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Staten Island Academy Presents
Aristophanes’ Timeless Comedy, The Birds

November 14, 2005 – Upper School students at Staten Island Academy are proud to present The Birds, an ancient Greek comedy by Aristophanes, on Friday, November 18 and Saturday, November 19, at 8:00PM in the Haugen Hall Auditorium.

The two-act play, which opens with actors in white tunics using colorful hand puppets, takes place in a rugged wilderness area up in the rocky hills. The premise involves characters who are searching for Utopia. They arrive at the home of Epops, King of the birds and convince him that birds should rule the world, instead of people. What follows is hilarious chaos as birds form their own city from which to rule all people, and the gods arrive on Earth to challenge the birds.

“This play was the “Saturday Night Live” of Athenian society, parodying political situations,” says Mark Weissman, Chair of the Theater Department and director of the show. “As I discovered when I went to London last year to study Shakespeare, these masterpieces have universal themes that will always be relevant to our present day issues. “It’s also wonderful to expose our students to a wide variety of classics that demonstrate what was established 2500 years ago is still the basis of theater today.”

A total of 40 Upper School students are involved in this production of The Birds, as translated by the late Walter Kerr, playwright and renowned theater critic for The New York Times. Tickets are $10.00. There will be one intermission.

The Academy has a rich tradition of performing arts reaching back to the school’s early days. Students explore creative expression in music, dance, drama, singing, writing, directing, costume and set design in the classroom, student clubs and by performing in full-length productions, which include a first-rate student-run technical crew. Haugen Hall, the center of Academy arts, houses orchestra and chorale rooms and a renovated theater/auditorium equipped with a state-of-the-art sound and lighting system.

Staten Island Academy, located on a lush 12-acre campus, educates qualified students from age four through high school. The only independent school on Staten Island, the Academy’s mission is to provide a liberal arts education to a socioeconomically diverse population. It is composed of seven buildings, including state-of-the-art computer facilities, and a completely renovated Theater, Library, Art Barn and Alumni Hall building. Outdoors are two swimming pools, athletic fields, and tennis courts.

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For further information, please contact Alice Doyle at 718.303.7813 adoyle@statenislandacademy.org.