The Department of Classics will host a lecture by Amy R. Cohen, professor of classics and theater at Randolph College, Thursday, Sept. 26, from 4 to 5 p.m. in Clark Hall, Room 206.
In her lecture, titled “Masks and Reality in Ancient Athenian Drama,” Cohen will look at both historical and contemporary use of masks to stage ancient Greek tragedy and comedy.
Cohen has developed a specialty in staging Greek drama in outdoor theaters with masks she and her students have made. While Cohen’s original exploration of masks sought to identify and recreate authentic practices in ancient mask making, in recent years she and her students have begun to explore ways in which modern technology, such as 3-D printing, might assist in making masks for staging ancient plays.
This event is free and open to the public.
About the speaker
Amy R. Cohen is professor of classics and theatre at Randolph College, where she holds the Thoresen Chair of Speech and Theatre. She also is director of the Center for Ancient Drama.
She received a BA in classics at Yale University, and a PhD in classics, with a minor in comparative literature, at Stanford University.
At Randolph College, she and her students have revived the college’s Greek Play tradition begun in 1909. She has directed 11 original-practices productions in the Whiteside Greek Theatre and one in Greece.
Cohen served for six years as the editor of the journal Didaskalia: The Journal for Ancient Performance, and she has hosted five conferences on ancient drama in performance.
She was the Classical Association of Virginia Teacher of the Year in 2008 and was awarded the 2015 Society for Classical Studies Outreach Prize.