Drama Department’s Production of The Bacchae Wins Two Awards at Warsaw Festival

By Richard Pierce

The young cast of student actors from the Tisch School of the Arts (TSOA) Department of Drama had not performed the play in almost a year and a half. But the invitation to recreate their production of a well-known Greek tragedy at a prestigious festival in Warsaw, celebrating the best productions from 12 leading theatre schools in Europe and around the world, was just too good to pass up. So off they went in June—27 in all, including actors, designers, and faculty—to perform The Bacchae by Euripides one last time.

“We performed twice to full houses while in Warsaw,” said Matthew Berger ’05, a member of the cast. “We were one of the very few productions to bring a full set with us. And our fellow festivalgoers had been expressing their excitement at seeing an authentic New York City production all week. When the lights went up, all our concerns about any language barriers dissolved immediately.”

The Fourth International Theatre Schools Festival, held June 24-30, was hosted by the Alexander Zelwerowicz Sate Theatre Academy, Poland’s first professional acting school. The festival program included welcome letters from the president of the Republic of Poland, Lech Kaczynski, and the mayor of Warsaw, Hanna Gronkiewics-Waltz. Attendees included young artists from theatre schools in Austria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain, and the United States. In addition to the performances by each school, the week-long celebration featured workshops, theatre displays, and talks. TSOA was the only theatre school from the U.S. to be invited.

The festival’s Best Actor Award went to Theo Stockman, a ’07 Tisch drama alumnus who played Dionysus. Kevin Kuhlke, chair of the Department of Drama and director of The Bacchae, and Chris Jaehnig, interim artistic director and director of production for the Department of Drama, were also presented with a Gold Alexander Award—a special award from the Alexander Zelwerowicz State Theatre Academy—for “beautiful artistic effect of pedagogic work with the group in The Bacchae.”

The Bacchae featured original music by Drama alumna Cynthia Hopkins ’96.