Theater of War Productions will be launching a Digital Amphitheater during the Nobel Prize Summit with performance featuring Bill Murray (Lost in Translation), Frances McDormand (Nomadland), Jeffrey Wright (Westworld), and Frankie Faison (The Wire) and other leading actors. The play’s Chorus will be performed by Nobel Prize laureates, including Dr. Elizabeth Blackburn.
The Digital Amphitheater will harness the power of ancient and emerging technologies to reach hundreds of thousands of people, in live settings (when public performances are permitted again), on their devices, and in their homes, bringing them into powerful, global, pluralistic dialogue about some of the most critical issues of our time.
Theater of War Productions will be presenting The Oedipus Project at the Nobel Prize Summit. The Oedipus Project presents dramatic readings of scenes from Sophocles’ Oedipus the King as catalyst for global discussions about climate change, ecological disaster, and environmental justice, framed by the play’s timeless themes of arrogant leadership, intergenerational curses, willful blindness, and ignored prophecy. At the time the play was first performed, in 429 BC, the audience would have been recovering from a plague that killed nearly one-third of the Athenian population. Seen through this lens, the play might be as relevant now as it was in its own time.
The Oedipus Project is translated, directed, and facilitated by Bryan Doerries, Artistic Director of Theater of War Productions. He said: “When the pandemic hit, we immediately retooled to create free, easily-accessible opportunities on Zoom for people struggling with trauma, loss, illness and distress to communalize their experience with others. The goal of our work has always been to lift people out of isolation and connect them with a larger community.”
“We are very pleased to be able to offer the Nobel Prize Summit audiences this special opportunity to attend a performance hosted by Theater of War Productions in the Digital Amphitheater”, said Anna Sjöström Douagi, Programme Director Nobel Prize Summit 2021, the Nobel Foundation. “The topics we are broaching as part of our Summit are scientifically complex, often emotionally difficult, and even potentially contentious as we acknowledge different points of view. Performance and storytelling provide a critical common ground and a shared language to discuss important topics in new ways.”
About Theater of War Productions
Since its founding in 2009, Theater of War Productions has facilitated events for more than 280,000 people, presenting 25+ different tailored programs for diverse communities across the globe. The company works with professional actors to present dramatic readings of seminal plays and texts—from classical Greek tragedies to sermons, speeches, and modern works of poetry— to provide a framework for engaging communities in challenging discussions about human suffering. The company uses a combination of theater and guided public dialogue to help communities address pressing public health and social issues such as combat-related psychological injury, suicide, end-of-life care, racialized violence, incarceration, disability, climate justice, gun violence, political violence, natural and manmade disaster, domestic violence, substance abuse, and addiction. Theater of War Productions was co-founded by Bryan Doerries and Phyllis Kaufman, who served as producing director from 2009 to 2016. Doerries currently serves as the company’s artistic director.
For more information on Theater of War productions, visit: www.theaterofwar.com