Theater Season Closes with ‘Trojan Women’

Ithaca College Theatre will present The Trojan Women Tuesday through Saturday, April 24-28, as its final production of the 2000-2001 season. This staging in Hoerner Theatre of the ancient Greek drama by Euripides will feature an original score by associate professor of music Peter Rothbart.

The Tuesday and Wednesday performances will be previews. Curtain time for all evening performances is 8:00 p.m., with an additional 2:00 p.m. matinee on Saturday.

Tickets can be purchased at the Ithaca College Theatre ticket office in Dillingham Center, the Clinton House ticket center, and Cornell University’s Willard Straight Hall. Prices range from $3.50 to $9.00. The College’s ticket office is open Monday through Friday, noon to 5:00 p.m. For tickets and information call 274-3224. Discounts are available for groups of 15 or more; call 274-3796.

The classic tragedy by Euripides depicts the plight of the women of Troy after the conquering Greeks pillaged their city. The Trojan Women was first produced in 415 B.C., less than a year after Athens had savagely conquered the neutral island of Melos, killing all its men and selling its women and children into slavery. Although there are allusions to this tragedy in The Trojan Women, the play is not meant as a commentary on this one event but instead an explicitly passionate statement about the horrors of war, written by a man who was influenced by his own country’s involvement.

Though Euripides never enjoyed critical or popular success during his lifetime, he is considered one of the most modern of the classical tragic dramatists. The Trojan Women, the story of an atrocity and its aftermath, seems to have struck a chord with 20th- and 21st- century audiences.

The cast includes Ben Tostado ’01 as Poseidon, Lenelle N. Moise ’02 as Athena, Chandra R. Curtis ’01 as Hecuba, Amy Schwab ’01 as Cassandra, Meredith Shottes ’01 as Andromache, Matthew Cavenaugh ’01 as Menelaus, Gretchen Leigh Foulk ’01 as Helen, and local first-grader Parker E. H. Callister as Astyanax.

The production will include recordings of original music compositions by Peter Rothbart, who directs electroacoustic studies in the School of Music. In addition to five movie scores, Rothbart has orchestrated music for the Tony Award-winning Utah Shakespearean Festival.

Other members of the artistic team include director Greg Bostwick, scenic designer Nicole Coppinger ’01, costume designer Diana Constantinides ’01, lighting designer Christopher Daly ’01, sound designer Ryan Tilke ’02, technical director Serge Gountas ’02, choreographers Heather Holohan ’02 and Malinda Logan ’01, stage manager Amy Monroe ’03, and dramaturge Patricia Urso ’01.