greek tragedy, Roman tragedy, and
Roman comedy in equal measure and directed, produced, and translated (or otherwise adapted) a
dozen classical texts for the stage in the last few years. Her involvement in theatrical productions began as a Classics undergraduate at Oxford, thereafter as a member of staff (Classics Faculty Outreach Manager 2006-2009).
She is currently a postgraduate in the Oxford Classics Faculty and is President of the Oxford University Classical Drama Society. Many of her productions have been adaptations of Greek tragedies performed in English (for example, she translated and directed Euripides’ Hippolytus for the Théâtre des Sablons, Fontainebleau, Paris in 2005, and she wrote and directed Shakespeare’s Philoctetes, performed at The Burton Taylor Studio, Oxford in 2003, a play which combines the influences of Sophocles’ Philoctetes and Shakespeare’s Tempest). She has also supported the performance of ancient drama in the original language in her role as the producer of Euripides’ Orestes (the Oxford Greek Play 2005) and executive producer of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon (the Oxford Greek Play 2008). As part of her outreach work in schools and colleges across the UK she wrote and directed Aeneid: The Musical, first performed at The Moser Theatre, Wadham College, Oxford in 2007.
Drawing on her experience of Classical theatre and intellectual culture, Sandis’ research now focuses on neo-Latin drama, in particular the relationship between Latin and English on the popular stage and in academic circles in the late Elizabethan and Jacobean period. Her most recent productions have been of medieval and early modern plays: Chettle’s The Tragedy of Hoffman, or Revenge for a Father, performed in Magdalen College, Oxford for the 2010 Malone Society conference, and the Mary Plays and Passion Plays from the N-Town cycle performed in Worcester College, Oxford in 2009 and 2010.
Schaps, David
Bar-Ilan University
Of course every teacher is a performer. My own experience was at one time considerable, but is now some forty years in the past. It included:
Singing Kiss of Fire at the age of five to introduce a talent show. I was entirely oblivious to the incongruity; if you don't know the lyrics, look them up and imagine a cherubic-looking five-year-old singing them.
Acting in a number of high-school and college performances (the one that comes to mind was playing Cothurnus in Millay’s Aria da Capo, where I sat on a ladder doing my best to look like a vulture throughout the performance); I omit the summer-camp performances (where I was eventually blacklisted for refusing to perform—as Frank Butler in Annie Get Your Gun!—a gesture [slapping the front of my thighs with both hands] that the directrix insisted on as a sign of frustration and that I insisted was a feminine gesture that Butler would never use. I still think I was right about the gesture, but the next few years taught me to side more with directors against actors).
Producing and directing student-written musical plays in high school (in my senior year I wrote two, one of which I also produced and directed, for the same competition: the seniors came in first and the freshmen came in last, but that was probably to be expected).
Producing and directing (with Tom Laqueur, now professor of history at Berkeley) a Medieval Festival including the construction of an imitation of the theatre hypothesized in Richard Southern’s Medieval Theatre in the Round to produce Everyman on ad hoc eight-foot high platforms in the Crum Meadow (I directed, Tom was Everyman, and Martin Ostwald’s eight-year-old son was the Angel) and a production of The Play of Herod that was dragged around Swarthmore, PA in a cart).
I have occasionally encouraged my students to produce ancient drama in lieu of term papers. One comedy seminar considered a number of Plautine candidates but finally decided that the Acharnians spoke most directly to the situation of Israelis. The groundskeepers knew nothing about the play, but threatened to prevented its production until the students changed the scenery to be less political. There were only three actresses (no actors), so the chorus was a bit problematical; they solved it by having one actress hold three masks in front of her face when she spoke as the chorus.
Sharpley, George
Lingua (UK) Ltd
george.sharpley@lingua.co.uk
George Sharpley is a classicist with a background in teaching Latin, writing Latin courses, and making short films in Latin. He teaches classical and medieval Latin, runs poetry workshops, and recently collaborated on a project to recreate the spoken Latin of the ancient world. He has given readings at the Hay Festival and other events, and has advised the BBC on the sound of Latin from classical to late medieval. He performed the part of a Latin-speaking priest for Sir Richard Eyre’s film of Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part 2.
Between 1984 and 2006, he taught Latin at the University of Bristol.He is a directorof Lingua (UK) Ltd, a UK-based language service, and is responsible for the creation of learning resources for language students (films, audios, texts).He helped to set up the Latin Qvarter, which runs Latin courses and events at Gloucester Cathedral in England.
Slater, Niall
Emory University
I have a strong interest in performance as a means of understanding and interpreting classical dramatic texts. My published work has focused more on ancient comedy. My first book, Plautus in Performance: The Theatre of the Mind (Princeton 1985, 2nd ed. Harwood 2000), studied metatheatre as a key feature and structuring elements in Plautus’ transformation of the Greek comic tradition for Roman audiences. My Spectator Politics: Metatheatre and Performance in Aristophanes (Pennsylvania, 2002) offered a more politically embedded view of Aristophanes’ take on spectatorship and participation in several key plays of his career. I have also translated comedy in the forthcoming collected volume, The Birth of Comedy, though not specifically for performance.
My long-standing interest in Euripides has focused on his more problematic plays, especially his Alcestis, and I have a short book on that play forthcoming from Duckworth. My most recent project has been a study of Harley Granville Barker’s American tour in 1915 with outdoor productions of Euripides’ Trojan Women and Iphigenia among the Taurians—a fascinating study in classical reception on the eve of American entry into World War I.
My personal involvement in performance is less recent than I would like. I did substantial amateur acting and directing down through graduate school. I have consulted on staged readings of Greek and Roman comedy at Emory University.
Smith, Tyler Jo
Associate Professor of Classical Art and Archaeology, University of Virginia.
Tyler Jo SMith received her A.B. in Classics at Davidson College (1989), and her M.Phil. (1992) and D.Phil. (1997) in Classical Archaeology at Oxford University. The focus of her research is ancient performance iconography, and her book, titled Komast Dancers in Archaic Greek Art, has recently been published by Oxford. She has been asked to contribute Monuments Illustrating the Origins of Greek Drama to the well-known series published by the Institute of Classical Studies, London, where she is a Senior Fellow on the Ancient Theatre Project. She is also researching a book on the art of ancient religious ritual. Trained on piano, violin, in voice and musical theatre, her performance background has long informed and inspired her research and teaching.
Taplin, Oliver
Professor emeritus, Magdalen College, University of Oxford
oliver.taplin@classics.ox.ac.uk
Oliver Taplin is a specialist in the interpretation of Greek drama through performance in both ancient and modern times. His books include The Stagecraft of Aeschylus: The Dramatic Use of Exits and Entrances in Greek Tragedy (Clarendon Press, 1977), Greek Tragedy in Action (Methuen, 1978), Comic Angels and Other Approaches to Greek Drama through Vase-Paintings (Oxford University Press, 1993), and Pots and Plays:Interactions between Tragedy and Greek Vase-Painting of the Fourth Century B.C. (Getty Publications, 2007). Dr. Taplin has worked with productions in the theater, including The Oresteia at the National Theatre (1980–1981),The Thebans at the Royal Shakespeare Company (1991–1992), and The Oresteia at the National Theatre (1999–2000). In 1996 he set up The Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama with Edith Hall in response to the need for a coordinated research effort devoted to the international production and reception of ancient plays since the Renaissance.
Vivante, Bella
University of Arizona
Classics and Theatre: I have a strong background in both Classics and theatre. I studied acting professionally in New York and San Francisco and since 1975 have acted in diverse roles in community and professional theatre. Relevantly, these include roles as Chorus Member in Aeschylus’ Libation Bearers, Tereus in Aristophanes’ The Birds, and in ancient Greek: Helen in Euripides’ The Trojan Women, Kreusa in his Ion, and Agave in his Bacchae. I have a published translation, with introduction and notes, of Euripides’ Helen, in Women on the Edge: Four Plays by Euripides (Routledge 1999). In 2001, I directed University of Arizona (UA) students in performing scenes from this play for Humanities Program Homecoming. More recently, I directed a staged reading performance of my translation/adaptation of Aristophanes’ Thesmophoriazousai at the UA, April 2010. I shall direct another staged reading of this play under the auspices of CAMP (Committee on Ancient and Modern Performance) at the annual meeting of the American Philological Association in January 2011.
Besides my translations, my published scholarship in Classics has examined aspects of ancient drama within their fuller historical and cultural contexts, with especial focus on portrayals of female characters; dramatic roles of the chorus; ritual dimensions; and metatheatrical levels of meaning. My research has recently branched out to examining the portrayals of ancient Helen in modern cinema. In my courses I regularly bring in modern dramatic and film analogues to the ancient and I have students dramatize scenes from ancient plays. Classics and theatre make a perfect combination that has always been interwoven in my professional activities. I bring both first-hand dramatic experience and scholarly knowledge to theatrical projects, and I would gladly be in communication with anyone wishing to pursue these combined topics.
White, Andrew
American University and Stratford University
A longtime theatre artist in the Washington, D.C., area and graduate of the “Great Books” program at St. John’s College, Annapolis, Andrew White received his Ph.D. in Theatre History from the University of Maryland, College Park, with a concentration in the theatre and ritual of Byzantium. Working from a variety of cultural theories—orality/literacy, media, glocality, et cetera—White has focused on modes of transmission of the Classical tradition among the Greek-speakers of the Mediterranean from Antiquity through the Middle Ages. His interest in Byzantine theatre is rooted in an understanding of Classical theatre as (initially) the realm of the citizen-amateur, and he believes much of what happens in Byzantium has its roots in the professionalization of acting and the exile of amateurs from the stage in the Hellenistic era.
Besides publishing a study on the elements of tragic music and ancient music theory in Byzantine chant, White has argued for a re-interpretation of Greek manuscripts as recording technologies that assume the presence of a live interpreter. Another focus of White’s research is the ideological coupling of theatre with religion and politics in Antiquity, its eventual divorce from these elements with the rise of Christianity, and the creation of an aesthetic, secular sphere in Late Antiquity.
In addition to Choricius of Gaza’s 6th century oration Defense of the Mimes, White has translated numerous Byzantine Greek texts on theatrical topics. Because of his background as a performer, he has a special interest in the orality intrinsic to pre-Gutenberg manuscripts. He has also revived the tradition of the Theatron, a salon or “chamber theatre” in which Greek intellectuals would regale each other with fictive monologues, dialogues and letters, some of them appropriating Classical themes for contemporary purposes.
Last updated on February 22, 2012.
