Video Portfolio of Comedy Productions

Directed by John H. Starks, Jr. – Binghamton University SUNY

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Plautus Poenulus "The Puny Punic" (1994) - graduate student production in original Latin, designed as outreach project to North Carolina secondary Latin programs with support from a grant through the North Carolina Humanities Council, in print as Latin Laughs (Bolchazy-Carducci, 1997) with Latin text. The Punic man, Hanno, enters looking for his lost daughters; the young man in love Agorastocles and his slave Miliphio enter discussing that the girls in the brothel next-door are freeborn Carthaginians, like Agorastocles himself was. These two notice Hanno's foreign dress across stage, Milphio makes a few ethnic jokes, then begins to pretend translating Punic between Hanno and Agorastocles, always mischaracterizing and mistaking Hanno's true requests, until Hanno shows that he understood every mistranslated word by yelling at the slave in Latin. The script's Punic text was converted to accented English so the audience would understand one side of the comic mistranslation. Published translation and director's notes for these scenes (Act 5, scenes 1&2) are linked here

Gilbert and Sullivan's Thespis, or the Gods Grown Old - music composed by Alan Riley Jones- 2006) - at the annual meeting of the American Philological Association, readings of classical-themed works have been staged for about five years. This fully-costumed operetta was cast by open call to classicists with musical theater experience,  digitized music, scores, and blocking notes for self-rehearsal, and two days of intense workshop rehearsal.
In this scene, a comic acting troupe has assumed the role of the gods on Olympus - this has caused relationship confusion, as the actors, now gods, need to revise their love interests to match their new status. The former young couple of Sparkeion and Nicemis cannot be married since they are now the brother and sister, Apollo and Diana. Daphne, an old flame of Sparkeion, consults Lempriere's Classical Dictionary to prove her case that, as the muse Calliope, she is 'married' to Apollo. The leader of the troupe Thespis, as Jupiter, renders a judgment on the various permutations this love triangle may take.

The following four are my Classical Comedy class productions, edited musical scripts designed as educational theater, rehearsed within classtime, and performed for small audiences in various theater spaces at UNCGreensboro; the latest was also performed at CAMWS-Southern Section in Winston-Salem, NC:

Aristophanes Lysistrata (1998) - 'hard up' Spartans and Athenians make peace in the finale

Entire Lysistrata script

Aristophanes Wasps (2000) - SCRIPT FOR THIS SCENE LINKED HERE, highlighted in RED- Philokleon and his daughter Bdelykleone debate the relative merits and pitfalls of Philokleon's paid service to Athens as a citizen juror; Philokleon's juror buddies/wasps in the chorus respond to each side of the argument - patriotic song settings enforce the Athenian perspectives on jury service - jurors wore half-masks in this production produced by a theater major as a project for her costuming design course 

Entire Wasps Script

Aristophanes Women Rule (Ekklesiazousai - 2001) - SCRIPT FOR THIS SCENE LINKED HERE an Athenian citizen considers contributing all his goods to the state in accordance with the women's newly imposed communistic order - an anarchist challenges this citizen's willingness to conform, then has a change of heart. This outdoor production was a rare theatrical use of an atrium in the humanities/studio art building

Entire Women Rule Script

Aristophanes Femme Phantasmagoria (Thesmophoriazousai - 2004) - SCRIPT FOR THIS SCENE LINKED HERE, highlighted in RED - Euripides has sent his poorly disguised, alpha-male  relative to infiltrate a women's festival and discover how the women are plotting to injure Euripides for his 'misogynistic' tragedies; the relative is discovered, takes Mika's 'baby' - a disguised wine bottle - hostage, and threatens to sacrifice it  (This scene is portrayed on this vase in the Getty) - the Parabasis, sung by the women's chorus to I am Woman, reveals Athenian women's reactions to male insinuations against them - Euripides and his relative try multiple Euripides plot twists to help the relative escape; the two shown here are based on Euripides' lost Palamedes and his exotic take on Helen in Egypt, in which the relative plays a melodramatic Helen, and Euripides enters disguised as Menelaos returning home from the Trojan War. This was modified blocking with one tech rehearsal in a secondary space at a church, after we had rehearsed all semester in a dormitory parlor.

Entire Femme Phantasmagoria Script