BACCHAE Comes to New York Euripides Free Summer Theater Festival This Month

New York Euripides Summer Festival presents BACCHAE beginning June 26th and running through June 30th at three popular venues. The festival's closing season coincides with American Thymele Theatre's 30 year span of offering quality Greek theater to all audiences free of charge. Award winning director Lorca Peress directs a cast of 16 headed by veteran actor Stephen Diacrussi.

Widely considered Euripides' magnum opus, BACCHAE centers on Dionysus, god of wine and revelry, son of Zeus and Semele, a mortal woman of Thebes. Dionysus arrives in Thebes angered at the people of the city for denying his worship. He sends them to the forest in fits of madness where they become Bacchants, observing his frenzied rituals. Dionysus is furious with his cousin Pentheus, ruler of Thebes, who refuses to accept his divinity. Ignoring the advice of Cadmus, their paternal forebear and the blind prophet Tiresias, Pentheus seeks to destroy Dionysus. Now disguised as a mortal, Dionysus cleverly appeals to Pentheus' curiosity, convincing him to dress as a woman and go to the forest where the Bacchants, along with his mother Agave, threaten a shocking demise.

American Thymele Theatre was founded in 1993 with the mission of preserving and publicizing Greek culture in America by producing timeless Greek themed plays made accessible to the public at no cost. ATT presented rarely produced Greek themed plays such as Barefoot in Athens, Kourosand The Grocer's Daughter, performed in New York and at venues across the U.S. among other rarities to American audiences. ATT has held New York Euripides Summer Festival since 2009, producing critically acclaimed productions of Rhesus, Alcestis, Medea and many others at the former East River Park Amphitheater and numerous off-Broadway venues. During the pandemic it offered the pioneering, digital productions of Helen, Electra, Orestes and Ion. This production of BACCHAE marks the completion of NYESF's goal of producing all of Euripides' extant plays in chronological order.

Stephen Diacrussi is a character actor whose many credits include outstanding roles in The Marriage Proposal, The Clouds and The General's Daughter. He counts a myriad of credits in classical drama and musical theater and played contrasting parts in the long running off-Broadway hit, Socrates, Socrates at The Actors' Playhouse. In film he's appeared in The Rehearsal, In the Name of the Father, Meet the Parents and The Invitation and on TV in Law and Order: SVU, The Sopranos and starred at Pope Gregory the Great in Saints Alive. He is the founder of American Thymele Theatre.

Lorca Peress is a freelance director. who has directed plays for HERE, La Mama, Public Theater's Joe's Pub, Repertorio Espanol, New Jersey Repertory and Urban Stages. She's been on NYU's Tisch Undergraduate faculty for the Lee Strasberg Institute since 2001. She is an Innovative Theater Award nominee and a La MaMa Inky Award recipient, among an impressive array of honors and grants. She is the founder and artistic director of MultiStages. 

BACCHAE begins Monday 6/26 at Actors' Temple Theatre (339 W. 47th St)at 8PM and continues at AMT Theater (354 W. 45th St.) on Tues. 6/27 at 8PM, Wed. 6/28 at 3PM and 8PM and Thurs. 6/29 at 8PM. The Friday 6/30 show takes place at Marilyn Monroe Theatre (115 E. 15th St) at 8PM. Free admission is available on a first come, first served basis. Fri. 6/30 limited seating only. For further information go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bacchae-tickets-652457587207?aff=ebdssbdestsearch

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