The theater department at Ballard High School is gearing up for their first performance of the year, with Big Love taking the stage in October.
“This year’s plays and musicals are all comedies and still they reflect our times with serious elements or overtones,” theatre director Shawn M. Riley said in a release. “Viewers will get to witness strong female characters in volatile situations, struggling characters driven to finally get their shot, and the calculated jockeying that frequently occurs in places of power. The themes are timeless, and Ballard students get to explore them creatively.”
From BHS:
Big Love covers high-stakes terrain in the story of Lydia and 49 Greek brides who have fled to an Italian villa to avoid marrying their cousins. The grooms soon follow—ready to claim what they consider theirs. As the characters wait for their wedding day, they raise issues of gender politics, love, domestic violence, and migration. With its modern music and arresting action, the play asks big questions that resonate today: What makes a man, a woman, a human being, a displaced person?
Inspired by Aeschylus’s Greek tragedy The Suppliants, Big Love was written by Charles Mee and first debuted in 2000.
Big Love performance dates will be October 11 – 13 and 18 – 20. The plays are open to the general public. Tickets are $15 for adults and $10 for students/seniors. Advance tickets are available here (search for “Ballard High School.”) To request discounted season or group tickets, contact Shawn Riley at smriley@seattleschools.org.
You guys should stage a production of Assemblywomen by Aristophanes.
Per Wiki:
“Assemblywomen (Greek: Ἐκκλησιάζουσαι Ekklesiazousai; also translated as, Congresswomen, Women in Parliament, Women in Power, and A Parliament of Women) is a comedy written by the Greek playwright Aristophanes in 391 BCE.[3] The play invents a scenario where the women of Athens assume control of the government and instate pseudo-communist reforms that ban private wealth and enforce sexual equality for the old and unattractive. In addition to Aristophanes’ political and social satire, Assemblywomen derives its comedy through sexual and scatological humor. It is important to note that the play’s central concepts of women in government and communism were not legitimate suggestions from Aristophanes, but rather an outlandish premise that aimed to criticize the Athenian government at the time.”
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristophanes/eccles.html
Thank you so much for sharing this with the community!