Xtigone and Chi-Raq: Two Classical Takes on Gun Violence in Chicago
By Megan Wilson
2015’s Chi-Raq, directed by Spike Lee, transplants Aristophanes’ Lysistrata to Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood, where the title character’s sex strike becomes a protest against gang violence in the neighborhood. The same year, Xtigone, written by Chicago playwright Nambi E.
Oresteia in Chicago
By April Cleveland
In this presentation, I will discuss the preparation and rehearsal process for DePaul University’s 2019 US premiere of ORESTEIA, Robert Icke’s new adaptation of Aeschylus’s classic trilogy. I will discuss my relationship and history with Icke, my unorthodox method of acquiring production rights, as well as the pre-production and rehearsal processes.
The Education of a Cosmopolitan City: Immigrant Theater and the Ajax at Hull House.
By Caitlin Miller
Within the capacious landscape of modern performances of Greek drama, the Ajax was rarely produced before the twentieth—and indeed, the twenty-first—century. Its 1903 performance at Jane Addams’ Hull House in Chicago, featuring ‘the Greeks of Chicago’ as actors, was the first recorded in the United States.