Our Doctoral Research Student Elena Chepel has just returned from an interdisciplinary summer school in Greece. Here is her report:

The summer course ‘Challenging Limits: Performances of Ancient Drama, Controversies and Debates‘ brought together for 10 days a brilliant team of 30 students and 14 professors of Classics and Drama Studies throughout Europe to share knowledge and experience of Greek tragedy and comedy in modern theatre.  The programme included lectures, workshops, visits to archaeological sites and performances of ancient plays such as Iphigeneia in Aulis by Euripides, Antigone by Sophocles and Plutos by Aristophanes. 

Discussing such problems as ancient and modern theatrical space, adoptation. audience’s emotional response, and staging chorus with people who are professionally engaged in theatre production proved to be invaluable experience that changed crucially my ideas about potential of ancient Greek theatre in modern time.

The intensive course on the Study and Practice of Ancient Greek Drama is organised annually by the European Network of Research and Documentation of Performances of Ancient Drama (http://ancient-drama.net/) and the Department of Theatre studies of the University of Athens. This year it focused on performances that raised political, social or aesthetic controversies.