Upcoming: Ancient Greeks - Modern Lives, staged reading by Aquila Theatre at the University of Texas, November 10

Received directly

Less than a week before a performance at the White House

presents

Ancient Greeks - Modern Lives

a staged reading in cooperation with the UT Classics Department

Thursday, November 10, 7 p.m.

Avaya Auditorium. ACE building, University of Texas, 24th Street and Speedway (click for map)

The University of Texas Classics Department will host a staged reading of scenes from Ancient Greek texts at the Avaya Auditorium, ACE 2.302, 7 p.m., on Thursday, November 10, 2011. Professors Thomas Palaima and Peter Meineck (Artistic Director of Aquila Theatre Company in NYC) will host the talk-back after the staged-reading. Ancient Greeks - Modern Lives receives funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The event will feature professional actors and will last approximately ninety minutes and will include an introduction, performed readings, a post-show discussion and a town hall style meeting, including audience comments. The New York Times describes Aquila as “a classically trained, modernly hip troupe.”

BroadwayWorld.com profiles this program in its announcement that performers and U.S. veterans will participate in reading at the White House on November 16 (click to read the article)

Aquila Theatre has been awarded a highly prestigious NEH Chairman’s Special Award of $800,000.00 for a major national humanities program traveling to 100 public libraries and art centers across America.

Austin Theatre: Classics vs. New Plays, comments by Robert Faires, Austin Chronicle, July 2

Robert Faires looks at the last 25 years of theatre in Austin, with special attention to the prominence of new plays. He notes a comeback of classical programming, broadly defined (which includes his own solo Henry V, opening tonight).

[illustration by Leah Sharpe, Austin Chronicle]

Classics Comeback

Are the great dramas of yore reclaiming their place on Austin's stages?
BY ROBERT FAIRES

Euripides, is that you?

You've been away so long, I almost didn't recognize you. And who's that behind you? Mikhail Bulgakov? Never thought to see him around these parts again. And J.B. Priestley, how long has it been? And is that Eugene O'Neill, too? And Sartre? And Molière? And Sheridan, Coward, and Chekhov?

Seems like every time you turn around this summer, you bump into another Grand Old Geezer of Western Drama somewhere on the Austin theatre scene. As the mercury is rising to record heights, so too is the number of local productions of plays that, for lack of a better term, could be called classics – roughly double the number that were mounted from May through August of 2008. In fact, for the first time in at least a generation, the number of classics onstage looks to be outpacing the number of new plays being produced locally.

That's a fairly stunning turnaround for this community, rather like having oatmeal suddenly displace migas as Austin's breakfast fare of choice. To the extent that Austin is known for theatre, it's known for new plays.

Read more at AustinChronicle.com . . . .