Anne Bogard And SITI Premiere Euripides' THE BACCHAE as Part of Next Wave Festival

SITI Company, the internationally acclaimed ensemble theater co-founded by American director Anne Bogart, presents Bogart's stunning direction of Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae. Presented as part of BAM's Next Wave festival, the production will celebrate its New York premiere on Wednesday through Saturday, October 3 through 6, 2018, 7:30 PM and Sunday, October 7 at 3:00 PM for 5 performances at the BAM Harvey Theater. Tickets are $30, 45, 65 (weekday); $35, 50, 75 (weekend). Single tickets for all Next Wave Festival shows go on sale August 9. To purchase tickets visit BAM.org or contact BAM Ticket Services at 718.636.4100.

Packed with striking scenes, frenzied emotion, and choral songs of great power and beauty, The Bacchae is considered to be one of Euripides' greatest surviving works.

Dionysus is the god of wine, ritual madness, fertility, and theater. Played by the stellar
Ellen Lauren, SITI-Company Co-Artistic Director and a founding member, Dionysus returns in disguise to her birthplace in Greece. As revenge for a personal slight, she plans to spread her cult among the people of Thebes. Her adversary King Pentheus, fearing the spreading disorder of the cult, imprisons Dionysus in order to suppress her influence. This misguided attempt to thwart the will of a god leads to catastrophe for Pentheus and his entire family.

"In Euripides' The Bacchae, a group of exotic foreigners arrive from the east with a crucial message for the west," explains Bogart. "Led by the shape-shifting Dionysus the message counsels: Do not ban the unfamiliar, the foreign or the chaotic from your private life, your social life, or from the political sphere. Perhaps The Bacchae endures because the message continues to be vital to each and every one of us," Bogart adds.

The bacchants referred to Dionysus as "the god of letting go," reminding us that if we do not respect the wildness that is part and parcel of being human, we may fall prey to the tyranny of excessive order or the frenzy of collective passion. Today the play resonates with our current social and political situation. We must learn to curb our hubris and our fear of the irrational, the unknown, and the foreign.

Aaron Poochigian's new translation of The Bacchae will be performed by Ellen Lauren (Dionysus), Barney O'Hanlon (Tiresias), Stephen Duff Webber (Cadmus), Eric Berryman (Pentheus), J. Ed Ariaza (Soldier), Leon Ingulsrud (First Messenger), Gian-Murray Gianino (Second Messenger), Akiko Aizawa (Agave), Roshni Shukla (Chorus) and Samuel Stricklen (Chorus). The set and lighting designs are by Brian H Scott, costume design by Eleni Kyriacou, and sound design by Darron L West. Erik Sanko is the composer of the score.

Theater artists, actors, dancers, performers, and directors will have the opportunity to join a Master Class with Siti Company, introducing two actor training methods, Suzuki and Viewpoints, both practiced by SITI-Company. Master Class: Introduction to Suzuki & Viewpoints with Siti Company is co-presented by BAM and Mark Morris Dance Group. It will take place on October 10, 2018, at 12 pm and the Mark Morris Dance Center, located at 3 Lafayette Avenue in Brooklyn.) Price: $25. Visit BAM.org/master-classes for more information and to register.

Following the performance of The Bacchae on October 4, 2018, Siti Company will celebrate its 25th anniversary with a special Autumn Benefit at Urban Glass. The benefit starts at 5:30 PM with cocktails, followed by a dinner and an After-Party with dancing, drinks and desserts. The benefit will raise funds for Siti Company allowing the continuations of the company's investment in the creation of new work and to support their programs for the training of the next generation of theater artists. Urban Glass is located at 647 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, NY. For information, visit siti.org/2018benefit.

This adaptation of The Bacchae was commissioned by the J. Paul Getty Museum and first performed at the Getty Villa on September 5, 2018. The Bacchae are part of Speaking Truth to Power, Co-Presented by BAM and the Onassis Cultural Center New York.

Anne Bogart (Director)

Anne Bogart is one of the three Co-Artistic Directors of the Siti Company, which she founded with Japanese director Tadashi Suzuki in 1992. She is a Professor at Columbia University where she runs the Graduate Directing Program. Works with SITI include Chess Match No. 5, Persians; Steel Hammer; A Rite; Café Variations; Trojan Women (After Euripides); American Document; Antigone; Under Construction; Freshwater; Who Do You Think You Are?; Radio Macbeth; Hotel Cassiopeia; Death and the Ploughman; La Dispute; Score; bobrauschenbergamerica; Room; War of the Worlds-the Radio Play; Cabin Pressure; Alice's Adventures; Culture of Desire; Bob; Going, Going, Gone; Small Lives/Big Dreams; The Medium; Noel Coward's Hay Fever and Private Lives; August Strindberg's Miss Julie; and Charles Mee's Orestes. Recent operas include Handel's Alcina, Verdi's Macbeth, Bellini's Norma, and Bizet's Carmen. She is the author of five books: A Director Prepares; The Viewpoints Book; And Then, You Act; Conversations with Anne; and What's the Story.

Aaron Poochigian (translator) was born in 1973. He attended Moorhead State University from 1991 to 1996 where he studied under the poets Tim Murphy, Dave Mason, and Alan Sullivan. He entered graduate school for Classics in 1997 at the University of Minnesota. After traveling and doing research in Greece on a fellowship from 2003-04, he earned his Ph.D. in Classics in 2006. He was a visiting professor of Classics at the University of Utah from2007-08 and D.L. Jordon Fellow at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia from 2008-09. He now lives and writes in New York City.

Poochigian has recently completed translations, with introduction and notes, of Sappho's poems and fragments for Penguin Classics (due out Spring of 2009). His translations of Aeschylus, Aratus, and Apollonius of Rhodes will appear in the Norton Anthology of Greek Literature in Translation (due out Spring of 2009), and Johns Hopkins University Press will put out his edition of Aratus' astronomical poem, The Phaenomena, with his introduction and notes, in the Spring of 2010. His original poems have appeared in numerous journals, including Arion, The Dark Horse, Poetry Magazine, and Smartish Pace.

Brian H Scott (lighting and set designer) hails from New York City. He is a Siti Company member and has designed lighting for Café Variations and Trojan Women in association with the Getty Villa; American Document with the Martha Graham Company, and Under Construction, Who Do You Think You Are, Hotel Cassiopeia, Death and the Ploughman, bobrauschenbergamerica (Henry Hewes Design Award 2004), and War of the Worlds-the Radio Play. With Rude Mechanicals, he has designed Stop Hitting Yourself; Now Now Oh Now, Method Gun, I've Never Been So Happy, How Late It Was, How Late, Lipstick Traces, Requiem for Tesla, and Matchplay. He designed lighting for Ann Hamilton's the event of a thread. Recently, he designed lighting for Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet's Landfall, O Guru Guru Guru, and Death Tax with Actors Theatre of Louisville.

Darron L West (sound designer) has been a Siti Company member since 1993. He is a TONY and OBIE award-winning sound designer whose work for theater and dance has been heard in over 600 productions all over the United States and internationally in 14 countries. His accolades include the 2012 Tony Award, the 1998 OBIE award for SITI's Bob, the 2012 Princess Grace Statue as well as the Drama Desk, Lortel, Audelco, Entertainment Design Magazine EDDY, Henry Hewes and Lucille Lortel Awards.

Eleni Kyriacou (costume designer) began her fashion label in 2011 and designed costumes for the first time (for dance) in 2016 for The Olympic Torch Lighting Ceremony in Ancient Olympia for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. These costumes are now housed in The Olympic Museum, Lausanne. Eleni Kyriacou is a London born Greek Cypriot. She studied architecture at The Bartlett, University College London and textile design at Central Saint Martins. Before launching her label, Eleni apprenticed for the late Alexander McQueen. Her studio is based in Athens, Greece. All costumes for The Bacchae were designed and made in Athens, Greece.

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