ADMISSION:  
Admission is free. Reservations required.  

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DESCRIPTION:  
Short plays by students will explore gender issues, war, and violence through the lens of Greek tragedy and examine and reimagine USC’s Trojan symbolism with the values of today’s campus community. The performances will be followed by a conversation with noted playwrights and scholars including Christine Evans, who developed her award-winning play Trojan Barbie as an imaginative retelling of Euripides’ The Trojan Women through the experiences of women during the Iraq War; Afroditi Angelopoulou, USC professor of classics; Rena Heinrich, director, author, and USC professor of dramatic arts; and Diana Shield of USC’s Warrior Bards project.  

This event is presented in conjunction with an exhibition at Doheny Memorial Library (check back for more information) and will be supplemented by guided walking tours of the USC campus, examining and reimagining the symbolism of statues, sculptures, and public art with the values of today’s campus community. 

Bios:  

Afroditi Angelopoulou is an assistant professor of classics at USC. Her first book project, The Body and the Senses in Greek Tragedy, evaluates the role of embodied experience in the construction of dramatic narratives, and in the generation and communication of emotional meaning. She was a fellow at the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies from 2021 to 2022.  

Christine Evans is a professor of performing arts at Georgetown University who writes fiction, plays, opera libretti, and essays. Her award-winning plays have been produced in the United States, Australia, Canada, England, and Wales, and her debut novel, Nadia, will come out in fall 2023.  

Rena Heinrich is an assistant professor of theatre practice in critical studies at the USC School of Dramatic Arts and an affiliated professor of East Asian studies in the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences. Her teaching and areas of expertise include interculturalism; race, representation, and gender in performance; postcolonial theatre; Asian and Asian American drama; acting; ethnography; and performance studies. 

Diana Shield is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran and participant in USC’s Warrior Bards, an initiative funded by USC Arts in Action in collaboration with Southern California Grantmakers that trains veterans to present innovative public performances based on ancient literature. 

Related Event:  
About Face: Walking Tour 
Monday, April 1, 2024, at 1 p.m.  
Tuesday, April 2, 2024, at 11 a.m.  
Doheny Memorial Library, Front Entrance  
For more info, click HERE.  

Presented by USC Visions and Voices. Organized by Paula Cizmar (Dramatic Arts), Rena Heinrich (Dramatic Arts and USC Dornsife), Melissa Miller (USC Libraries), Marje Schuetze-Coburn (USC Libraries), and Ruth Wallach (USC Libraries).