From Text to Performance: Reimagining Ancient Drama
Drama was the ubiquitous speech-act spectacle of the Greco-Roman Mediterranean, and as such, offers an unrivaled interdisciplinary lens into a wide variety of textual, visual, and kinesthetic experiences of the ancient lived past. Understanding theater as performative language opens pathways to exploring how the utterance of words in a theatrical space generates the experience of drama. Recent decades have advanced our understanding of numerous aspects of ancient Greek and Roman drama: the physical space of the theater; the kinesthetics of performance; the socio-political circumstances of production; the dramatic technique of plays; the roles of music and dance; the bodies, objects, and agents of and within dramatic production. These approaches illuminate the multifaceted nature of ancient dramas as performances, civic events, spectacles, and occasions for reception. This conference will place in dialogue the varied dimensions of and approaches to Greco-Roman drama, seeking to bring out the richness and multiplicity of meanings within performance.
Drawing on the deep strengths of the department’s faculty in ancient drama and theatral performance, the Department of Classical Studies will host an international interdisciplinary conference featuring recent research on Greco-Roman drama. The conference will take place on the campus of William & Mary on April 25-26, 2025.
For more information, contact Jess Paga (jpaga@wm.edu) or Mitch Brown (mdbrown02@wm.edu).
Sponsored by: The Classical Studies Department, the Reves Center for International Studies, the Arts & Sciences Dean's Office, the Office of Research, and the NEH Professorship Fund.
Preliminary Program:
Friday, Apr. 25, 2025 (Music-Arts Building)
8:45am: Welcome Address: Prof. Suzanne Raitt (Dean of Arts & Sciences)
9-11am: Panel 1: Sophocles On and Off Stage (Room 154, Choir Rehearsal Room)
Moderator: Mitch Brown
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A. Sigelman (Bryn Mawr): Verbal Narratives of Off-Stage Events
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J. Moore (UVA): A House of Her Own: Cavern as οἴκησις in Sophocles’ Antigone
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V. Dimoglidis (University of Cincinnati): Imitating Philoctetes: the mimetic mode of the chorus in the Parodos and the first Stasimon of Sophocles’ Philoctetes
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L. Bos (University of Amsterdam): Sophocles’ Philoctetes from the spectators’ viewpoint
11:15am-12:45pm: Panel 2: Performing Aristophanes (Room 154, Choir Rehearsal Room)
Moderator: John Lombardini
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D. Williams (UVA): Science, Nature, and Divinity in the Parodos of Aristophanes’ Clouds
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S. Nooter (University of Chicago): Thesmophoriazusae: Voice and Body
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J. Radding (University of Chicago): A Megarian walks into the Agora: Performing Dialect in (and for) Aristophanes
2-4pm: Student Performances of abridged Greek Tragedies (Comey Recital Hall)
- Performance 1: Sophokles, Philoktetes
- Performance 2: Euripides, Hippolytos
4:30pm: Keynote Address (Comey Recital Hall)
N. Weiss (Harvard): The Poetics of Proliferation in Euripidean Tragedy
Light reception to follow
Day 2: Saturday, Apr. 26, 2025 (McGlothlin-Street 20)
9-11am: Panel 3: Material and Materiality in the Greco-Roman Theater
Moderator: Najee Olya
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T.J. Smith (UVA): Illustrations of Greek Drama: Fifty Years of Pots and Plays
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S. Gonzalez (Harvard): The Isolated Mask: Pentheus as “Art Object” in Euripides Bacchae
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J. Paga (W&M): Epiphany on the Skene Roof
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D. Wilson (Kings College London) : How the Orchestra got its Shape
11:15am-12:45pm: Panel 4: Drama in the Italic Peninsula
Moderator: Molly Swetnam-Burland
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B. Peruzzi (Rutgers): Greek Theater, Language, and Cultural Entanglements in Apulia: the Cultural Context(s) of Pots with Theatrical Representations
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A. Roy (Idaho): A Different Type of Meta: Comedy, Audience, and the Roman Triumph
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M. Brown (W&M): Pseudolus and the Sibyl
1:30-3:30pm: Panel 5: Stage and Direction
Moderator: Jess Paga
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E. Aprilakis (Texas A&M): The Dramatic Koryphaios: Choral Spokesperson or Prima Ballerina?
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A. Cohen (Randolph College): The Importance of Staging a Chorus "the Way the Greeks Did"
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D. Molinari (Princeton): Implicit Stage Directions in Greek Tragedy: A New Approach
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V. Liapis (Open University of Cyprus): Performing the Parodos of Seven against Thebes
3:45-5:15pm: Panel 6: Actor and Audience in Greek Tragedy
Moderator: Bill Hutton
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S. Olsen (Williams): The Intimacy of Actor Assignment in Euripidean Tragedy
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E. Weiberg (Duke): Affective Violence and Women as Spectators of Greek Drama
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J. Gibert (CU Boulder): Off-stage singing and human sacrifice in ‘The New Euripides’
Image credits for posters: “Mosaic depicting theatrical masks of Tragedy and Comedy, 2nd century AD, from Rome Thermae Decianae (?), Palazzo Nuovo, Capitoline Museums” by Following Hadrian, CC BY-SA 2.0. Modified from the original by N. Jansorn.