Hero Now Theatre's Production of "Oresteia" (adapted by Rob Hardy from the original by Aeschylus)

Aeschylus’s Oresteia, originally performed in 458 BCE, is the only surviving dramatic trilogy from classical Athens. The trilogy takes audiences to ancient Argos, on the eve of Agamemnon’s bloody homecoming from the Trojan War, and ends in Athens, where the mythical cycle of violence is resolved with the establishment of a homicide court on the rock of the Areopagus.

In 2012, I adapted Aeschylus’s trilogy as a single 90-minute play that keeps the mythical framework of the original but updates it for modern audiences. The adaptation was first presented by the Carleton Players, directed by Ruth Weiner, in May 2012. It was the final production of the inaugural season of Carleton’s Weitz Center for Creativity Theater. You can read a review of that production here. 

Next month—September 9-11 and 15-18, 2016—the adaptation will be given a new production by Hero Now Theatre in Minneapolis, directed by Kristin Halsey. Hero Now presents plays in “found spaces,” and for the Oresteia has found an evocative sculpture garden in Northeast Minneapolis to stand in for ancient Argos and Athens.

Tickets are available for $25 through Brown Paper Tickets. All performances are at 7:30 pm.

For more information, check out the Hero Now Theatre website.

Zoran Mojsilov's sculpture garden in Northeast Minneapolis: the "found" set for Hero Now Theatre's Oresteia.