KCL Greek Play 2023 Iphigenia

In 2022 King’s College London invited AOD Actors of Dionysus to come on board as Executive Directors of the 2023 KCL Greek Play which was to celebrate its 70th anniversary that following year. Combined with aod’s birthday of 30 years in 2023 we decided this was an opportunity too good to miss! The KCL Greek play offers a tremendous opportunity for KCL students to put together their own version of an ancient Greek text, which can be inspired by one or several extant Greek plays.

In the latter part of 2022 we interviewed a core creative team of writers and dramaturgs who had applied to take part. The best pitch and collaborative team went forward. And so Amalia Costa came up with the idea of a new retelling of Iphegenia, drawing from the plays of Euripides and from the Oresteia by Aeschylus. We auditioned a host of KCL students mad enough to apply to this wonderful but crazy project. Amalia acted as writer and director, but was ably assisted by a core team including a transliterator (from the ancient Greek) and producer with the whole team contributing to the dramaturgy of the play.

The team’s version examined the glorification of violence and conquest in war and the impact on those who suffer the consequences, rippling out across generations. Through this re-telling of Iphigeneia’s story, they set about asking the question  –

who is ‘the greater good’ really for?

Here’s Amalia’s experience of working on the show:

Directing the KCL Greek Play was one of the most rewarding but creatively challenging projects I’ve worked on. Most theatre projects I had worked on before that point were student shows and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where you’re just thankful that people turned up at all.

But the KCL Greek Play is a tradition that has run for over 70 years, and I am thankful that Actors of Dionysus thought I was up for the challenge. It has been so gratifying to see the sheer talent across the KCL student body and how engaging with Classics can bring so many people together.

In choosing my pitch for my adaptation of Iphigeneia in Aulis, Actors of Dionysus gave me the opportunity to work with a brilliant team of dramaturgs, Eva Nacci, Martina Valderrama-Boix, and Clare Chang, who was also our Ancient Greek transliterator.

AoD facilitated our auditions so we could assemble our incredibly talented cast and crew, all of whom put in so much dedication and effort, and I am so proud of all of them.

They also provided a brilliant mentoring and support system for all of us on the Creative Team, especially during the more hectic elements that always happen in drama! The Greek Play was a real highlight during my time at KCL, and I encourage all of you to see it in the years to come.

The show ran at Greenwood Theatre from 28-30th June with 5 performances over 3 days.

Evening performances were preceded by pre-show events featuring leading scholars; free to ticket-holders for the subsequent performance.

This was a gargantuan undertaking for all involved, especially the students and performers, who created a fabulous production. We thank Will Wootton, William Fitzgerald, Elena Svettini-Remme for entrusting this project to us. Lucy, myself and Mark absolutely loved working on it!  Thanks also to Sarah Banks for her support and to Hardeep Dhindsa for their beautiful poster design.

We’ll see you next year!

Crew

Lead writer & Director	Amalia Costa
Executive Director	Lucy Ruddiman
Executive Director	Tamsin Shasha
Executive Director	Mark Katz