Reading Greek Tragedy Online returns this Spring with a new season of performances taking place on screen and in person. The season opens on Monday 27th March with a reading of Sophocles’ Electra live streamed from the University of Illinois at Chicago, followed by a reading of Oedipus Tyrannos hosted by the CHS in Washington DC on Tuesday 4th April. Our third and fourth episodes see us exploring Roman theatre with two starkly different plays – Plautus’s Amphitruo and Seneca’s Medea – and the season concludes with a puppet version of The Battle Between the Frogs and the Mice. Alongside these episodes, host Joel Christensen and artistic director Paul O’Mahony are running workshops and further readings with the RGTO ensemble at universities in the US. This work is supported by the CHS and marks the next step for this project – taking everything we’ve discovered online into the classroom and beyond.
RGTO is a collaboration between The Center for Hellenic Studies, Out of Chaos Theatre Company and the Kosmos Society. The series began in March 2020 in response to the first lockdowns of the pandemic, and has brought together over 120 actors and 50 academics from around the world to discuss and perform ancient theatre – including every extant Greek tragedy. Each episode remains available online on the CHS Youtube channel, offering a high quality, open access resource for all.
This season’s full lineup is:
| Date | Play | Author |
| March 27, 6pm Eastern | Electra, live from UIC | Sophocles |
| April 4th, 3pm Eastern | Oedipus Tyrannos, live from CHS | Sophocles |
| April 19th, 3pm Eastern | Amphitruo | Plautus, translated by Toph Marshall |
| May TBC | Medea | Seneca |
| May 17th, 3pm Eastern | The Battle between the Frogs and the Mice | translated by AE Stallings |
