Detail from black and white photograph of female dancers choreographed by Margaret Morris © Fred Daniels Estate
Mask designs by Abd'Elkader Farrah for Oedipus Rex, 1960
The Story Of Orestes, 1886: illustration depicting Clytemnestra's ghost and the Furies
Framed costume design sketches hanging on a wall at the APGRD's Oresteia Exhibition, 2011

Welcome

The Archive of Performances of Greek and Roman Drama (the APGRD) is a research project based in the Classics Faculty at the University of Oxford. It investigates the performance of ancient texts from Greek tragedy to Roman epic, in any medium and any period, from stage to screen, from antiquity to the present day.

A world-renowned international research centre, the APGRD has been at the forefront of classical reception studies for over twenty years and is a pioneer in classical performance reception - see details of our publications here.

For more information visit the About Us section; or to explore our archives and production databases go to Research Collections.

APGRD News

Newsletter 33 - October 2024 A photo of Fiona Macintosh at her retirement celebration. She is sitting in the audience listening to tributes in her honour.

Latest news from the APGRD can be found in our autumn newsletter! Catch up on past and future events and the appointment of our new Director of the APGRD and Associate Professor of Classical Reception, Pantelis Michelakis, who joins us following the retirement of Professor Fiona Macintosh, after almost 25 years with the APGRD. We welcome new members of the Advisory Board, look back on the previous year's collaborations and events, and look foward to the upcoming publications and events this term.

 



Sanctuary Study DayDetail of an oil painting depicting the outline of an invisible figure pushing at the ornate doors of a church.

The Sanctuary Study Day on Friday 25 October, co-organised by Marina Warner, Alicia Stallings, and Fiona Macintosh, is now fully booked; you can sign up to the waiting list via Eventbrite just in case places become available.

 

 

 

 

DAT @ APGRD

A black and white photograph of a seated Maria Callas, in the role of Medea, with a clapperboard shutting in front of her. We are delighted to announce that we have begun phase one of our new Digital Ancient Theatre project, DAT @ APGRD. We are developing an online search interface to locate audio-visual recordings of performances inspired by the ancient Greek and Roman dramas and epics – collating information about recordings from our own extensive audio-visual collections, as well as those held by external archives, repositories, theatre companies, and online streaming services. Read more>

 

 

 

Tell us about Productions!Photograph of numerous programme notes, flyers, and posters related to performances of Agamemnon and the Oresteia

In a bid to improve the scope of our Productions Database we have created an online portal for anyone to submit information about performances inspired by Greek and Roman sources - any country, any time period, any medium (films and tv, stage or radio plays, ballets or operas etc). If you can help us, please visit our online submissions form >>