LIVIA: A ROMAN TRAGEDY to Premiere at The Flea Theater

Livia: A Roman Tragedy, a blistering political parable by Paul David Young, is set to run October 23 – November 15, 2026, at The Flea Theater (20 Thomas St, Manhattan). Directed by Danilo Gambini (Beauty Freak, Ni Mi Madre), this world premiere stars Baize Buzan (To Kill A Mockingbird, Beauty Freak) in a tour-de-force performance. With an opening set for Monday, October 26, tickets are now on sale.

In Livia: A Roman Tragedy, the late Roman Empire teeters on the brink of collapse under the rule of a corrupt, narcissistic madman. As chaos consumes the nation, Livia longs for her lover, who departed Rome to lead an armed rebellion against the incompetent, debauched emperor. Isolated in her opposition to the demented dictator, who exiles and executes anyone who voices dissent, Livia asks how the once-noble republic succumbed to the tyrant's hand and resolves to discover what one woman can do to save her crumbling society.

While rooted in ancient history, Livia: A Roman Tragedy is an urgent message for today. The play creates a rich intertextual dialogue, integrating passages and themes from classic Roman dramas including Shakespeare's Julius Caesar and Coriolanus, as well as works by Corneille, Ibsen, and Dürrenmatt, alongside the philosophical and sociological perspectives of Seneca, Cicero, Epictetus, and Norbert Elias.

“America appears to me as fragile as ancient Rome,” says playwright Paul David Young who was inspired to write Livia: A Roman Tragedy following a trip to Rome in 2022. “In my play, Rome is both a real and an imaginary place, the repository of our concerns about civilization and the polity. In their fight for political rights and construction of a new nation, America's founders idealized Rome and looked to it for models and lessons. Rome's history also encompasses the struggle between violent Christianity and civil pagan society. The themes of my play are urgent. I look to the lessons of Rome to save us from ourselves.”

“Livia: A Roman Tragedy speaks to me very personally as an immigrant artist,” says director Danilo Gambini. “When you choose to make a life in another country, you inevitably develop a particular relationship to that society: you are part of it, you love it, you participate in it, but you are also always looking at it with the eyes of someone who remembers another place. I grew up in Brazil, a country whose history taught me never to take democracy for granted, and I now make my life in the United States at a moment when many of the things we assumed were permanent suddenly feel fragile. Paul's play asks a terrifyingly simple question: what do we do when the society around us appears to collapse? For me, theater is the art of togetherness. We gather in a room, share the same air, and confront questions collectively. At a time when fear and division push us apart, simply coming together—to question, to witness, and maybe to resist—can itself be a political act.”

Livia: A Roman Tragedy builds on Young's body of work including his 2017 Trump satire, Faust 3: The Turd Coming, or The Fart of the Deal, which The Wall Street Journal called “devilish… with a darkly comic—and very scatological—twist." Hyperallergic writes, “Between its uncompromising, blistering rage and its condemnatory rhetorical stance, the play has many echoes of Biblical prophecy.” Performed by four clowns at Judson Church, it was also featured in The New York Times, The Huffington Post, New York Magazine, Time Out New York, and was a “Voice Choice” in The Village Voice. 

The creative team for Livia: A Roman Tragedy includes Jimmy Stubbs (set and costume design), Nicole E. Lang (lighting design), and Liam Bellman-Sharpe (sound design).

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