Open to Public / New York City Public Artist In Residence
Prometheus in Prison at Bronx NeON
Thu, Oct 12.2017
About the play
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Prometheus Bound by Aeschylus
Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound is a play about a god who is imprisoned for stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humans. The incarcerated Prometheus admits that he willfully committed a crime and is sentenced for his actions. He is placed in extreme isolation at the end of the earth for the rest of time. Over the course of the play, Prometheus is visited by a number of characters, including friends and family. Each of these characters attempts to impart advice upon Prometheus about how he can lessen his sentence and increase his chances of being released. Increasingly enraged by each exchange, Prometheus, over the course of the play, shuts down, refusing to accept help or advice from anyone, and spends the final moments of the play shaking his fist at the sky, willfully provoking a far worse punishment than isolation.
Cast Members
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Glenn Davis
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Daphne Rubin-Vega
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Jumaane Williams
Explore Projects
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IncarcerationPrometheus in PrisonPrometheus in Prison is an innovative public health project that presents readings of Aeschylus’ Prometheus Bound, an ancient Greek play about god who is imprisoned for stealing fire and giving it to humans, as a catalyst for powerful discussions about the challenges faced by individuals, families, and communities whose lives have been touched by the criminal justice system. For the past decade years, this groundbreaking project has been used to open up healing dialogue in a variety of settings, including prisons, detention centers, and public venues throughout the country and the world.
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Pandemic & Climate CrisisThe Oedipus ProjectThe Oedipus Project presents acclaimed actors reading scenes from Sophocles’ Oedipus the King as a catalyst for powerful, constructive, global conversations about the climate crisis, ecological disaster, environmental justice, and healing online conversations about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon diverse communities throughout the world. Sophocles’ ancient play, first performed in 429 BC, just after the first wave of a plague that killed nearly one-third of the Athenian population, is a story of arrogant leadership, ignored prophecy, intergenerational curses, and a pestilence and ecological collapse that ravages the archaic city of Thebes. Seen through this lens, Oedipus the King appears to have been a powerful tool for helping Athenians communalize trauma and loss, while interrogating their own complicit role in the suffering, not just of those around them but of generations to come.
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War & Mental HealthTheater of War: Hector, Andromache, and the Death of AstyanaxTheater of War: Hector, Andromache, and the Death of Astyanax presents live, dramatic readings of selections from Homer’s Iliad, Book VI and scenes from The Trojan Women by Euripides—featuring acclaimed actors and a Chorus of students, from a variety of backgrounds, whose lives have been impacted by war—to help frame powerful, healing dialogue about the human cost of war, centered on the suffering of children and civilians. The project uses ancient texts that explore and depict the dehumanization of war to create a vocabulary for openly discussing challenging and divisive subjects, with the aim of generating compassion, empathy, moral repair, understanding, and positive action.