Oresteia by Park Avenue Armory

AESCHYLUS, ROBERT ICKE

ORESTEIA

WELCOME We are delighted to welcome Robert Icke back to the Wade Thompson Drill Hall for an ambitious merging of theatricality and clever multimedia integration in his productions of Hamlet and Oresteia. This summer, these productions play in repertory for the first time, allowing us to show the through lines and connections Rob explores in his pairing of these classic dramas—depicting two epic family sagas written over 2,000 years apart—which will be performed by an ensemble of incredible actors. Robert Icke is a visionary director who is disrupting the way audiences consume classical works. Rob’s directorial approach recontextualizes and democratizes classic texts that are often seen as inaccessible, catapulting them into the modern world and upholding their relevance through his cogent adaptations of works like Hamlet, Oresteia, and Enemy of the People—all of which we’ve been proud to present at the Armory. The Armory is committed to providing the space for fresh, innovative perspectives from vanguard artists working around the world. We are proud that our Drill Hall offers artists like Rob the chance to ask questions and break boundaries by mounting these modern, relevant works, and are enthusiastic to work with him and his team to present these two classics, reinterpreting their timeless lessons for the modern world. Rebecca Robertson Founding President and Executive Producer Pierre Audi Marina Kellen French Artistic Director

2022 SE ASON SPONSORS

Support for Park Avenue Armory’s artistic season has been generously provided by the Charina Endowment Fund, the Donald A. Pels Charitable Trust, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, the Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, the Marc Haas Foundation, The Prospect Hill Foundation, The Emma and Georgina Bloomberg Foundation, the Leon Levy Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Gregory Annenberg Weingarten, GRoW @ Annenberg, the Richenthal Foundation, and the Isak and Rose Weinman Foundation. Additional support has been provided by the Armory’s Artistic Council. Cover Photo: Miles Aldridge 2

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PARK AVENUE ARMORY PRESENTS

NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE

ORESTEIA

AFTER AESCHYLUS, ADAPTED BY ROBERT ICKE WADE THOMPSON DRILL HALL JULY 8 – AUGUST 13, 2022 Robert Icke Direction Hildegard Bechtler Set and Costume Design Natasha Chivers Lighting Design Tom Gibbons Sound Design Tim Reid Video Design Anthony Almeida Associate Director Ilinca Radulian Associate Director Deborah Hecht Dialect Coach Thomas Schall Fight Director

STARRING Michael Abubakar, Tia Bannon, Bartley Booz*, Lise Bruneau*, Marty Cruickshank, Calum Finlay, Alexis Rae Forlenza*, Joshua Higgott, Anastasia Hille, Wesley Holloway*, Jacqueline Jarrold*, Gilbert Kyem Jnr, Andrew Long*, Hudson Paul*, Imani Jade Powers*, Elyana Faith Randolph*, Kirsty Rider, Harry Smith*, Luke Treadaway, Ross Waiton, Peter Wight, Angus Wright, and Hara Yannas

Casting by Julia Horan and Jim Carnahan, C.S.A.

Company Stage Manager Heidi Lennard Deputy Stage Manager Natalie Braid Stage Manager Caroline Englander* Assistant Stage Manager Kasson Marroquin* Assistant Stage Manager Katie Young*

A PARK AVENUE ARMORY AND ALMEIDA THEATRE PRODUCTION This production had its world premiere at The Almeida Theatre in London produced by The Almeida Theatre and was produced in the West End by Ambassador Theatre Group and Sonia Friedman Productions. This performance is approximately 3 hours and 55 minutes with two (2) intermissions and one (1) pause. *Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

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RUNNING IN REPERTORY WITH

OTHER HAPPENINGS

June 10 – August 13

ARTIST TALK: ORESTEIA WITH ROBERT ICKE AND BRANDEN JACOBS-JENKINS

HAMLET

The Olivier Award-winning director Robert Icke unleashes his visionary creativity at the Armory with the North American premiere of a radical new staging of Shakespeare’s classic. This highly charged staging transforms the traditional family drama into a psychological thriller, transporting the action to our current surveillance society in which rolling media news feeds provide juicy updates of a life lived on screen while blurring the lines between public and private life. Alex Lawther (The Imitation Game, The Last Duel, The French Dispatch, Black Mirror) portrays the obsessive prince consumed by grief, brilliantly embodying his mental decay to boldly examine the devastating effects his anguish has not only on his own psyche, but on his family and country.

Thursday, August 4, 2022 at 5:30pm

ARMORY AFTER HOURS Join us after select evening performances for libations with fellow attendees at a special bar in one of our historic period rooms.

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ORESTEIA CAST

IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE Michael Abubakar Calchas Angus Wright Agamemnon/Aegisthus Kirsty Rider Doctor Luke Treadaway Orestes Elyana Faith Randolph*†, Alexis Rae Forlenza*†† Iphigenia Hudson Paul*†, Wesley Holloway*†† Young Orestes Anastasia Hille Klytemnestra Tia Bannon Electra Peter Wight Menelaus Joshua Higgott Talthybias (u/s Orestes) Marty Cruickshank Cilissa/Fury Hara Yannas Cassandra/Athene Calum Finlay Ensemble Gilbert Kyem Jnr Ensemble Ross Waiton Ensemble

UNDERSTUDIES Bartley Booz* (u/s Calchas/Talthybius) Lise Bruneau* (u/s Klytemnestra/Cilissa/Fury) Jacqueline Jarrold* (u/s Doctor) Andrew Long* (u/s Agamemnon/Aegisthus) Imani Jade Powers* (u/s Cassandra/Athene) Harry Smith* (u/s Menelaus)

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. † Appears Jul 8, 11, 13, 18, 20, 23, 27, 29; Aug 1, 4, 9, 11, 13 †† Appears Jul 9, 12, 14, 16, 19, 22, 25, 26, 30; Aug 3, 5, 6, 8, 10

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SUFFERING TO LEARN: THE ENDURING APPEAL OF THE ORESTEIA “This has all happened before,” says the prophet Calchas near the beginning of this play. His words ring true in too many ways. Plots and motifs recur throughout the stories of the Oresteia; and the tales of the family of Agamemnon, Klytemnestra, and Orestes were revisited continually in the ancient world. Above all, the themes at home to this tradition resonate over time. The Oresteia’s tale of foreign wars and sordid personal betrayals feel familiar to modern audiences too. This particular retelling’s setting in the courtroom and bedrooms of a family torn apart by their duties to each other, to their state, and to their gods is too close for comfort indeed.

The personal reading, however, does not fully explain the sustained interest in the story over time. Like any myth, part of what makes the Orestes story compelling is its flexibility and adaptability. In the Homeric Odyssey, Orestes is repeatedly hailed as a returning avenger and a model for Odysseus’ son Telemachus, while Klytemnestra, whose infidelity sets Agamemnon up to be murdered by his cousin and her lover Aegisthus, is contrasted with the loyal and wise Penelope. The Odyssey nevertheless ends in a similar tension between the family and the state: Odysseus’ murder of the suitors instates a pattern of vengeance that is only resolved by divine intervention when Athena stops a civil war on Ithaca by declaring that they should forget the In a sense, the narrative details that make up the Oresteia have been murders and “let peace and wealth be enough.” a product of adaptation from their earliest occurrences. Our fullest version of the narrative, however, exerts a particular gravity on all The story of Agamemnon and his family was popular throughout others. Aeschylus’ Oresteia is the only complete trilogy of plays to ancient Greece, but the city of Athens in the 5th century BCE have survived from Ancient Athens. The three plays—Agamemnon, witnessed retellings by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Each Libation Bearers, and the Eumenides—were originally performed poet adapted the events of the tale, but emphasized various concerns in competition at the City Dionysia in Athens in 458 BCE. They about the dueling loyalties of family and state, the tension between earned the first prize and were celebrated enough to inspire rivalry divine decree and human law, cyclical violence, and the question and allusion for the next two generations of playwrights at the least. of how we live with one another despite these often contradictory demands. Athens may be famous today as a democracy that provided These plays provide a unique opportunity for audiences to consider a the foundation of later art, philosophy, and science, but the city’s sustained treatment of interlocking themes over three distinct plots: governance changed rapidly in the 5th century as it developed into the deadly homecoming of a warrior king; the struggle of a son to a local imperial power after helping to repel the Persian invasion avenge his father by murdering his mother; and the religious and of 480-479 BCE. Foreign campaigns, a growing and increasingly existential crisis faced by that son when divine justice demands his diverse polity, new revenues, and rivalry with cities like Sparta put punishment for the very deed a god demanded he carry out. These pressure on the city’s democratic institutions, which had always been plots stretch across backdrops of gender conflict and the incestuous vulnerable to aristocratic rivalries and popular demagogues. confusion between the house of a ruling family and the political survival of the state. When Aeschylus’ Oresteia was performed, it united myth and contemporary events by providing an etiological narrative for the The Oresteia emerges from stories surrounding the Trojan War. creation of trial by jury at the beginning of what might be considered Agamemnon famously led a coalition of Greek states to punish the Athens’ “Golden Age.” Aeschylus’s tale adapts the narrative to bring city of Troy over the abduction of his brother Menelaus’ wife, Helen, Orestes from Sparta, where he killed his mother, to Athens for trial by Paris, a prince of the Trojan city. As part of the larger narrative and cleansing. It is, in a way, a chauvinistic, even imperial vision. The world that supports the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, the Greek fleet is story proceeds from an intense family drama set against the backdrop becalmed at a place called Aulis as it sets off for Troy, and the gods of a prolonged war against an eastern enemy, and then moves through require Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to make the bloody outcome of a homecoming to the essential question of amends for offense against Artemis. (This story is told in Euripides’ how to reconcile the debts of the past with the needs of the present. Iphigenia at Aulis). The sacrifice is part of the reason that his wife, The debates between the earth-bound goddesses of vengeance (the Klytemnestra, helps to arrange his murder upon his return home. Eumenides) and the god of prophecy, song, and law (Apollo), are The basic Orestes myth is intensely personal: it intermixes heroic mediated by the city’s patron goddess (Athena). narratives of withdrawal and return with family concerns of intergenerational violence and gender conflicts. Its denouement in the struggle between the Furies (the Eumenides) and Apollo over Orestes’ killing of his mother, Klytemnestra, has been framed as patriarchal: the ultimate pardon of Orestes for the murder of his mother emphasizes the father’s position in the family (and the city) above all else. 6

Aeschylus’ version of the Oresteia, then, uses myth to project an optimistic view of the audience’s present, framing human institutions as a means for redressing historical tensions. Such optimism, however, is belied by Athenian history and somewhat out of place today. Athenian politics were dominated by factional strife; the Oresteia, then, finds natural resonance for audiences who have witnessed

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foreign wars and increasingly factionalized politics. Americans have seen two decades of our leaders returning in failure from prolonged, avoidable foreign conflicts. Few modern democracies have avoided increased conflict and many now see the threat of looming violence. Following Brexit and the election of President Donald J Trump, electoral contests in the UK and the US look like pitched battles between hostile camps. With the pressure of a multiyear pandemic, growing demands for racial justice, and a conservative backlash that marginalizes people for their gender, sexual orientation, race, and national origin, anyone might wonder how we can keep the peace much less govern together. So a, if not the question of a modern Oresteia, is how does a community even imagine a future together in the shadow of past atrocities?

is how he centralizes Klytemnestra as a character: unlike in the Homeric telling where she merely facilitates her husband’s murder, Aeschylus’ Klytemnestra is a fully realized agent and a political force in her husband’s absence.

The main family characters in Icke’s play show their depth and confusion during cross-examination. The performance demonstrates the pain of self-knowledge and emphasizes that most central narrative arc of ancient tragedy: the path to recognition (Greek, anagnorisis). Whatever the details of the personal and political forces that shape the lives of Orestes’ family, the tragedy echoes the lesson from the beginning of the Homeric Odyssey: the gods may set a terrible fate for us, but we make it worse through our own recklessness. It is a hard lesson that resonates today, but perhaps best summed up by The ancient Oresteia offered more than a merely academic question Aeschylus himself when the chorus of the original Agamemnon sings to its audiences, in sensing the potential for factionalism within a that human beings “learn by suffering.” democracy. Two generations after the performance of the trilogy, Athens fell to its rival Sparta and, following a bloody period of oligarchic rule, attempted to enforce an amnesty for all crimes committed to stem the tide of retributive legal action and extralegal Dr. Joel P. Christensen is Professor of Classical Studies and Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs at Brandeis University. His research focuses on Homeric violence. But the memory of suffering is not easily erased. Politics demands some level of forgetting for states to survive, even as individual lives depend on memory and memory sharpens in pain. The compromise at the end of the Oresteia echoes the very difficult truth of ancient and modern states: stability demands peace over vengeance, frequently at the cost of ensuring that justice is served. The ancient Greek word for the ending of the Eumenides and Homer’s Odyssey is stasis, which can mean “balance” or “standing still.” This very word also means “faction” and “political strife,” in the sense that such balance, or tension, defines politics.

Poetry, literary theory, narrative traditions, and performance.

Robert Icke’s adaptation capitalizes upon the themes common to epic and tragedy by blending the genres in a staging that is responsive to the expectations and experiences of modern audiences. In offering a single play for the trilogy, this adaptation echoes ancient performances where audiences viewed the entire narrative in one sitting. The characters who appear in this performance, moreover, come from the larger mythical narrative—this is not just Aeschylus’ Oresteia. Instead, it includes features and turns from Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, Sophocles’ Electra, and Euripides’ Iphigenia at Aulis to provide the whole story of the family’s violence and suffering across the span of the Trojan War. In centralizing the courtroom setting of the play, Icke’s production also emphasizes the psychological tension of the tragic genre. The audience becomes the ancient chorus and replacement jurors, witnesses, and desperate investigators for the truth. One of the most innovative and challenging things about Aeschylus’ ancient staging armoryonpark.org

THE HOUSE WE CALL DEMOCRACY “But you pay your money, you make your choice.” In Robert Icke’s Oresteia, Calchas’s words to Agamemnon in the first Act, as he sells him a prophecy, are a kind of metatheatrical joke. Athenian audiences of Greek tragedy understood that the price of the theater ticket was responsible deliberation, of a piece with voting on civic business in the democratic assembly and casting votes to acquit or condemn their fellow citizens in the lawcourts. Aristotle sums it up in Book 3 of the Politics, where he defines a citizen “in the strictest sense” as one who participates in judgment and has a share in political rule. The three plays that make up Aeschylus’ Oresteia, which won first prize in the dramatic competition at the City Dionysia in Athens in 458 BCE, dramatize the stakes of political decision-making and are the most intensely civic-minded tragedies to survive from ancient Athens.* The theater audience in Athens were implicated in these high-stakes scenes of deliberation acted out on stage through the screen of mythical distance. Like Aeschylus’ Oresteia, Robert Icke’s adaptation blurs the lines between artistic critique, ethical judgement, and political deliberation. So do not sit too comfortably in your seats—you’re here to judge.

In Icke’s Oresteia, the stage set is dominated by a family dining table, reminding us of the corrupted feasts that haunt the house of Atreus as we watch the present generation consume each other in a succession of filicide, parricide, and matricide. In the US, the Oresteia is entwined with civic memory in the quotation from Aeschylus’ Agamemnon which Robert Kennedy recited in a speech in Indianapolis on April 4, 1968, breaking the news of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. Kennedy quoted Edith Hamilton’s translation of Aeschylus’ Greek: “And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget, falls drop by drop upon the heart, and in our own despair against our will, comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God”—a slightly modified version of Hamilton’s translation—to enjoin his distraught audience not to give rein to anger and civil unrest. In the wake of this American Oresteia, for some of us the table, which doubles as a sacrificial altar for the murder of the young Iphigenia, might also signify King’s invocation of the “table of brotherhood,” as well as his reference to the “stale bread of hatred and the spoiled meat of racism” in his eulogy for the four young girls (Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Addie Mae Collins, and Carole Robertson) murdered by the KKK in the basement of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, It is not a given that contemporary adaptations of Greek tragedy Alabama in September 1963. will rhyme with history, and when they do, it is the contemporary playwrights who produce the rhymes. A compelling adaptation needs In a cynical version of “the awful grace of God,” Icke’s play begins both a keen sense of our now and a deep feel for the relationship with with the prophet Calchas invoking a catalogue of gods, godhead the past in Greek tragedy. That the original Greek plays are adaptable from plural religions and faiths, in an attempt to shore up the dire in the first place is due to the fact they were based on a widespread prophecy that he has relayed to Agamemnon. Religious authority myth-historical understanding of human experience that looked for becomes dramatic spectacle. Calchas repeats this invocation at the the changing same in human events. The re-versioning of existing start of trial of Orestes at the beginning of Act 4—a gesture that myths to make them salient for the present was the norm in Athenian recalls how Athenian litigants often tried to intimidate jurors by tragedy and Icke’s adaptation is part of this ancient relay. arguing that the votes which they cast in the lawcourts were subject to the higher justice of the gods and that the whole city would suffer When Robert Icke’s version of Aeschylus’ Oresteia opened at the the consequences if they got it wrong. Ancient Greek tragedy was Almeida Theatre in London in the summer of 2015, it was hard not to music, dance, poetry, religion, myth, history, and politics, seamlessly interpret the play in terms of the crises of the time—wars in Syria and integrated into ritual action. Through dramatic enactment these Afghanistan, and Brexit on the home front—a nation weighing up plays went right to the heart of the community’s structure and the the costs of war, and a house divided against itself. Seven years later, narratives that legitimized this structure. In Aeschylus’ Oresteia there with this new production, Icke’s adaptation seems freshly written to is a tension between Athena’s sacred position as the tutelary goddess capture the agony of Ukrainian civilians and soldiers, and for the rest of Athens and the deep questioning and perturbation of the entire of us, the sense of being useless spectators of a war that should never religious and mythical superstructure in the language and plot of have happened. Who can hear the phrase “The child is the price of the trilogy, including bringing Athena on stage in the final play to the war” in Icke’s play and not crumple inside? In the hands of the account for her version of justice. If Athenian drama was a ritual South African playwright Yaël Farber, the mythical cycle of the house performance, it also performed ritual for its audiences and compelled of Atreus was a powerful dramatic lens through which to reflect on them to become spectators of their own religious life, scrutinizing the the repercussions of apartheid and the hearings of the Truth and justice of the gods and the certainty of their prophets. Reconciliation Commission in South Africa. Farber’s play Molora, first produced in Johannesburg in 2007, used the cycle of internecine A frequent cry in surviving Athenian tragedy is the exclamation, ti killings in the house of Atreus as an allegory for the family of the drasô (what shall I do?). This question epitomizes the deliberative nation and its attempt to redress the past without repeating it. aspect of Greek tragedy—the co-optation of the chorus and the theater audience in the decisions faced by the onstage characters. One 8

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way of viewing the Libation Bearers, the second play in Aeschylus’ trilogy, is as a drama or crisis of doing and indecision. This arc of indecision continues, from the early scenes of the play, where Electra asks the women of the chorus what she should do, through to the final scenes of the play where Orestes, havering about whether or not to kill his mother, asks his best friend Pylades, flat-out, “What do I do, Pylades? How can I kill my mother?” The crisis that faces Klytemnestra, Electra, Orestes, the Furies, Apollo, and Athena, is simultaneously a crisis for the audience who, even though they already know the myths on which the plots of Greek tragedy are based, are forced by the drama to keep time with the characters and to experience the unfolding of plot through their actions. This is how the Athenian dramatists kept their audiences hanging on, by showing us the hinge-points of decision making slowed down, where things might perhaps have gone differently. The scholar Rush Rehm puts this well when he says, “…we might say that tragedy locates its characters in frightening, high-stakes situations for which they bear more or less responsibility, and then demands that they act. The Greek word for this predicament, krisis, does not indicate breakdown or chaos—as in our word ‘crisis’—but rather implies a choice or decision.” Robert Icke captures the restless, questioning energy of this process. The Oresteia requires its audiences to ponder, as a heterogeneous collective: what action to take in an irresolvable crisis where any remedial or reparative action has the potential to engender further crisis. There is no judicial script for a bind of this complexity. In the minds of Aeschylus’ audience, filial piety was a clear imperative. Part of the dokimasia (scrutiny), which young men had to undergo to qualify for citizenship in Athens, involved a question about whether the would-be citizen had treated his parents well. Similarly, any Athenian who was a candidate for a civic office had to satisfy the relevant body that they treated their parents well. It does not take much imagination to see how the scenario of the Oresteia puts unbearable pressure on conventional models of filial piety. To put it crudely: avenging your father’s murder might be pious but doing so by murdering your mother is not. It is the irresolvable crisis and the corresponding “civic ambiguity” to which it gives rise, and which Aeschylus manages to sustain over three plays, that makes the play so current whenever societies are consciously wrestling with national trauma and seemingly unbridgeable divisions within the citizen body. What happens to those on the other side? How do they cope with their loss in status, honor, and privileges? How can a society that thrives on adversarial contests balance competition and placate those who lose? Political theory is still preoccupied with these questions. The Oresteia stages this crisis of action in the heart of the city. This is not just about what Agamemnon did or didn’t do, what Klytemnestra did or didn’t do, what Orestes did or didn’t do. Introducing her translation of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, the first play in Aeschylus’ trilogy, Anne Carson wrote, “Violence in Agamemnon emanates spectacularly from

one particular word: justice. … The play shows that the word makes different sense to different people and how blinding or destructive it can be to believe your ‘justice’ is the true one.” Claudia Rankine brought this home to us with a homophonic pun on “justice” and “just us,” then Amanda Gorman doubled down with the ringing line that “the norms and notions of what ‘just’ is isn’t always justice.” Modern productions of ancient Greek tragedy make their characters late. By the time they take the stage, their dramas have played out thousands of times. The characters in Robert Icke’s play live uneasily in language, repeatedly asking “what does it mean?” Even the prophet Calchas, who traffics in semiotic ambivalence, is not entirely disrespectful of empirical knowledge: “forewarned is forearmed. Not forestalled. There’s no armor that protects you from the future. It comes.” When a journalist asks Agamemnon in a media interview, “Do you look to history? Do you study other conflicts?” and Agamemnon gives the smug reply, “I try and look forward rather than backward,” the tragic irony howls. Do not sit too comfortably in your seats. This stunning play is work, work on the house that we call democracy.

Emily Greenwood is Professor of Classics and the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University. In her research and teaching she specializes in ancient Greek literature and its modern reception. * When first produced in 458 BCE at the City Dionysia in Athens the Oresteia was part of a tetralogy, capped by a satyr play, Proteus, which has not survived.

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CREATIVE TEAM WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (PLAYWRIGHT) ROBERT ICKE (DIRECTOR) Elizabethan English poet, playwright, and actor William Shakespeare (1564-1616) is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. Shakespeare’s work includes 38 plays, two narrative poems, 154 sonnets, and a variety of other poems. His works have been translated into every modern language and are performed around the globe, inspiring new adaptations and works across artistic genres. Previous Shakespearean works presented at Park Avenue Armory include: an immersive Macbeth set in a Scottish heath with Kenneth Branagh in 2014; and Julius Caesar, As You Like It, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet, and The Winter’s Tale performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company during their sixweek residency in 2011 in collaboration with Lincoln Center Festival.

Robert Icke is a writer and director. Recent productions include Enemy of the People at Park Avenue Armory (2021); Judas, After Nora, and Oedipus at Internationaal Theater Amsterdam (2022, 2020, 2018); and The Doctor at the Burgtheater, Vienna (2022), Internationaal Theater Amsterdam (2021), the Adelaide Festival (2019), and this year, the Duke of York’s Theatre in London’s West End (2022). His adaptation of Animal Farm has just completed a UK tour; and his 1984, which he co-adapted and directed with Duncan Macmillan, played for three summers in the West End (2014-6) and on Broadway in 2017. Other adapting and directing work includes Ivanov (Schauspiel Stuttgart, 2019), The Wild Duck (Almeida Theatre, 2018), Mary Stuart (West End, 2018), and Uncle Vanya (Almeida Theatre, 2016). He is the youngest ever winner of the Olivier Award for “Best Director” for Oresteia (2015), which also won the “Best Director” prize at both the Critics’ Circle and Evening Standard Theatre Awards. In 2018, Icke won the Kurt Hübner Award for his debut production in Germany The first of classical Athens’ great dramatists, Aeschylus (~525 BCEand was elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. For The 455 BCE) is known as the father of tragedy and the foundation for Doctor and The Wild Duck, he won a second Evening Standard Award understanding of Greek theater. He expanded the definition of for “Best Director” in 2019. Greek drama to include multiple actors, allowing for the evolution of dialogue and dramatic tension and a new variety and freedom in plot construction. In total, Aeschylus is estimated to have written between 70 and 90 plays, of which only seven survive; they include The Persians (472 BCE), Seven Against Thebes (467 BCE), The Suppliants (463 BCE), and Prometheus Bound (date disputed). His greatest masterpiece, The Oresteia (458 BCE), is comprised of three Hildegard Bechtler is an award-winning designer based in London. individual plays—Agamemnon, The Choephori (The Libation Bearers), Select theater credits: Arcadia, Primo, The Seagull (Broadway); The and The Eumenides—following the story of the end of the curse of the Sunshine Boys (Los Angeles); My Name is Rachel Corrie (Off-Broadway); house of Atreus; it remains the only Greek trilogy preserved into the After the Dance (Olivier Award); Iphigenia at Aulis (Evening Standard Award nomination); Antony and Cleopatra (Royal National Theatre); modern day. Top Hat (Olivier Award nomination), Hedda Gabler, The Crucible, The Master Builder; The Misanthrope (West End). She designed Krapp’s Last Tape with Harold Pinter at The Royal Court and, most recently, Four Quartets with Ralph Fiennes in the West End. Previous work with Robert Icke: Enemy of the People at Park Avenue Armory; Oresteia (Olivier Award nomination), Hamlet, Mary Stuart (Almeida, West End); The Doctor (Almeida, Internationaal Theater Amsterdam, Burg Theatre Vienna); Uncle Vanya (Almeida); Ivanov (Stuttgart Schauspielhaus); Oedipus, Kinderen van Nora, Judas (Internationaal Theater Amsterdam). Her numerous designs for opera and ballet include productions for Opéra National de Paris, Salzburg Festival, Santa Fe Opera, La Scala, and the Royal Opera House, as well as the world premieres of The Exterminating Angel for the Metropolitan Opera and The Cellist for the Royal Ballet. Bechtler won the Australian Green Room Award for Best Opera Design for Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk at Sydney Opera House.

AESCHYLUS (PLAYWRIGHT)

HILDEGARD BECHTLER (SET AND COSTUME DESIGN)

NATASHA CHIVERS (LIGHTING DESIGN)

TAL YARDEN (VIDEO DESIGN, HAMLET)

Natasha Chivers is a London-based lighting designer. Her extensive work in theater/dance/opera includes Prima Facie (Pinter Theatre, West End); Enemy of People (Park Avenue Armory, New York); Message in a Bottle, Electric Hotel (Sadler’s Wells); Drive and Live: La Bohème (ENO); The Doctor, Hamlet, and Oresteia (Almeida Theatre); Judas, Oedipus (Toneelgroep Amsterdam); The Antipodes, Statement of Regret (National Theatre); Allelujah! (The Bridge Theatre); The Duchess of Malfi (RSC); Belleville (Donmar Warehouse); Shoe Lady and Fireworks (Royal Court); 1984 (West End/Broadway); Electric Counterpoint, Strapless (Royal Ballet); Green Snake (National Theatre of China); Macbeth (Broadway); 27, The Wolves in the Walls and Home (National Theatre of Scotland); Sunday in the Park with George (West End). She has won an Olivier award and received a Drama Desk nomination in 2018 for 1984 on Broadway.

Tal Yarden is a director and media designer for theater, opera, and music. His design work includes: Get Up, Stand Up! (Lyric), Anna X (Pinter), Network (National/Broadway), Hamlet (Almeida/Pinter), My Brilliant Friend (National), Lazarus (Kings Cross), Roman Tragedies, Antigone, Obsessione, Antonioni Project, Kings of War (Barbican), Exterminating Angel (Royal Opera), Sunday in the Park with George, The Crucible, Indecent, Waverly Gallery (Broadway), Between the World and Me (Apollo), King Lear (Public), Mahagonny (Festival d’Aix), Boris Godounov (Opéra Bastille), Les Damnés (Comedie Francaise), Edward II, The Misanthrope (Schaubühne Berlin), Idomeneo, La Clemenza di Tito (La Monnaie), Brokeback Mountain (Teatro Real), Macbeth (Opéra de Lyon), Salome, Der Schatzgraber (De Nederlandse Opera), and Cries & Whispers (ITA). He has directed video for Pat McGrath, Rick Owens, Balenciaga, Alicia Keys, Snoop Dogg, and James Brown. Awards include: Lucille Lortel (Network), Moliere Award (Les Damnés), Drama Desk Nomination (Lazarus), Tony nomination (Network), WhatsOnStage nomination (Hamlet, Network).

TOM GIBBONS (SOUND DESIGN) Recent theater includes: Animal Farm (UK tour); West Side Story, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Bway); Cabaret (Goteborg Opera); Judas, Oedipus, The Doctor (International Theatre Amsterdam); The Antipodes, Home, I’m Darling, People, Places and Things (Olivier, Best Sound Design), Hedda Gabler, Sunset At The Villa Thalia, The Red Barn (National Theatre/West End); All About Eve (West End); Our Town (Regent’s Park); The Doctor, Wild Duck, Hamlet, Oresteia (Almeida/ West End); Madness of King George III (Nottingham Playhouse); Hexenjagd (Theater Basel); Mr Burns, 1984 (Almeida/West End/ Bway); Fanny and Alexander, The Lorax (Old Vic); A View From the Bridge (Young Vic/West End/Bway); Obsession (International Theatre Amsterdam, Barbican); Life of Galileo, Happy Days, A Season in the Congo, Disco Pigs, Best of Enemies (Young Vic); The Crucible (Theater Basel, Bway); Henry IV, Julius Caesar (Donmar, St Ann’s); The End of History, Pah La, The Woods, Love Love Love, Goats (Royal Court).

TIM REID (VIDEO DESIGN, ORESTEIA) Credits include: 1984 (Broadway/West End/Almeida/Tour); Oresteia, Ivanov (Stuttgart); Oresteia, Mary Stuart (Almeida/West End); The Red Barn (National Theatre); The Tsar has his Photograph Taken (Scottish Opera); First Piano on the Moon, Oh Yes We Are! (Perth Theatre/Zoom); Quiz (Chichester Festival Theatre/West End); Show Boat (Sheffield Crucible/West End); Chaplin, The Tramp (Slovakia National Ballet); Macbeth, Fracked! (Chichester Festival Theatre); The Bubbly Black Girl Sheds Her Chameleon Skin (Theatre Royal Stratford East); If You Kiss Me, Kiss Me, La Musica (Young Vic); Can We Talk About This? (DV8 Physical Theatre); Blood Wedding (Dundee Rep/Graeae/Derby Playhouse); Meeting Bea, Where is Peter Rabbit?, Tell Me on a Sunday (The Old Laundry Theatre); Stemmer (Bergen National Opera); Scale (Scottish Dance Theatre); England in a Pink Blouse (Grid Iron); A Christmas Carol (Royal Lyceum Edinburgh); The Effect, Love Your Soldiers, The History Boys (Sheffield Crucible).

LAURA MARLING (COMPOSER) For the Almeida: Hamlet, Mary Stuart. Albums include: Song For Our Daughter, A Creature I Don’t Know, I Speak Because I Can, Alas I Cannot Swim. Laura Marling is a globally acclaimed songwriter and guitarist.

ANTHONY ALMEIDA (ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR) Anthony Almeida was a former Resident Director at the Almeida Theatre, where he directed Figures of Speech, and a former Link Artist Stage Director at the Royal Opera House. Theater includes: Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (Curve, English Touring Theatre). Opera includes: Mavra and Pierrot Lunaire (Royal Opera House). Forthcoming engagements include: Turn of the Screw (Royal Danish Opera). With Robert Icke, Anthony Almeida has both co-directed Oresteia (Staatstheater Stuttgart) and revived The Doctor (Adelaide Festival). Anthony Almeida is the only director to have won both the RTST Sir Peter Hall Director Award and the European Opera Director Prize. He currently serves on the Board of Trustees at Nottingham Playhouse.

ILINCA RADULIAN (ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR) As Assistant or Associate Director: The Night of the Iguana (West End), Summer and Smoke (West End), Mary Stuart (Almeida Theatre, West End, and UK tour), Hamlet (Almeida Theatre and West End), A Series of Increasingly Impossible Acts, Glitterland, Chamber Piece, A Streetcar Named Desire, Woyzeck (Secret Theatre at the Lyric Hammersmith and UK tour). As Director: Henry VI, Richard III (Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe), Luck Out, Roulette Player (The Yard). This summer, Ilinca Radulian is directing a new version of the Joan of Arc story for Shakespeare’s Globe. Radulian has a BA in English and Theater from Harvard University and an MFA in Theater Directing from Birkbeck, University of London.

DEBORAH HECHT (DIALECT COACH) Broadway: Over 95 productions, including How I Learned to Drive and Martin McDonagh’s Hangmen. Upcoming productions include Sing Street. Recent productions include Angels in America (both original and recent Broadway productions), The Ferryman. The full list can be seen on IMDb. Off-Broadway: hundreds of productions at Playwrights Horizons, MCC, MTC, Signature, the Vineyard, Laura Pels, others. Regional/International: Seattle Rep, Yale Rep, Long Wharf, Huntington, others. Royal National Theatre, RSC. Film: All the Money in the World, Under the Skin, others. TV: The Fall of the House of Usher, Law and Order (Jeffrey Donovan), others. Faculty: Juilliard.

THOMAS SCHALL (FIGHT DIRECTOR) At the Armory: Judgement Day, The Hairy Ape (Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Fight Choreography). On Broadway, over 100 shows: Company, A Soldier’s Play (Drama Desk award for Outstanding Fight Choreography), To Kill A Mockingbird, The Music Man, True West, Waitress, The Inheritance, Network, The Front Page, War Horse, The Crucible, Death of a Salesman, Venus In Fur, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear. At the Public Theater: The Visitor, Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, Hamlet, King Lear, Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice. At NYTW: Othello (Drama Desk nomination for Outstanding Fight Choreography), Red Speedo. At the Met Opera: Le nozze di Figaro, Il Trovatore, Tosca, Samson et Dalila.

NATALIE BRAID (DEPUTY STAGE JACK BRADFIELD (ASSISTANT DIRECTOR) MANAGER) Jack Bradfield is an award-winning playwright and director. He is Artistic Director of Poltergeist (“One of the UK’s Best Young Companies,” The Guardian), Resident Director at the Almeida Theatre, Associate Artist at the Rose Theatre, Kingston, and has worked as an Assistant Director with the ITA-Ensemble in Amsterdam. Work as writer-director includes: Ghost Walk, (New Diorama, starring Juliet Stevenson), Art Heist (New Diorama, Untapped Award 2019), and Lights Over Tesco Car Park (Pleasance, Samuel French New Play Award 2018). Upcoming work includes: Alice, Underground (Brixton House).

Natalie Braid is a freelance showcaller and stage manager, with over a decade’s experience running spectacular events. Originally from New Zealand, where she was the showcaller for the National Opera and tutored stage management for Unitec, she moved to the UK in 2016. Notable productions include the National Theatre’s When We Have Sufficiently Tortured Each Other, TFANA’s The Emperor, Netflix and Secret Cinema’s Stranger Things, and The Starry Messenger (West End Premiere). Braid is a proud British and New Zealand Equity member. Much aroha and mihi to her family in Aotearoa – Linda, Dennis, Eddy, and Napoleon.

CAROLINE ENGLANDER* (STAGE MANAGER) Broadway: King Lear. Off-Broadway: The Vagrant Trilogy, Julius Caesar, The Outer Space, The Civilians’ The Great Immensity, Richard Nelson’s The Apple Family Plays (The Public Theater/NYSF), sandblasted (Vineyard Theatre/WP Theater); runboyrun, In Old Age (NYTW); La Susanna (Heartbeat Opera/Opera Lafayette); Renascence, Summer and Smoke (Transport Group); Describe the Night (Atlantic Theater Company); The Courtroom, Hamlet (Waterwell); Sense & Sensibility (Bedlam); Little Children Dream of God (Roundabout). Tours: Hamlet and St. Joan (Bedlam). Various productions for NYU Tisch Graduate Acting. BA: Barnard College. e2.

KASSON MARROQUIN* (ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER) They/he. Off-Broadway: Out of Time (NAATCO and The Public Theater); The Thin Place (Playwrights Horizons); The Light, Charm (MCC). Regional: Quixote Nuevo (Hartford Stage), Kill Local (La Jolla Playhouse). Dance/Touring: The Big Five-OH!, Come to Your Senses, Shadowland, Shadowland the New Adventure, Pilobolus at The Joyce Theater (Pilobolus); On Their Bodies, Footprints (The American Dance Festival). Music/Opera: Path of Miracles, Tree of Codes (Spoleto Festival USA). Events: MCC Theater’s Miscast 2022 and 2019, Primary Stages Gala 2021, San Diego Comic-Con’s The Good Place Activation, Yo-Yo Ma’s Day of Action, Queer Liberation March Rally 2019.

KATIE YOUNG* (ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER)

JULIA HORAN (CASTING DIRECTOR, UK) Recent theater: The Wife of Willesden, Pass Over (Kiln); Macbeth, The Duchess of Malfi, The Doctor, Three Sisters, The Wild Duck, Machinal, The Writer, Oil, Uncle Vanya, Game, Mr Burns (Almeida); Summer and Smoke, Mary Stuart, Chimerica (Almeida/West End); The Inheritance (Young Vic/Noel Coward/Ethel Barrymore); The Jungle (Young Vic/ Playhouse/St Ann’s/Curran); Yerma (Young Vic/Park Ave Armory); A View From The Bridge (Young Vic/Wyndhams/Broadway); Blood Wedding, Jesus Hopped the A Train, Fun Home, Life of Galileo, Once in a Lifetime, Blue/Orange, Ah, Wilderness, Happy Days (Young Vic); Appropriate (Donmar); All About Eve (Noel Coward); Harry Potter and The Cursed Child (Palace Theatre/Lyric Theater); Hamlet (Barbican); Clybourne Park, Tribes, Adler & Gibb, Birdland (Royal Court); The Nether (Royal Court/West End); The Events (ATC/Young Vic/NYTW); A Doll’s House (Young Vic/West End/BAM). Recent Film/TV: The Exception; Departure; The Read, Together, Hamlet, Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere (BBC); The Trial – A Murder in the Family (C4).

JIM CARNAHAN CASTING (CASTING DIRECTOR, US) Jim Carnahan has cast over 150 Broadway shows. His work on Broadway this season includes: Funny Girl; Take Me Out; Plaza Suite; Harry Potter and the Cursed Child; Caroline, or Change; Moulin Rouge! The Musical; and The Lehman Trilogy as well as off-Broadway’s Little Shop of Horrors. Other work this season includes: Mad House and The 47th in London’s West End; A Beautiful Noise in Boston; A Christmas Carol in Los Angeles; and Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Swept Away, and A Christmas Carol in San Francisco. Upcoming Broadway work includes: Almost Famous, A Beautiful Noise, and Leopoldstadt. Upcoming Film: Ari Aster’s Disappointment Blvd.

She/her. Broadway/Tour: The King and I, Hamilton, Something Rotten, Once. Off-Broadway/Regional: A Case for the Existence of God (Signature), Terra Firma (The Coop), In The Green (LCT3), Norma Jeane Baker of Troy (The Shed), Ni Mi Madre, Lewiston/Clarkston, The Few (Rattlestick), What We’re Up Against (WP Theater), June Rites!!, The Courtroom, Blueprint Specials (Waterwell), Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Playwrights Horizons, The Pearl, RENT, Women of Will. As Director: VODVIL (The Magic Patio), Back and Forth (Super Secret Arts), Paradise Lost and Found (Isle of Shoals Productions), Loyalty (Without A Net Productions), Julius Caesar (Pocket Universe). Member of the 2019 Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab. Thanks TLCCGGx5 and Henry. 13

COMPANY MICHAEL ABUBAKAR (MARCELLUS, CALCHAS) Theater: The Tragedy of Macbeth (Almeida); King John/The Whip (Royal Shakespeare Company); The Glass Menagerie (Arcola Theatre/Wolford Palace Theatre); The Whip Hand (Traverse Theatre, Edinburgh); Cadaver Police in the Electrocution Afterlife (Tron Theatre); Invisible Army (Terra Incognita); Dream On (BBC Arts); Romeo & Juliet, Death of a Salesman, Ghosts (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland); Blood Lines (The Arches); Der Rosenkavalier (Scottish Opera House). Film: Artemis Fowl (Disney); Long Night at Blackstone (Hopscotch/BBC Scotland). TV: Crime (BritBox); Annika (Alibi); Grantchester (Kudos/ ITV); Motherland (BBC Two); News Crack (Electric Ray); Horrible Histories, Doctors (BBC); Trust Me (Red Prod Co).

TIA BANNON (GUILDENSTERN, ELECTRA) Tia Bannon trained at RADA. Theater: Seven Methods of Killing Kylie Jenner (Royal Court); House of Ife workshop (Bush Theatre); Losing Venice (Orange Tree); Faith, Hope and Charity workshop, All of Us workshop, Paradise workshop, Dead Don’t Floss (National Theatre); Abigail (Bunker Theatre); The Winter’s Tale, Pericles (The Globe); Camelot: The Shining City (Sheffield Theatres); Obamaology, Unprotected, Dogs Barking, Women of Twilight, The Double Dealer (RADA). TV: Shakespeare and Hathaway, Midsomer Murders. Film: Good Morning, Midnight (Netflix), Drifters. Shorts: Dead End, Nightless, Balls, Lynch, Oxygen & Terror. Radio: Pygmalion, Camberwell Green, Martians, Relativity 2,3,4.

BARTLEY BOOZ* (ENSEMBLE) Understudy Horatio/Rosencrantz/Calchas/Talthybius. Theater: The Play That Goes Wrong (Off-Broadway), For Annie (The Hearth), Park Plays (Queens Theater), Little League (Kraine Theater). Film/TV: “The Good Fight” (CBS), “Bull” (CBS), “Happy” (SyFy), Here and Now (Tribeca Film Festival), “TURN: Washington’s Spies” (AMC). BFA Acting CCM University of Cincinnati.

LISE BRUNEAU* (ENSEMBLE) Understudy Gertrude/Klytemnestra/Player Queen/Cilissa/Fury. Lise Bruneau has performed in theaters across the country and at the Roundabout appeared in Cherry Orchard with Diane Lane. Credits include: Sweat (ACT-SF); Watch on the Rhine, Junk, and Legacy of Light (Arena Stage); Hamlet and Othello (Shakespeare Theatre); Eureka Day; The Revolutionists; Threepenny Opera; Heartbreak House (Henry Award); Wars of the Roses; and Angels in America. Directing credits include: Measure for Measure; 4,000 Miles; Savage in Limbo; Hamlet; and many for Taffety Punk, including the Riot Grrrls’ Shakespeares, where she also performed the role of Iago. Bruneau trained at RADA and is proud to be a Taffety Punk.

MARTY CRUICKSHANK (PLAYER QUEEN, CILISSA, FURY) Theater includes: Henry VI (RSC); Uncle Vanya (Theatre Royal Bath); Hamlet (The Almeida); A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream, Richard II, The Heresy of Love, Hamlet (RSC); Much Ado About Nothing (Royal Exchange); Pygmalion (West End/Chichester Festival Theatre); Absurd Person Singular (West End); Early Days; A Fair Quarrel; The World Turned Upside Down; (RNT). Television includes: The Crown S5; Catastrophe; Call the Midwife; Babs; Line of Duty; Lewis; Spooks; Midsomer Murders; Road to Freedom. Film includes: London Wall; I, Anna; The Fool. Writing credits include: The Princess of Cleves (ICA); A Difficult Age (ETT); Why Things Happen (Second Stride); Bathing Elizabeth (Channel 4).

JENNIFER EHLE* (GERTRUDE) Broadway: Oslo, The Coast of Utopia (Tony), Design for Living, The Real Thing (Tony). Off-Broadway: Oslo (Lortell), Mr. and Mrs. Fitch. West End: The Philadelphia Story, The Real Thing, Tartuffe. National: Summerfolk. RSC: Richard III, The Painter of Dishonor. Select Film: Saint Maud, John and the Hole, Beneath the Blue Suburban Skies, Vox Lux, Monster, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Detroit, A Quiet Passion, Little Men, The Fundamentals of Caring, Advantageous, A Little Chaos, Zero Dark Thirty, Contagion, The Ides of March, The King’s Speech, Pride and Glory, Possession, Sunshine, Wilde, Paradise Road. Select TV: “Dead Ringers,” “The Comey Rule,” “The Blacklist,” “Pride and Prejudice (BaftA),” “The Camomile Lawn.”

CALUM FINLAY (ROSENCRANTZ, ENSEMBLE) Understudy Laertes. Trained at: LAMDA. Theater includes: Bloody Difficult Women (Riverside Studios), Switzerland (West End/Theatre Royal Bath), Mary Stuart, Hamlet (Almeida/West End), The Ghost Train, Too Clever by Half (Told by An Idiot/Manchester Royal Exchange), Dunsinane (RSC/NT Scotland, International Tour), Tartuffe (Birmingham REP), Merry Wives of Windsor, The Mouse and His Child, Macbeth, Jubilee (RSC), The Prince of Denmark (National Theatre). Film and TV includes: Bates of the Amazon, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Holby City.

ALEXIS RAE FORLENZA* (IPHIGENIA) Alexis Rae Forlenza is proud to make her Park Avenue Armory debut. Acting since age 5, she can be seen in The King of Staten Island, guest starring on several tv shows, and currently filming two motion pictures. She studies acting and dance and performed in local productions of Miracle on 34th Street/Henrika and Little Mermaid/ Ariel. Forlenza is a 4th grader from Long Island and enjoys soccer and spending time with her brother. Forlenza would like to thank CESD Talent Agency, Kogen Management, From Stage to Screen Performing Arts Academy, Take 2 Actors Studio, Michael Radi, and her supportive family.

ANASTASIA HILLE (KLYTEMNESTRA) Anastasia Hille’s extensive work in theater includes: The Power, The Effect (Olivier nomination), Dido, Queen of Carthage, Women of Troy, Waves, A Dream Play, The Oresteia (the National); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Young Vic); Hamlet (Barbican); The Master Builder (Almeida, Olivier nomination); and Macbeth (European tour, New York). TV: I Hate Suzie, Ipcress Files, The Pembrokeshire Murders, Baptiste (S1-3), Silent Witness, Keeping Faith, West of Liberty, The Last Kingdom, Wanderlust, Requiem, Humans, Him, Class, You, Me and the Apocalypse, The Fear (BAFTA nomination). Films: Martyr’s Lane, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, A United Kingdom, Trespass Against Us, Tulip Fever, The Riot Club.

WESLEY HOLLOWAY* (YOUNG ORESTES) Wesley Holloway makes his Armory debut in Oresteia. He began acting in local theaters at the age of six, quickly landing the role of Randy in A Christmas Story and Young Tommy in The Who’s Tommy. His TV credits include Dispatches from Elsewhere (AMC/Jason Segel). His feature film credits include As They Made Us (Mayim Bialik), Meet Cute (Alex Lehmann), She Said (Maria Schrader), and Junction (Bryan Greenberg). Holloway’s next performance will be in the Broadway production of Leopoldstadt. He is grateful to his family and friends for their love and support. He would like to thank the entire Oresteia cast and crew.

JOSHUA HIGGOTT (HORATIO, TALTHYBIUS) JACQUELINE JARROLD* (ENSEMBLE) Understudy Hamlet/Orestes. Theater: Hamlet, Oresteia (Almeida, West End); Animal Farm (UK tour); 1984 (Headlong, Almeida) Ghost Stories (ATG); Shakespeare in Love (Sonia Friedman, Disney); Regeneration (Royal, Derngate Theatre); Birdsong (UK tour); The Alchemist (Liverpool Playhouse); Iliad, The Odyssey (Almeida); Making Noise Quietly (Donmar Warehouse). Film: Darkest Hour (Working Title Films); Bohemian Rhapsody (20th Century Fox); The Mummy, The Snowman (Universal); The Machine (Pandora Films, Ltd.); DASHCAM (Blumhouse). Television: The Witcher (Netflix); This is Going to Hurt, Hamlet, McMafia (BBC). Short film: Juliet Remembered.

Understudy Guildenstern/Bernardo/Priest/Doctor. Broadway: The Cherry Orchard. Broadway National Tour: The Play That Goes Wrong. Regional: The Shakespeare Theatre Company (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Measure for Measure, Coriolanus, Wallenstein), Florida Studio Theatre (PTGW). Jacqueline Jarrold (she/her) is a Northwestern Alumna and proud member of Actors Equity Association (#1U!). Thanks to her wonderful family and team.

GILBERT KYEM JNR (REYNALDO, ENSEMBLE) Gilbert Kyem Jnr is an actor/writer who trained at LAMDA. Since graduating in 2019, he also co-founded OneFiveFive Productions, which has developed work in Film. His acting credits in theater include: Incriminating Objects, (Theatre503), We Too Are Giants, (Tricycle Theatre), Lest We Forget (Greenwich Theatre), and Never Not Once (Park Theatre). He was a finalist in The Stage’s Alan Bates Award 2019. 15

ALEX LAWTHER (HAMLET)

ELYANA FAITH RANDOLPH* (IPHIGENIA)

Alex Lawther is best known for his acclaimed roles in The Last Duel, Black Mirror, Howard’s End, and multiple BAFTA winning The End of the F***ing World. He made his screen debut as young Alan Turing in The Imitation Game. Previous theater work includes South Downs (Minerva Theatre, Harold Pinter West End); Fault Lines, The Glass Supper (Hampstead Theatre); Crushed Shells and Mud (Southwark Playhouse); The Jungle (Young Vic, Playhouse West End, and St. Ann’s); The Tempest (Caliban/Ferdinand, Les Bouffes du Nord, Paris). Lawther will next be seen in STAR WARS: ANDOR.

Elyana Faith Randolph is thrilled to be part of Park Avenue Armory’s production of Oresteia. This is her professional theatrical debut; Randolph has appeared in various local productions, recently playing Amaryllis in The Music Man (SYJCC). She also appeared on CBS in FBI: Most Wanted and has been studying acting and singing since the first grade. Randolph is in 4th grade and resides on Long Island. She is grateful for the support of her mentors Rochele, Sid, and Regina, her manager Jana Kogen, and her agents David and Abrielle at Zuri Agency, and the encouragement of her loving family.

ANDREW LONG* (ENSEMBLE)

KIRSTY RIDER (OPHELIA, DOCTOR)

Understudy Claudius/Polonius/Ghost/Player King/Agamemnon/Aegisthus. Broadway: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Old Vic: Richard III. International tour: War Horse, Richard III. San Francisco: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Regional: Antony and Cleopatra, Duchess of Malfi, Don Carlos (Shakespeare Theatre Company); Hamlet, Heartbreak House (Hartford Stage); M Butterfly (Guthrie); I Am My Own Wife, My Fair Lady (Signature Theater); Amadeus, Enrico IV (Rep of St Louis); Good People, The Watch on the Rhine (Arena Stage); Richard III (Denver Center). Television: Archive 81, Blindspot. Film: Blue Jasmine, NOW: In the Wings on a World Stage. Awards: Helen Hayes Award, Will Award, Lunt Fontanne Fellow.

Theater: Nora: A Doll’s House (Royal Exchange Manchester) Robert Icke’s The Doctor, Machinal (Almeida Theatre); Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe); lead role in The Great Wave, Saint George and the Dragon (National Theatre); Pride and Prejudice (Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre, UK Tour). Television: Sandman (Netflix); The Girl Before, Industry (BBC). Short Film: lead role in Hafu by Elliot BarnesWorrell. Royal Court Writing Group 2019. Awards: nomination for Best Newcomer at the Manchester Theatre Awards; Winner of Neal Street Bursary 2021 and Channel Four Screenwriting 2022.

HUDSON PAUL* (YOUNG ORESTES) Hudson Paul is thrilled to be part of this incredible production of Oresteia. Television credits include guest-starring on Law & Order SVU as well as appearances on Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live. Gratitude, appreciation, and love to the cast and creative team, Alexandre Bleau, Jim Carnahan, Dave McKeown, Stephanie Artuso, and Melanie Hinkle at Edge Entertainment, Bonnie ShumofskyBloom at Stewart Talent, Bryan Manley Davis, Matt Newton, MN Acting Studio, Mom, Dad, Caleb, and of course his dog Maceo.

IMANI JADE POWERS* (ENSEMBLE) Understudy Ophelia/Electra/Cassandra/Athene. Imani Jade Powers is thrilled to be a part of this wonderful team. Theater: Mac Beth (Hunter Theater Project); Suddenly Last Summer, The House of Bernarda Alba (RADA); The Winter’s Tale, The Arabian Nights (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival); The Winter’s Tale (The Pearl Theatre Company). Film/TV: Mother Future Self (Human Horse); Wu-Tang: An American Saga (Hulu); A Heart Shaped Stone (RADA); Guarded (Powers Productions). Training: RADA. 16

DAVID RINTOUL (PLAYER KING, GHOST) A phenomenally experienced actor, David Rintoul has worked consistently for 50 years. After eight years with the influential Joint Stock Company, he has played leading parts with all the major British companies including The National Theatre and the RSC. TV incudes Michael Adeane in The Crown (SAG Ensemble award), Aerys II in Game of Thrones, and four series as Doctor Finlay. Films include The Protege, The Ghost Writer, Unrelated, The Iron Lady, and My Week With Marilyn. Rintoul has voiced many video games and cartoons, including several characters in Peppa Pig and has recorded over 300 audio books.

HARRY SMITH* (ENSEMBLE)

PETER WIGHT (POLONIUS, MENELAUS)

Understudy Marcellus/Reynaldo/Francisco/Gravedigger/Menelaus. Broadway: Hangmen; King Charles III. Off-Broadway: Plough and the Stars; Juno and the Paycock; Shadow of a Gunman (Irish Repertory Theatre). Regional: Guthrie Theater; Two River Theater; Shakespeare Theatre Company of DC; Seattle Rep; American Conservatory Theater; Delaware Theatre Company; The Wilma Theater; Walnut Street Theatre; People’s Light; Lantern Theater Company; Inis Nua Theatre Company. UK: Edinburgh Royal Lyceum; Bristol Old Vic; Third Party; Tobacco Factory; Taunton Brewhouse. Film/television: Freedom, The Goldfinch; “The Good Wife,” “Crossbones,” “The Blacklist,” “Elementary,” “Jessica Jones,” “Sprung.” Training: Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Select theater: Uncle Vanya, The Birthday Party (Harold Pinter); Rosmersholm (Duke of York); Hamlet (Almeida/Harold Pinter), The Red Lion, Ivanov, Murmuring Judges, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui, Black Snow, Waiting for Godot (National Theatre); The Seagull (Royal Court/Broadway); Otherwise Engaged, Chekhov’s Women (West End), The Spanish Tragedy, Much Ado About Nothing, Barbarians, A Clockwork Orange, Hamlet (RSC); In The Republic of Happiness, In Basildon, Face to the Wall (Royal Court). Select TV: His Dark Materials, The Crown, Titanic, Vanity Fair, Persuasion, Hit and Miss. Select film: Cyrano, Hot Fuzz, Pride and Prejudice, Babel, and with Mike Leigh: Naked, Vera Drake, Another Year, Mr Turner.

ANGUS WRIGHT (CLAUDIUS, LUKE TREADAWAY (LAERTES, ORESTES) AGAMEMNON, AEGISTHUS) Theater includes: Christopher in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (Olivier Award Best Actor), Albert in Warhorse, Saint Joan (National Theatre), Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (West End), Over There (Royal Court and Schaubühne). Film includes: A Street Cat Named Bob, Unbroken, The Rise, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding, Attack the Block, Clash of the Titans, Brothers of the Head. Television includes: Lockwood and Co. (Netflix), Ordeal by Innocence, The Hollow Crown, The Rack Pack (BBC), The Singapore Grip (ITV), Traitors, Clapham Junction (C4), Fortitude (Sky Atlantic), The Nightmare Worlds of HG Wells (Sky Arts).

ROSS WAITON (FRANCISCO, GRAVEDIGGER, ENSEMBLE) Theater: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (also West End), King Lear, Timon of Athens, Antigone, The Revenger’s Tragedy, Much Ado About Nothing, Saint Joan (National Theatre); Much Ado About Nothing, Antony and Cleopatra, The Duchess of Malfi (RSC); Twelfth Night (Sheffield Crucible/ ETT); Henry IV, parts 1 and 2 (Theatre Royal Bath); The Tempest, As You Like It (Old Vic/ Brooklyn Academy of Music); Rutherford and Son (Northern Stage); Corpse (Salisbury Playhouse); Hamlet (ETT/ West End). TV: Luther, Maigret, Grantchester, Beowulf, Vera, EastEnders, Holby City, The Welsh in Shakespeare, G Force. Film: Pride, Skyfall, Film X.

Recent theater includes: Hamlet, Oresteia (Almeida, West End); 1984 (Playhouse); The Cherry Orchard (Young Vic); Twelfth Night, Richard III (The Globe, Bway); Mrs. Affleck, War Horse, St Joan, The Seagull, Dream Play, Stuff Happens (National Theatre); Master & Margarita, Measure for Measure (Complicite); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Almeida); Merchant of Venice, Hamlet, Henry IV (RSC). Select films: The Queen Mary, The Courier, The Witches, Official Secrets, Rogue One, Maleficent, The Iron Lady, Kingdom Of Heaven, RKO 281, Bridget Jones’ Diary, Frankenstein. Select TV: Succession (HBO); His Dark Materials (BBC 1/HBO); Cursed, The Crown (Netflix); Peep Show (Channel 4), Ragdoll, Flowers, Cambridge Spies (BBC).

HARA YANNAS (BERNARDO, PRIEST, CASSANDRA, ATHENE) Training: LAMDA. Theater: Maryland (Royal Court); The Welkin (National Theatre); Overruled, Amsterdam, Dealing with Clair (Orange Tree); Uncle Vanya (Arcola/HOME); Oresteia (Almeida/ West End); 1984 (Headlong/Almeida/West End/US Tour); The House of Bernarda Alba, The Treatment (Almeida); Britannicus (Wilton’s); Pericles (Regent’s Park); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Globe); it felt empty... (Arcola). Television: Casualty, Silent Witness, The Musketeers, Holby City (BBC); Dark Heart, Trauma, Innocent, Broadchurch, Law & Order (ITV); The Smoke (Sky); The Bible (History Channel). Film: Patient Zero. Yannas is an experienced voice and motion capture artist, specializing in video games. Credits include: Assassins Creed: Odyssey and Warhammer III.

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States. 17

PRODUCTION CREDITS PRODUCTION STAFF Hector Murray Lighting Associate Andrew Joseph Sound Associate Sam Cortez Company Manager Kanako “Kana” Morita Assistant Company Manager Jack Bradfield Assistant Director Tash Holdaway, Humnah Abdullah Rehearsal Assistant Stage Managers Wessex Grove UK Producer and General Manager Jim Leaver Scenic Supervisor Aidan Nelson Technical Director Laura Aupert Assistant Production Manager Craig Emerson Head of Stage Simon York Scene Shop Carpenter Carl Whipple Production Carpenter Justin Hill, Pablo Solano, Rob Robinson, Cody Lee Carpenters Stephen Pucci Production Rigger

Kirrin Tubo Child Guardian Jessica Ashleigh Pomeroy Production Assistant, Programming Janet Rucker Visa Coordinator

PRODUCTION ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS BNW Rigging; CoveyLaw; Five Ohm Productions; Mind the Gap; Premier Stagehands; Automation by PRG Scenic Technologies; Audio Equipment by Masque Sound, Stage Sound Services; Firearms by J&M Special Effects; Intimacy Direction by Teniece Divya Johnson; Lighting Equipment by 4Wall Entertainment, Production Resource Group, Main Light, Hayden Production Services, Christie Lites; Props Built by Propworks London; Rigging Equipment by 4Wall Entertainment; Scenery Built by Miraculous Engineering, Scott Fleary Productions, Coolflight Limited; Video Equipment by 4Wall Entertainment, Sound Associates; Video Wall built by Hudson Scenic; Video Production thanks to All Hallows Church, The Antwerp Arms, John Laverick, Mark Raggett, Erin McCulloch, Sarah Alford Smith, Tom Powis, and Eloise Kenny-Ryder.

CASTING

Aaron Copp Lighting Supervisor Dave “Tater” Polato Production Electrician Marc Polimeni Lighting Programmer Griffyd Cole Light Board Operator James Palmer Automation Operator, Deck Electrician

Julia Horan, CSD

Mark Grey Audio Supervisor Andrew Lulling Audio Engineer Jeffrey Rowell Production Sound Josh Dorman A2

MUSIC CREDITS, HAMLET

Andrew Gusciora Video Programmer and Engineer Daniel Santamaria Production Video Victoria Bek US Costume Supervisor Laura Hunt UK Costume Supervisor Amelia Dent Assistant US Costume Supervisor James Terrell, Jasmine Thomas, Molly Fenn Dressers Olivia Harris Wardrobe Dayworker Sarah Cimino Makeup Consultant Charlotte Bravin Lee Makeup Artist Amanda Miller Hair Consultant Jordynn Hill Hair Artist Lizzie Frankl UK Prop Supervisor Justin Cox US Prop Supervisor Poppy Morris Associate UK Prop Supervisor Zoe Wilson, Sofie Keefe-Haliburn UK Prop Assistants Cordelia Senie Props Crew

Jim Carnahan Casting, Inc Jim Carnahan, CSA, Alexandre Bleau, CSA Maureen Kelleher, Kendall Latimer, Jason Thinger

“All Along the Watchtower”