OEDIPUS AT COLONUS
By Sophocles
Translated by Peter W. Meineck
(Hackett Publishing)
With Bill Pullman joining the Aquila Theatre Company to read the role of Oedipus.
At the initiation of Society Ambassador, Bill Pullman, who is donating his time to the project,
the Aquila Theatre Company will launch their 2005 New York Season by presenting a public reading of Artistic Director Peter Meineck's translation of Sophocles' Tragedy OEDIPUS AT COLONUS.
The one-hour and forty-minute reading will take place on December 2, 2004 at 8:00 PM at the Baruch Performing Arts Center, located on 25th Street between Lexington and 3rd Avenues. Tickets are $30.00 each and all proceeds will go to benefit the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. There will be a reception and discussion with Mr. Pullman and the Aquila cast following the reading.
With the holiday season in full swing in “The Big Apple,” an evening with Bill Pullman may be the perfect opportunity to partake in the City’s holiday festivities, enjoy a night at the theatre and help in the fight to eradicate MS, all with the same effort. Call 212-998-8017 for tickets or more information or visit
www.aquilatheatre.com.
OEDIPUS AT COLONUS relates the last days of the famous Theban leader Oedipus. He has been forced out of his own home by his sons after the revelation that he had cursed Thebes by murdering his father and marrying his mother. Now he wanders as an outcast, begging for scraps of food and seeking shelter, accompanied by his loyal daughter, Antigone. Arriving in Colonus on the outskirts of Athens, Oedipus invades a sacred shrine and refuses to move, declaring it his place of destiny. The arrival of this famous pariah has enormous consequences for Athens, Thebes and the family of Oedipus.
Bill Pullman, who recently starred on Broadway in The Goat or Who Is Sylvia?, has a long history of working in theater in New York receiving early critical acclaim performing as Wesley in The Curse of the Starving Class with Kathy Bates. He also appeared with the Folger Theater Group and Geva Theater. With the Los Angeles Theater Center he performed in Barabbas, All My Sons, and Demon Wine. At the Met Theater in Los Angeles he appeared in Beth Henley’s Control Freaks with Holly Hunter. He made his big screen debut in the 1986 comedy Ruthless People, and since then has appeared in over 50 feature films including The Accidental Tourist, A League of Their Own, Sleepless in Seattle, While You Were Sleeping, Independence Day, Lost Highway, The Zero Effect, The End of Violence, Igby Goes Down, and currently The Grudge. He next appears in Dear Wendy written by Lars von Trier and directed by Thomas Vintenberg. An experienced stage director, Pullman made his film directing debut and played the title role in a critically acclaimed new version of the classic western The Virginian. Bill Pullman has a close friend who has multiple sclerosis.
Peter Meineck is the Producing Artistic Director of the Aquila Theatre Company, and a professor of Classics at New York University. He founded Aquila in 1991 to stage bold and innovative productions of classical drama. Since then he has produced 33 shows, directed six, wrote, translated or adapted nine, and designed lighting for 22. Mr. Meineck’s academic appointments have included positions at Harvard, Princeton, UCSD and currently New York University. His translations of Greek Plays published by Hackett include Aristophanes Vol. 1 - Clouds, Wasps and Birds, Sophocles' Oedipus Tyrannus and Theban Plays (with Paul Woodruff), and his Oresteia was awarded the 2000 Louis Galantiere Award by the American Translators Association.
The Aquila Theatre Company presents high quality and inventive productions of classical drama, freeing the spirit of the original text and allowing the widest possible audience to enjoy these great plays as live, visceral, and above all, entertaining theatre. Aquila's 2005 New York City season at the Baruch Performing Arts Center consists of: UTOPIA PARKWAY, a new musical based on Aristophanes’ comedies (Feb 25 - March 20, 2005), Rostand’s CYRANO DE BERGERAC (June 3 – August 7, 2005) and THE INVISIBLE MAN, A unique collaboration with choreographer Doug Varone (October 21 – November 13, 2005). Aquila is the Company in Residence at New York University’s Center for Ancient Studies and tours extensively throughout North America (currently with Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT and a new stage adaptation of H. G. Wells' THE INVISIBLE MAN), developing new and non-traditional audiences for classical drama. For further information or to subscribe, please visit:
www.aquilatheatre.com.
