Created during the first weeks of lockdown, Artistic Director of Out of Chaos Paul O’Mahony contacted Harvard University’s Center for Hellenic Studies to suggest they collaborate on an online project reading Greek tragedies with a group of international performers.

Within the week, Reading Greek Tragedy Online was born and the first episode, Euripides’ Helen, was livestreamed. Since then, weekly performances continued and to date, the project has engaged 115 actors and academics from the UK, US, Canada, France, Mexico, Greece, Australia, Cyprus and India.

Hosted by Joel Christensen of Brandeis University, each episode is a modern, accessible, and informative exploration of a classic text, read in English. As part of the project’s educational commitment, each episode (both live stream and YouTube hosted recording) can be accessed for free. 

This year, the project moves to a monthly stream. March marks the anniversary of RGTO’s first stream (31 March) and returns to an exploration of Euripides’ Helen with academic insight from the University of Bristol’s Lyndsay Coo (translation by D. Rayor). The reading on Wednesday 28 April is Apollonius of Rhodes’ Argonautica with Jackie Murray (University of Kentucky). 

O’ Mahony said: “We started Reading Greek Tragedy Online to create a community at a time when we were all separated from each other. I missed the sense of sharing something with people, and this was the perfect outlet for us to be creative. It meant we could work with artists from around the globe and explore plays with such extraordinary resonance for our world - plays that speak so closely to the pandemic, Black Lives Matter, leadership, identity and family. We’ve ended up with an extraordinary International ensemble, and we now want to build on the series’ success with workshops, masterclasses, performances and residencies in the future.”

All shows are available to live stream or to view as recordings at the Center for Hellenic Studies’ You Tube Channel HERE. Previous recordings can also be viewed on the Out of Chaos website HERE.