Muses Educational Series: Polyhymnia- Muse of Pantomime

Welcome to the Muses Educational Series: Polyhymnia- Muse of Pantomime event! Join us at The Parthenon to watch fragments of three tragedies, Sophocles' ANTIGONE and ŒDIPUS and Euripides' MEDEA, performed by actors masked as the original ancient Greek actors were.

The golden age of Athens, the fifth century BC, was the era of the first theater in western civilization. The playwrights of Ancient Greece invented drama, stories written in dialogue to be enacted. These masterpieces were the original detective stories, courtroom dramas, war stories and revenge fantasies.

Following the performances will be a workshop in masked performance. The Greeks comedy and tragedy masks are iconic, but the Greeks were not alone in their dependence on masks for performance. Mask wearing is so basic to human nature that most cultures have independently developed masked performance traditions in their core. In this workshop John Holleman will lead a workshop to explore the ubiquity of masks and the nature of their transformative power.

About the director/workshop leader:

John Holleman is a playwright, director and educator. His plays have been produced in New York, Chicago, Nashville, Knoxville, North Carolina, Illinois and on Prince Edward Island, Canada. He has directed opera and plays in New York City, Boston, at both the New York International Fringe Festival, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. His newest script was recently produced at Theatre Oxford in Mississippi.

RSVP in advance for free museum admission to this performance and workshop.

Host or Publisher Nashville Parthenon