Photo Flash: The Studio at Stage West Presents AN ILIAD

You know the story behind the Trojan War: the handsome young prince Paris is promised the most beautiful woman in the world by the goddess Aphrodite. She's already married, but why should that matter? And so Helen ends up in Troy, her husband Menelaus is furious, and the Greeks go to war against the Trojans. For nearly a decade. But this is not your father's Iliad-it's something more timeless and compelling, in Lisa Peterson and Denis O'Hare's An Iliad, adapted from the translation by Robert Fagles, beginning a 4-week run in the Studio at Stage West on Thursday, August 11.

Instead of a whole cast, An Iliad features a lone storyteller-maybe Homer himself, or maybe some traveling bard-who spins out his tale of war and destruction. During the journey, he is the storyteller, and also all the characters, and he's joined by a cellist who provides both music and various sound effects along the way. It's an ancient tale, given a highly contemporary twist, and will bring audiences a completely unique evening in the theatre.

The authors say, in their introduction, "An Iliad started out as an examination of war and man's tendency toward war. In the end, it also became an examination of the theater and the way in which we still tell each other stories in order to try to make sense of ourselves, and our behavior. Someone started telling the story of the Trojan War, in all its glory and devastation and surprise, over 3,000 years ago. We pass it on."

Lisa Peterson is a theater director is a graduate of Yale College, and a member of Ensemble Studio Theater, and the executive board of SDC. Her collaboration on An Iliad with Denis O'Hare, netted them 2012 Obie and Lucille Lortel Awards. Her other adaptations include The Waves, adapted from the novel by Virginia Woolf, with composer David Bucknam (Drama Desk nominations), the upcoming The Good Book with Denis O'Hare, and Insurance Men with composer Todd Almond. She was Resident Director at the Mark Taper Forum for ten years, and Associate Director at La Jolla Playhouse for three years before that. She has worked at theaters around the country including New York Theater Workshop, and The Public; she won an Obie in 1991 for Caryl Churchill's Light Shining in Buckinghamshire at NYTW, and Dramalogue, Drama Desk, and Calloway Award nominations for many other productions

Denis O'Hare is a Tony Award-winning stage actor and writer who attended Northwestern University where he studied poetry for two years under Alan Shapiro, Mary Kinzie, and Reginald Gibbons. He ultimately received a B.S. in the theatre department, and in 1992, he moved to New York to continue his acting career. He has written three screenplays, numerous poems, and one other play. Mr. O'Hare and Ms. Petersen began collaborating on An Iliad in 2006 and honed the project through multiple workshops with New York Theatre Workshop at Vassar and Dartmouth and with the Sundance Lab Institute.

Robert Fagles was Professor of Comparative Literature Emeritus at Princeton University, and was the 1997 recipient of the PEN/Ralph Manheim Medal for Translation. His acclaimed translations include Aeschylus' Oresteia (nominated for a Nation Book Award), Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil's Aeneid (2006). Fagles died on March 26, 2008.

An Iliad is directed by Emily Scott Banks, who starred in Stage West's Jacob Marley's Christmas Carol and directed the theatre's production of The (curious case of the) Watson Intelligence. The cast features Stage West's Jim Covault, whose roles at Stage West include Mark Rothko in Red, and Philippe in Heroes, as The Poet, and also JorDan Jones Cleaver, a 2008 graduate of Booker T. Washington School for Performing Arts, who has played with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and opened for George Clinton, as the cellist.

The set, lighting, and sound will be designed by Nate Davis, with props by Lynn Lovett.

An Iliad will preview Thursday, August 25 at 7:30 and Friday, August 12 at 8:00, and will run through Sunday, September 18. Performance times will be Thursday evenings at 7:30, Friday and Saturday evenings at 8:00, with Sunday matinees at 3:00.

The opening night reception will be Saturday, August 27. Ticket prices range from $31 to $35, with discounts for the preview performance, and for students, seniors, and military.

Food service is available 90 minutes prior to performances (reservations are necessary), and the Friday Prix Fixe special (dinner and show for $45) will be available beginning September 2. Reservations and information are available through the Box Office (817-784-9378), or on the website, www.stagewest.org.

Photo Credit: Nate Davis and Garret Storms

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