Lysistrata Playbill

Providence College DigitalCommons@Providence Playbill and Promotion Lysistrata (2014) Spring 4-4-2014 Lysistrata Playbill Providence College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/lysistrata_pubs Part of the Acting Commons Recommended Citation Providence College, "Lysistrata Playbill" (2014). Playbill and Promotion. 2. https://digitalcommons.providence.edu/lysistrata_pubs/2 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Lysistrata (2014) at DigitalCommons@Providence. It has been accepted for inclusion in Playbill and Promotion by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@Providence. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Department of Theatre, Dance & Film presents LYSISTRATA a musical version adaptation by Ellen McLaughlin inspired by the play by Aristophanes music and lyrics by Keith Munslow DIRECTED BY Mary G. Farrell MUSICAL DIRECTOR SCENIC DESIGNER Keith Munslow Kathryn Kawecki COSTUME DESIGNER LIGHTING DESIGNER Amanda Downing Carney Tim Cryan CHOREOGRAPHER VOCAL COACH Katrina Pavao ‘16 Renina Flores Angell Blackfriars Theatre 4-6 April and 11-13 April 2014 The filming, digital recording, or audio recording of this production is strictly prohibited. Lysistrata is presented through special arrangement with Playscripts, Inc. 450 Seventh Ave, Suite 809 New York, NY 10123 Cast ATHENIAN CHORUS LEADERS Aubrey Dion, Marisa Urgo Athenian women LYSISTRATA an Athenian woman Katrina Pavao CALONICE her neighbor Katcy Stephan MYRRHINE woman from Anagyra Grace Curley LAMPITO woman from Sparta Joey Macari DIPSAS woman from Corinth Lindsay Gilbert ISMENIA woman from Boetia Courteney Olenzak GEEZERS men from Athens Daniel Caplin, Brendan Lynch, Ben Williams OLD WOMEN, women from Athens Aubrey Dion, Lindsay Gilbert, Joey Macari MAGISTRATE head man in Athens Brian Kozak at the moment BELPHRAGIA woman from Athens Joey Macari FISHERWOMAN woman from Athens Courteney Olenzak CINESIAS man from Athens Daniel Caplin SPARTAN ENVOY Brendan Lynch SPARTAN DELEGATE Konner Jebb TIME: 411 BCE (2014) PLACE: An affluent neighborhood in Athens (Providence, RI) ● ● ● Please note that strobe lights will be used in this production. The play runs approximately 80 minutes and is performed without intermission. musical numbers OPENING/PROTEST MARCH The Band GREEK CHORUS VAMP The Band YOU MUST Lysistrata & the Women of Greece ATHENIAN WALTZ The Band THE LIBIDO (IS THE LAST THING TO GO) Geezers, Old Women of Athens MATTERS Lysistrata, Magistrate ATHENIAN WALTZ (REPRISE) The Band GIVE IT UP Cinesias, Chorus DOIN’ IT AT HOME Lysistrata, Chorus Band Members PIANO, ACCORDION John Juxo ACOUSTIC BASS Bryan Rizzuto DRUMS, PERCUSSION Randy Cloutier VIOLIN Ilana Katz Production Staff STAGE MANAGER BOX OFFICE MANAGERS Veronica Murphy Casey Gilmond Alexandra Chasse DIRECTOR’S ASSISTANT/ ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER BOX OFFICE & PUBLICITY Toni Ramos Logan Bruneau Alexandra Chasse PUPPETS CREATED BY Casey Gilmond Stuart Wilson Hayley McGuirl Amanda Talbot PROPERTIES PROCUREMENT Mary Jo Hannigan HOUSE MANAGERS Hayley McGuirl LIGHT BOARD OPERATOR Amanda Talbot Alison Simone COSTUME SHOP CREW FOLLOW SPOT OPERATORS Valerie Chase Julia Bianculli Jess DiPietro Manuela Teixeira Stacie Krawiecki Emily Zalis Marie-Florence Koikou Maggie Oaks SOUND BOARD OPERATOR Rebecca Petrocelli Ryan Fink SCENE SHOP CREW WARDROBE RUNNING CREW Michael Cirrotti Manuela Teixeira Ryan Fink Emily Zalis Mark Folan Garvin Gabelus STAGE HANDS Erin Lasher Julia Bianculli Maria Munar Logan Serabian Victor Neirinckx Alison Simone ARCHIVE PHOTOGRAPHY Marisa Urgo Gabrielle Marks POSTER PRESS PHOTOGRAPHY image and concept Logan Bruneau courtesy of Linda Bell Auburn University USHERS Department of Theatre The Friars Club Director’s Notes THE 4-1-1 ON CONFLICTS SINCE 411 Alexander’s macedonian conquests punic wars WAR OF THE FIRST TRIUMVIRATE war of the second triumvirate expansion of the roman empire byzantine empire wars visigoth invasion of gaul invasion of atilla the hun MUSLIM CONQUEST OF MECCA muslim invasions conquests of charlemagne CRUSADES mongol Wars conquests of the ottomAn empire HUNDRED YEARS WAR war of the roses spanish-muslim wars spanish conquest of mexico mogul-afghan war thirty years’ war jacobite rebellion war of spanish succession french and indian war seven years’ war king phIllip’s war AMERICAN REVOLUTION FRENCH REVOLUTIONARY WARS napoleonic wars war of 1812 first afghan-brItish war AMERICAN CIVIL WAR franco-prussian war second afGhan-brItish war spanish- american war WORLD WAR I russian revolution WORLD WAR II french indochina war arab-israeli wAr korean war VIETNAM WAR iraq-iran war Persian gulf war CONFLICTS IN israel pAkistan iraq iran syria Libya Conflicts in tunisia yemen ukraine sudan uganda Afghanistan chechnya egypt Lysistrata: Anti-War, Satiric, and Bawdy Occasion: Aristophanes wrote Lysistrata in 411 B.C.E. (all further dates also refer to B.C.E.) in response to the devastating defeat of the massive Athenian expedition to Syracuse in Sicily in 413. The planning for this attack was a debacle from the time that it was first pushed through the Athenian Assembly in 415 by the flashy Alcibiades, Pericles’ ward and Socrates’ pupil, who later became a serial turncoat. The Peloponnesian War historian, Thucydides, vividly recounted the nightmarish results of this campaign. The Athenian army, with its trireme transportation sunk in Syracuse’s harbor, retreated hastily on foot without burying its dead, a most shocking sacrilege, and furthermore, were forced to abandon sick or wounded, pleading relatives and friends. On a following day, the thirsting marchers broke rank to rush into a river, where they trampled one another or were butchered by awaiting Spartan and Syracusan soldiers. Survivors kept on drinking the river water, now fouled by mud and polluted with comrades’ blood. Those who lived to be captured were squashed together in abandoned quarries with little food and less space, especially when the multiplying corpses were stacked up next to them. From these events, there were no known survivors. “Old” Comedy: With such devastation, is it any wonder that two years later in Lysistrata Aristophanes satirized the martial attitudes that led to this debacle? Unlike romantic comedy, in which lovers overcome obstacles to reunite in festivity, “Old” Comedy employed imagination, not sermonizing, to attack the vice and folly of contemporary Athens. As satirist, Aristophanes offered a strange mixture of scatology (flatulence, urination, defecation) and lust along with a highly conservative political outlook, favoring oligarchy over Athenian democracy. His vulgarity in bathroom and bedroom references typifies later satirists as well, including the great Moliere and Swift. Though accused of dereliction or even of psychopathy, they deliberately displayed the animal side of humanity for an arguably moral purpose – to ridicule false pretenses to great knowledge, courage, or spiritual purity (think Tartuffe). Such pride and pretentiousness became the inevitable target of satiric attack. Obsessions of Greek Sexuality: Besides the vulgarity endemic to “Old” Comedy, another factor which probably influenced its graphic bawdiness was the ancient Greek tendency to flaunt male sexual potency. In creation mythology, Zeus, the sky god’s “rain is male semen and the receiving earth is the female womb” (Barry B. Powell, Classical Myth). Thus, the male penetrator becomes the author of fertility. Another patriarchal practice in Athens was the parading of large wooden phalluses in the religious procession honoring Dionysus, preceding the dramatic festival of three day tragic and one day comic competitions. In his account of ancient Greek culture, Thomas Cahill explores the prevalence of Greek male nudity (contrary to surrounding civilizations) both in life, with naked workouts of male athletes, and in art, with its many unclothed statues of young men. Unlike these kouros figures, female maiden statues were clothed. He explains this distinction by contending that the prevailing patriarchal outlook assumed that young men’s nude bodies were the perfection of nature. Finally, from a less idealized perspective, male costuming in Greek comedy included padded tights featuring prominent phalluses. Lysistrata: In the play, prominent male arousal relates to Aristophanes’ main target of satiric attack – male devotion to military glory, the root cause of disastrous policies, especially the decision to attack Syracuse. Part of Lysistrata’s peace plan is for Athenian women to occupy the Acropolis to bar men from the Parthenon housed treasury, needed for military expeditions. The male chorus’ response is to threaten the women’s chorus with intimidation and violence involving logs and fire. But when the women trade insults and will not back down, the bullying older men look foolish. Later, as the frustration from the sex strike increases, male arousal, beginning with Myrrhine’s classic teasing of Cinesias, and spreading to both Spartans and Athenians, burgeons. While the males have claimed that their highest priority is gaining glory from conquest, their own bodies testify that a more basic need, sexual release, predominates. In the midst of this ludicrous chaos, only one voice of common sense and morality, that of Lysistrata, exists. She counters the Magistrate’s claim that only battlefield veterans should give policy advice by pointing out that only women give birth to the many sons who die in battle. At the play’s conclusion, she highlights past occasions when

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