Series highlights include Sarah Nooter, renowned author and faculty member of the Department of Classics and the College, with insights about the dramatic elements that make Euripides’ tragedy ripe for adaptation. Director Monty Cole will lead a reading of Nicholas Rudall’s translation of The Bacchae, featuring cast members Adia Alli, Cheryl Lynn Bruce, Atra Asdou, McKenzie Chinn, Stephanie Diaz, Kirsten Fitzgerald, Jennifer Latimore, Karissa Murrell Myers, and MJ D. Rawls.
Court’s Theatre & Thought series connects audiences to expert insights from University of Chicago faculty about the historical context, thematic relevance, and artistic possibilities surrounding classic works. Each Theatre & Thought topic will feature a different play and include virtual meetings with University scholars to discuss the ideas underpinning these classic texts.
Court’s remote, digital experiences are produced in partnership with the University of Chicago Graham School’s Arts@Graham series.
Dates: Online October 7, 14, 21, 28 at 7pm
Session Topics:
Euripides’ Bacchae: Sight and Blindness; Self and Other
October 7, 2020 | Featuring Dr. Sarah Nooter and Dr. Christopher Faraone
In this session, Dr. Nooter and Dr. Faraone will discuss the religious background of The Bacchae, including issues of divine recognition, belief, madness, mystery rites, and the role of gods and worship in ancient Greece. Participants will learn how these issues come into contact with tragic questions of knowing oneself and encountering the “other” within. Along the way, we will cover the question of how the self and the society relate to one another and what it means to relinquish free will. Our discussion will make use of Sophocles’ Oedipus the King as a point of comparison.
The Bacchae and Adaptation: Identity, History, and Change
October 14, 2020 | Featuring Dr. Sarah Nooter and Dr. Clifford Ando
In this session, Dr. Nooter and Dr. Ando will look at the Bacchae and its afterlife in the Gospel of John and Wole Soyinka’s adaptation from 1973 called The Bacchae of Euripides: A Communion Rite. Here we will look at the structure of the play as one of recognition in different versions, emphasizing themes of knowledge and allegory, and showing how the language and imagery of these works reveal and invert reality. We will also see how the play reverberates through Christian culture and evokes questions of social upheaval and division, examining issues of identity, history, and change. Participants will be asked to read excerpts from The Gospel of John and Soyinka’s Bacchae.
Digital Reading: Euripides’ The Bacchae
October 21, 2020 | Translated by Nicholas Rudall
Directed by Monty Cole | Assistant Directed by Monet Felton
Featuring Adia Alli, Cheryl Lynn Bruce, Atra Asdou, McKenzie Chinn, Stephanie Diaz, Kirsten Fitzgerald, Jennifer Latimore, Karissa Murrell Myers, and MJ D. Rawls!
The inventive Chicago-based director Monty Cole will lead a reading of The Bacchae translated by Court’s Founding Artistic Director, Nicholas Rudall, a premier translator of Greek texts. Together, with assistant director Monet Felton and a cast of female-identifying actors, Cole brings Euripides’ words to life in this digital reading, its themes reverberating with uncanny resonance in 2020.
The Bacchae in Performance: Gender, Identity, and Self-Knowledge
October 28, 2020 | Featuring Dr. Sarah Nooter and Monty Cole
In this session, Dr. Nooter and Director Monty Cole will discuss the previous session’s staged reading of The Bacchae and how its directorial choices reflect fundamental questions of gender, identity, and self-knowledge. We will aim to revisit some of the themes and questions covered in previous sessions in light of the insights gained through performance.
About the Scholars
Sarah Nooter is a professor of classics and theater and performance studies at the University of Chicago. She is the author When Heroes Sing: Sophocles and the Shifting Soundscape of Tragedy and The Mortal Voice in the Tragedies of Aeschylus. She also coedited Sound and the Ancient Senses, with Shane Butler, and is the editor in chief of Classical Philology. She is working on a book, The Invention of Presence in Greek Poetry (working title), which explores modes of embodiment and temporality in ancient Greek poetry and song. At the University of Chicago, she serves on the faculty advisory board to Court Theatre and chairs the Poetry and the Human sequence in the Humanities Core.
Clifford Ando is the David B. and Clara E. Stern Professor; Professor of Classics, History and Law and in the College at the University of Chicago. His research focuses on the history of religion, law and government in the ancient world. His first work centered on the history of political culture in the provinces of the Roman empire, and he continues to write and advise on topics related to provincial administration, the relationship between imperial power and local cultural change, and the form and structure of ancient empires. He has also written extensively on ancient religion. Significant themes were the connection of religion to empire and imperial government, especially in relation to pluralism and tolerance; problems of representation in the use of objects in ritual; and the connection between political belonging and religious affiliation. In recent years he has written extensively on Roman law. Several essays have touched on the forms of legal argument; he has also been concerned to elucidate the relationship of law in the provinces to legal thought at Rome. His current projects include a study of public law in the Roman republic; a volume on the emergence of theories of religion in the high Roman empire; and a network of inquiries into the political economy of republican and imperial states.
Christopher A. Faraone is the Edward Olson Professor of Classics in the Department of Classics at the University of Chicago. His research interests focus on Ancient Greek poetry, religion and magic. He coedited (with D. Obbink) Magika Hiera: Ancient Greek Magic and Religion (1991); (with T. Carpenter) Masks of Dionysus (1993); (with D. Dodd) Initiation in Ancient Greek Rituals and Narratives: New Critical Perspectives (2003); and (with Laura McClure), Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World (2006). He is also the author of Talismans and Trojan Horses: Guardian Statues in Ancient Greek Myth and Ritual (1992); Ancient Greek Love Magic (1999); and The Stanzaic Structure of Early Greek Elegy (2008). Other works include Vanishing Acts: Deletio Morbi as Speech Act and Visual Design on Ancient Greek Amulets, Bulletin of the Institute of Classical Studies Supplement 115 (London 2013) and (with Dirk Obbink), The Getty Hexameters: Poetry, Magic and Mystery in Ancient Greek Selinous (2013). His Transformation of Greek Amulets in Roman Imperial Times recently appeared in April 2018 with the University of Pennsylvania Press and he is actively working on two book projects: The Play of Ritual Genres in Homeric Epic and The Transformation of Divine Images in the Greek Magical Recipes of Later Antiquity. With Sofia Torallas-Tovar he is also co-editing a new Greek text and translation of the Greek magical handbooks that is forthcoming in two volumes in the “Writings of the Greco-Roman World” as the The Greco-Egyptian Magical Formularies, and with Richard Gordon, a special issue of Religions of the Roman Empire entitled “Curse-Tablets in Italy and the Western Roman Provinces.”
About the Artists
Adia Alli is a Nigerian-born, Michigan-raised artist and educator. Some Chicago credits include School Girls; Or, the African Mean Girls Play (Goodman Theatre); The Niceties(Writers Theatre, u/s); United Flight 232 (The House Theatre of Chicago); Cardboard Piano (TimeLine Theatre); The Escape (Art Institute of Chicago); No Child... (Definition Theatre Company); Curves and Edges (Interrobang Theatre Project); and The Doppelganger (Steppenwolf Theatre, u/s). Adia plays Danielle in the web-series Seeds! She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Theatre, a specialization in African American and African Studies, and a minor in Economics from Michigan State University. Represented by Gray Talent Group.
Atra Asdou is an actor, writer and improviser from Chicago. In the before times, she performed regularly at The Second City's e.t.c. and The Paper Machete. In the way before times, she has performed at The Goodman, Steppenwolf, and Lookingglass (where she is also an Artistic Associate). TV Credits: South Side, Chicago P.D., Chicago Med, NeXt. Film Credits: Renee, Dad Man Walking, Uptown. Special thanks to Court Theatre and Gray Talent Group for this outstanding opportunity.
Cheryl Lynn Bruce has performed regionally and in Europe and Mexico. She originated the role of Elizabeth Sandry for Steppenwolf’s Tony Award-winning The Grapes of Wrath (Broadway, National Theatre (UK), La Jolla.) Film: Stranger Than Fiction; Daughters of the Dust; The Fugitive. TV: Prison Break; There Are No Children Here; Separate but Equal; To Sir with Love, 2. Bruce directed Pipeline (Victory Gardens) and The Agitators (Remy Bumppo). A proud Teatro Vista company member, Bruce directed Sandra Delgado’s La Havana Madrid premiere at Steppenwolf, and subsequent productions (Goodman, the Miracle Center, Navy Pier’s Lake Stage, The Den).
McKenzie Chinn is an actor, filmmaker, poet, and educator whose feature film Olympia(writer, actor, producer) premiered at the LA Film Festival and won the audience award at the Bentonville Film Festival. On stage, she has worked with Goodman, Steppenwolf, and Victory Gardens Theatres, The Second City, Woolly Mammoth, and others. She has also appeared in film and on television, including projects with Emmy-nominated director Sam Bailey, Fox's Empire, CBS' The Red Line, and NBC's Chicago Med. She is a current SEE IT, BE IT Fellow with the Bentonville Film Festival and one-third of the acclaimed Growing Concerns Poetry Collective.
Stephanie Diaz appeared most recently as Connie Gonzales in Roe at Goodman Theatre. Select Chicago acting and puppetry credits: The Gift, Lookingglass, Remy Bumppo, Victory Gardens, Lifeline, Chicago Dramatists, Teatro Vista, Chicago Physical Festival, Chicago International Puppet Festival. Regional: Creede Rep, Milwaukee Rep, First Stage, Mixed Blood, Seattle Rep, Kansas City Rep, Shakespeare Santa Cruz. TV: Easy, Chicago Med, and Chicago Fire. She has received grants/residencies from NALAC, Ragdale, Hedgebrook, The Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and was a 2019 3Arts Awardee. She’s a member of The Chicago Inclusion Project and proud Guatemalan-American. Black Lives Matter!
Kirsten Fitzgerald is a proud member of the Artistic Ensemble at A Red Orchid Theatre where she has also served as Artistic Director since 2008. Recent acting credits include the world premieres of Grey House by Levi Holloway, Pilgrims Progress and Traitor by Brett Neveu at A Red Orchid; Roe and Sweat at Goodman Theatre; Lettie and Appropriate at Victory Gardens Theatre; Mary Page Marlowe and The Qualms at Steppenwolf Theatre. Her television credits include The Exorcist, Sirens, Chicago Med, Chicago Justice, Chicago Fire, Underemployed, and ER. Film credits include Widows, Killing Eleanor, and Working Man.
Jennifer Latimore has worked at numerous theaters across Chicago, including Court Theatre, Goodman, Steppenwolf, Chicago Shakespeare Theatre, TimeLine (where she garnered the 2019 Black Theatre Alliance Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for her portrayal of 'Sally Mae' in Too Heavy For Your Pocket), Writers Theatre, and Northlight. In addition to a robust theatrical career, Jennifer enjoys recurring roles on hit TV shows Empire, Chicago PD, and Proven Innocent, as well as featured roles in the movies An Acceptable Loss and Killing Eleanor. Jennifer is a proud member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA. She is represented by Stewart Talent.
Karissa Murrell Myers is a Chicago-based multidisciplinary theatre artist originally from Boise, Idaho. Her acting credits include working at Renaissance Theaterworks, Goodman Theatre, Remy Bumppo, and The House Theatre of Chicago. Television work: Chicago Med, Chicago PD, Electric Dreams, and The Exorcist. Karissa holds an MFA in Performance from the University of Hawaii at Manoa, a BA in Theatre Arts from Boise State University, and is a graduate of The School at Steppenwolf. Member of SAG-AFTRA. Represented by Gray Talent Group. Visit www.kmurrellmyers.com.
MJ D. Rawls is excited to be in her first production with Court Theatre. Chicago credits include Black Ensemble Theatre (The Healing); Chicago Shakespeare Theater (Madagascar; A Midsummer Night's Dream), Mercury Theater (Pippin), MadKap Productions (Man of La Mancha), Kokandy Productions (The Wiz). Regional credits include Creede Repertory Theatre (Peter and the Starcatcher; Little Shop of Horrors), Coachella Valley Repertory (Chess The Musical). She is a proud member of the Actors Equity Association. She is represented by Big Mouth Talent. Visit Mjrawls.net.
Registration Information:
Individual enrollment is $85. Three, four and five event subscriptions to Court’s 2020/21 season range from $96 to $300 and are on sale now. To register or receive more information, call the Box Office at (773) 753-4472, or visit Court’s website at CourtTheatre.org.
Court Theatre is the professional theatre of the University of Chicago, dedicated to innovation, inquiry, intellectual engagement, and community service. Court endeavors to make a lasting contribution to classic American theatre by expanding the canon of translations, adaptations, and classic texts. The theatre revives lost masterpieces; illuminates familiar texts; explores the African American theatrical canon; and discovers fresh, modern classics. Court engages and inspires its audience by providing artistically distinguished productions, audience enrichment activities, and student educational experiences. In all of this work, we are committed to recognizing, addressing, and eradicating racism, as we strive to better serve our South Side community.
Since the University of Chicago’s founding in 1890, the Graham School of Continuing Liberal and Professional Studies has served to support lifelong learning. The Graham School is dedicated to promoting liberal arts education, and to connecting the rich intellectual resources of the university to a wider audience, on the south side, in Chicago, and beyond. The Graham School offers a range of courses for curious learners that encourage students to read deeply, listen closely, think critically, and engage generously.