Greek Plays have been a feature of school and university performance in the United Kingdom since the late 1500s and have repeatedly been a site, within which, the categories of performance and the study of Classics are publicly contested. Notions of professional and amateur performance, participatory and community theatre are blurred, while the values ascribed to 'Classics' or the 'Classical' are challenged or affirmed--often from within the very institutions which teach and create knowledge about them.
During the pandemic, the University Greek play has moved online, and in these virtual interations has continued to interrogate 'Classics' while responding to shifts and crises in politics, ecology, live art, and University education. In this panel event Professor Fiona Macintosh, Dr. David Bullen, Dr. Giovanna Di Martino, Alison Middleton, and Marcus Bell will reflect on their experiences of directing, producing, and archiving both virtual and in-person performances that have re-thought the University Greek play, as a site of contested public performance, in the contemporary moment.
Speakers:
Professor Fiona Macintosh
Dr Giovanna Di Martino
Dr David Bullen
Chaired by Marcus Bell
Links mentioned during the event:
UCL Classical Play
Book - Greek Tragedy and the Comtemporary Actor
Greek Play - From the Machine
2021 Odyssey Festival
YouTube - Orestes [Faculty of Classics, University of Oxford]
Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (APGRD)
