You can download or listen to audio recordings of APGRD events on our website, or you can subscribe to them on the University of Oxford's Podcasting site or on iTunes. Videos are hosted on the APGRD YouTube channel. To make them easier to browse, recordings have been arranged into the following categories:
- Creative practitioners (lectures and in-conversation events with directors, actors, playwrights etc.)
- Readings and Performance events
- Lectures by leading scholars
- The annual Classics and English Lecture
- Online Special Events
- Classics Faculty Reception Seminars
- What is Tragedy? Oliver Taplin and Joshua Billings dialogues
- What is Translation? Oliver Taplin and Lorna Hardwick dialogues
- Archive only recordings
Visit the APGRD Podcast for more conversations between members of the APGRD, scholars, and creative practitioners, and check our Events section to find out about upcoming events.
Creative practitioners talks
Ellen McLaughlin in conversation with Helene Foley
Feb. 2023: Playwright Ellen McLaughlin discusses her interaction with classical material and presents some short readings of her work; with Helene Foley (Barnard College, Columbia University).
Rita Dove in conversation with Helene Foley
March 2023: Award-winning poet and essayist Rita Dove discusses her Demeter and Persephone inspired collection Mother Love with Helene Foley (Barnard College, Columbia University).
Clare Pollard in conversation with Helen Eastman
Nov. 2022: Poet, translator, and novelist Clare Pollard discusses her latest novel, Delphi (2022) with Helen Eastman (writer, director, and APGRD Advisory Board member). Delphi considers prophecy and Classics academia in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Inua Ellams in conversation with Helen Eastman
Oct. 2022: Poet, playwright, and performer, Inua Ellams discusses his version of Sophocles' Antigone (2022, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre) with Helen Eastman (writer, director, and APGRD Advisory Board member).
Dido's Ghost: Errollyn Wallen and Wesley Stace in conversation
May 2022: Errollyn Wallen (Composer) in conversation with Wesley Stace (librettist) and Tom Sapsford (Boston College) about the opera Dido's Ghost (2021).
A.E. Stallings in performance and conversation
Nov. 2021: Poet A.E. Stallings in conversation with David Ricks (KCL; APGRD Advisory Board member). Includes performances from her collections Archaic Smile (1999), Hapax (2006), Olives (2012) and Like (2018), as well as discussion of her creative process.
Tom Littler and Indra Ové in conversation
Nov. 2021: Director/Dramaturg Tom Littler and actor Indra Ové in conversation about Jermyn Street Theatre's 15 Heroines (Nov. 2020), 15 monologues based on Ovid's Heroides and filmed at Jermyn Street over lockdown. Includes readings from the monologues by Indra.
Femi Osofisan in conversation
Nov. 2021: Playwright and poet Femi Osofisan in conversation with Tunde Awosanmi, Benson Eluma, Barbara Goff, and Kunbi Olasope, discussing Medaye. Hosted in partnership with the University of Ibadan and University of Reading.
Interview with Peter Sellars
June 2021: Theatre director Peter Sellars, interviewed by Silke Felber (Vienna), discusses his numerous adaptations of Greek tragedies; recorded as as part of the conference Collective Trauma and Contemporary Crisis in Performances of Ancient Tragedies
Interview with Ian Rickson and Kae Tempest
June 2021: Director Ian Rickson and playwright Kae Tempest discuss Tempest's new adaptation of Sophocles' Philoctetes, Paradise (National Theatre, 2021, dir. Rickson). Recorded as part of the conference Collective Trauma and Contemporary Crisis in Performances of Ancient Tragedies
Greek Tragedy Masterclass on Film: Antigone
June 2021: Professional actors Evelyn Miller and Tim Delap explore different interpretations of scenes from Antigone with director Paul O'Mahony through discussion and in rehearsal, alongside talking heads from the creative industries and academia.
Inua Ellams in conversation with Helen Eastman
May 2021: Inua Ellams - poet and playwright (The Half God of Rainfall, 2019; Ike / Rust, 2020) - talks to Helen Eastman (writer, director, and APGRD Advisory Board Member).
Yaël Farber in conversation with Helen Eastman
May 2021: Yaël Farber - theatre director and playwright, known for radical adaptations of Greek tragedy such as Molora (2007) and Kadmos (2011) - talks to Helen Eastman (writer, director, and APGRD Advisory Board Member).
Kevin Willmott in conversation with Edith Hall
May 2021: Kevin Willmott - film director, screenwriter, Professor of Film at the University of Kansas, and co-writer of Spike Lee's 2015 film Chi-Raq (based on the story of Lysistrata) - talks to Edith Hall (APGRD co-founder and Professor of Classics at KCL).
Marina Carr and Patrick O'Kane in conversation
March 2021: Fiona Macintosh (APGRD Director) talks to award-winning Marina Carr and actor Patrick O'Kane, who plays Agamemnon in Marina's new play Girl On An Altar - a retelling of the myth of Clytemnestra and Agamemnon.
Tom Morris in conversation with Helen Eastman
Oct 2020: Tom Morris, the Artistic Director of Bristol's Old Vic, was recorded in an online conversation with Helen Eastman (Theatre Director/APGRD Advisory Board Member) in this virtual version of an APGRD Public Lecture.
We Are Not Princesses: APGRD/TORCH panel discussion
June 2019: Nur Laiq (TORCH Global South Visiting Fellow) discusses We Are Not Princesses, a documentary film about four Syrian women living as refugees in Beirut as they come together to tell their stories through the ancient Greek play, Antigone, with producer Hal Scardino and Professor Fiona Macintosh (APGRD Director).
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Wayne Jordan on Sophocles' Oedipus
Feb 2017: Director Wayne Jordan in conversation with Fiona Macintosh about his acclaimed version of Oedipus, staged at the Abbey Theatre, Dublin in 2015.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
The Globe Theatre's Oresteia (2015)
Nov 2015: Director Adele Thomas and playwright/translator Rory Mullarkey discuss their production of Aeschylus' Oresteia at London's Globe in October 2015, with an introduction by Oliver Taplin.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Marina Carr in conversation with Fiona Macintosh
Oct 2015: Fiona Macintosh talks to playwright, Marina Carr about her new adaptation of Hecuba, and her long-standing relationship with Greek tragedies.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Helen McCrory in conversation with Edith Hall
May 2015: Edith Hall (KCL) talks to actor, Helen McCrory about her role in the critically acclaimed production of Medea at the National Theatre in 2014.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Gwyneth Lewis on Writing Clytemnestra
March 2015: award winning poet, and playwright, Gwyneth Lewis, talks about her 2012 play Clytemnestra, which premièred at at Sherman Cymru, Cardiff, in April 2012.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Ian Rickson in conversation
Nov 2014: director Ian Rickson discusses his production of Sophocles' Electra at the Old Vic, in a new translation by Frank McGuinness and starring Olivier Award nominee Kristin Scott Thomas.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Two rounds of the Cambridge Greek Play - lecture
Helen Eastman, director of the 2013 Prometheus / The Frogs, talks about directing and producing the Cambridge Greek Play in an APGRD Public Lecture from February 2014. Available on YouTube.
Jonathan Kent in conversation
Oct 2013, theatre and opera director, Jonathan Kent, appeared at the APGRD in conversation with Fiona Macintosh, talking specifically about his work with Greek drama. An abbreviated version of this conversation was published in a Special Issue of PMLA (2014) on tragedy.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Frank McGuinness in conversation
Nov 2009:Fiona Macintosh in conversation with distinguished playwright Frank McGuinness about his work in adapting Greek tragedies for modern theatre, particularly Antigone and Medea.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Antigone at the Peacock Theatre, Dublin, 1986 - interviews with original cast and director
During her doctoral research, Katerina Gotsi undertook interviews with key Irish actors and directors. To read transcripts of interviews with Colm Ó Briain, Anne Byrne, and Kevin McHugh go to the Katerina Gotsi interviews page
Readings and Performances
Finding the Snake Goddess: new poems by Ruth Padel
June 2023: poems on the Snake Goddess figurines, found at Knossos in 1903 by Sir Arthur Evans. Ellen Adams (KCL); Nicoletta Momigliano (Bristol); Christine Morris (TCD); and Andrew Shapland (Oxford) introduce Ruth Padel’s performance with a short archaeological and historical talk on the figurines.
New Lines 4: contemporary poets and the classics
Nov 2022: the fourth in our series with Live Canon of readings by contemporary poets engaging with the classics. Featuring Nina Murray, Andre Bagoo, Kostya Tsolakis, and Paul Julien, and hosted by Dr Helen Eastman.
The Penelope Project
June 2022: a three-day residency at St Hilda's College. Composer Cheryl Frances-Hoad, director/librettist Jeanne Pansard-Besson, two singers and a student actor, together with interdisciplinary researchers and students from the Cheney School, developed the next stage in a collaborative project.
Josephine Balmer and Lesley Saunders in performance and conversation
Feb. 2022: Poets Josephine Balmer and Lesley Saunders reading from their respective classically-inspired collections Ghost Passage (2022) and Nominy-Dominy (2018), with Q&A session led by Fiona Macintosh.
New Lines 3: contemporary poets and the classics
Jan 2022: the third in our series with Live Canon of readings by contemporary poets engaging with the classics. Featuring Tessa Foley, Ben Morgan, Nora Nadjarian, and Michelle Penn, and hosted by Dr Helen Eastman.
Cupid and Psyche: Dancing with Apollo Residency
July 2021: a 10-minute documentary by Rocio Chacon, on the DANSOX/APGRD/TORCH residency to develop a new dance-piece based on Cupid and Psyche; with choreographer Kim Brandstrup, dancers Liam Riddick and Laurel Dalley-Smith, violinist Sara Trickey, pianist Ivana Gavric, and Marina Warner as dramaturg. For more details see our TORCH-funded programmes
New Lines 2: contemporary poets and the classics
June 2021: the second in our series with Live Canon of readings by contemporary poets engaging with the classics. Featuring the poets Vasiliki Albedo, Matt Bryden, Kym Deyn, and Mehmet Izbudak, and hosted by Dr Helen Eastman.
New Lines: contemporary poets and the classics
March 2021: in collaboration with Live Canon, a reading by contemporary poets engaging with the classics. Featuring: Fahad Al-Amoudi, Maia Elsner, Glyn Maxwell and Laura Theis, and hosted by Dr Helen Eastman.
Odyssey Book XIV
Dec. 2020: A performance of Odyssey Book 14. Filmed as part of the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies' Odyssey 'Round the World project. Directed by Dr Estelle Baudou, with Dr Giovanna Di Martino, and performances from Oxford postgrads, at the Ioannou Centre for Classical and Byzantine Studies.
Alice Oswald: Moon Viewing
Midnight 30 Nov 2020: A film made during lockdown to accompany Alice Oswald's global postal poetry performance; in collaboration with TORCH, DANSOX, and the English Faculty. For details of this unique lockdown event, see the event page
Emily Wilson: The Odyssey
Nov 2017: A public reading: Emily Wilson (University of Pennsylvania), discusses and reads from her new translation of Homer's Odyssey.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Josphine Balmer: A Reading
Nov 2017: poet, classical translator, research scholar and literary critic, Josephine Balmer, reads from her latest collection, The Paths of Survival, inspired by the surviving fragments of Aeschylus's lost tragedy, Myrmidons. Followed by discussion with Josephine Balmer, Laura Swift, and Oliver Taplin.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
APGRD Artist in Residence: Crossing the Sea - lecture-performance
Paul O'Mahony and Out of Chaos theatre company were APGRD Artists in Residence in October 2017, working on the development of a new version of the Aeneid, entitled Crossing the Sea. The residency culminated in a public lecture-performance on the 27 October, in which they presented their work-in-progress. The recording of this WIP lecture-performance is available on YouTube.
APGRD Artist in Residence: Likely Terpsichore? (Fragments) - site-specific dance
During a six-month residency at the APGRD (Jan-June 2017), choreographer and dance artist Marie-Louise Crawley developed a site-specific dance piece, Likely Terpsichore? (Fragments), in the gallery spaces of the Ashmolean Museum. Based on four female figures from Ovid’s Metamorphoses - Galatea, Myrrha, Philomel and Medusa - the piece took the foundational principles of ancient pantomime as its starting point.
Trackers of Oxyrhynchus' choruses performed
At an event celebrating the 25th anniversary of Tony Harrison's Trackers of Oxyrhynchus, three original cast members (Colin Campbell, Conrad Nelson, and Lawrence Evans) re-created two choruses from the production.
Annual European Festival of Latin and Greek
Since 2017, the APGRD and members of the Classics Faculty have participated in the synchronised, global, mass readings of ancient texts in original translations, as part of the Festival Européen Latin Grec. Watch our contributions - Odyssey Book 5, Metamorphoses Book 10, and Iliad Book 6 - on YouTube
Lectures by leading scholars
Creative Precarities: Performing Ruins in the 21st century
June 2023: Estel Baudou (University of Lincoln) focuses on Phia Ménard's The Trilogy of Immoral Tales (for Europe) (2021), to demonstrate how the percieved precarity of ruins has impacted the reception of ancient material on contemporary stages.
Performance in Antiquity
May 2023: Sophie Bocksberger (Brasenose and St Hilda's College) on, 'Recovering Dance Literacy' and Sarah Cullinan-Herring (Wadham College) on, 'Gender, Power and Performance: Singing as identity-creation in Greek Poetry'. Recording of the live-stream of an in-person Public Lecture.
Tragic Mothers
November 2022: Olga Taxidou (Edinburgh/NYU) on the theme of Tragic Mothers, a lecture accompanying two performance research workshops held in Oxford looking at the characters of Clytemnestra and Medea. Recording of the live-stream of an in-person Public Lecture.
Antigone in Palermo: Survival and Disobedience in Ubah Cristina Ali Farah’s and Sutta Scupa's Antigone Power
June 2022: Margherita Laera (Kent) on Ubah Cristina Ali Farah’s adaptation of Antigone, Antigone Power, performed with both professional and non-professional actors, mainly from a migrant and refugee background. Recording of the live-stream of an in-person Public Lecture.
Imagining Ithaca
May 2022: writer Kathleen Riley discusses the themes raised by her new work, Imagining Ithaca: Nostos and Nostalgia Since the Great War. Recording of the live-stream of an in-person Public Lecture.
The Glory and the Grandeur: John Clarke Stobart and the Defence of High Culture in a Democratic Age
Oct. 2021: Christopher Stray (Swansea) on the legacy of John Clarke Stobart. Recording of the live-stream of an in-person Public Lecture.
Ghosts: From Aeschylus’ The Persians to Wajdi Mouawad’s The Blood of Promises
June 2021: Clare Finburgh Delijani (Goldsmiths) delivered the guest lecture for this year's APGRD/University of London Postgraduate Symposium.
Tragic Form in Kamila Shamsie's Home Fire
Feb. 2021: Naomi Weiss (Gardner Cowles Associate Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University) on Kamila Shamsie’s retelling of Sophocles' Antigone, in the award-winning novel Home Fire (2017). APGRD Public Lecture; streamed on YouTube with a live Q&A.
The Greek Trilogy of Luis Alfaro: New Visions of Tragedy in 21st-Century America
Jan. 2021: Rosa Andújar (KCL) on the award-winning Chicanx adaptations of ancient Greek tragedy by writer, theatre director, social activist, and MacArthur Fellow, Luis Alfaro. APGRD Public Lecture; streamed on YouTube with a live Q&A.
A People's History of Classics
Nov. 2020: Edith Hall (KCL) and Henry Stead (St Andrews) discuss their new book, A People's History of Classics, in this virtual version of an APGRD Public Lecture; streamed on YouTube with a live Q&A.
Theatre as a space of Spiritual Contemplation
Oct 2019: Alena Sarkissian (Czech Academy of Sciences) discusses Greek Tragedy at the National Theatre of Prague during the Nazi occupation (1939 – 1945).
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Homer and the Discovery of the Pacific
May 2019: Henry Power (Exeter) discusses Homeric resonances in the work of Alexander Pope, John Keats, and Thom Gunn.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
The Dancer and the Übermarionette: Duncan, Craig and Modernist Performance
Feb 2019: Olga Taxidou (Edinburgh) discusses the work of Isadora Duncan and Edward Gordon Craig in this APGRD / DANSOX public lecture.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Diversifying Greek Tragedy on the Contemporary US Stage
Jan 2019: Melinda Powers (CUNY) discusses modern American adaptations of Greek tragedies.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Gestures and Postures: the construction and reception of the tragic in Jean-Georges Noverre's dance-drama Agamemnon Vengé
Nov 2018: Nicole Haitzinger (Salzburg) discusses Noverre's use of gesture and the tragic in this APGRD / DANSOX public seminar.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
The Politics of Greece's Theatrical Revolution, ca. 500 - ca. 300 BCE
April 2018: An APGRD Public lecture: Peter Wilson (Sydney) discusses the relationship between Greek theatre and politics.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Tragedy's Endurance
March 2018: Erika Fischer-Lichte (Freie Universität Berlin) speaks on the subject of her recent book, Tragedy's Endurance.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Classics and Social Justice
Oct 2017: Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz (Hamilton College) tells us about her work bringing Classics into prisons.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Bodies and texts: Attitudes towards tragedy from the Second Sophistic to Late Antiquity
Nov 2016: An APGRD public lecture by Ruth Webb (Université Charles-de-Gaulle Lille III).
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
The annual Classics and English Lecture
Anne Carson’s Euripides & the Combustion of Thought
April 2023: Laura Jansen (University of Bristol) delivers the 8th annual Classics and English Lecutre, drawing from her research on the Anne Carson’s avant-garde translations of Euripides’ Herakles in Grief Lessons (2006) and H of H Playbook (2021).
Actors and the Remains of the Dead
April 2022: Tanya Pollard (Brooklyn College CUNY) delivers the 7th annual Classics and English Lecutre, speaking on the theme of Actors and the Remains of the Dead. This lecture draaws on her currently work on both Shakesperean actor Richard Burbage and classically-inflected material in Renaissance drama.
Tragedy Since 9/11
April 2021: Jennifer Wallace (Cambridge) delivers the 6th annual Classics and English Lecture (postponed from 2020 due to the pandemic), on her book Tragedy Since 9/11: Reading a World Out of Joint.
"The Mask of a Very Definite Purpose": Edith Wharton and the Classics
May 2019: Isobel Hurst (Goldsmiths) delivers the 5th annual Classics and English Lecture, on Edith Wharton and the Classics.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
From Cult to Classic: Reimagining Medea before and after Euripides
May 2018: Ben Morgan (Oxford) delivers the 4th annual Classics and English Lecture; Morgan discusses the figure of Medea and reads from his new book of poetry.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
The Other Muse: Latin and English Poetry in the Seventeenth Century
Feb 2017: Victoria Moul (KCL) delivered the 3rd annual joint Classics and English Lecture. A recording of this talk is available to watch for research purposes, in person, at the archive. See below for details of archive only recordings
E.M Forster's "Tragic Interior"
May 2016: David Scourfield (Maynooth) gave the 2nd annual joint Classics and English Lecture, on E. M. Forster's interactions with the classics, particularly Aeschylus' Agamemnon.
Download or listen to the audio on the event's page
Online Special Events
Robert Crawford's Classical Texts - exhibition and book launch
Jan. 2023: Watch the recording of the in-person book launch for Robert Crawford's Classical Texts, hosted by Professor Stephen Harrison (Oxford) and held on the opening day of an exhibition at the Ioannou Centre showcasing the witty minimalist verbal icons of Crawford's Classical Texts.
Greek and Beyond - a colloquium in honour of M. S. Silk
March 2022: A one-day hybrid colloquium convened by Fiona Macintosh (Oxford) and David Ricks (KCL) in honour of Professor Michael Silk. See the symposium's event page for the full line-up of speakers and their papers.
Tony Harrison and the Classics - online book launch
Online book launch for Tony Harrison and the Classics; with presentations by Oliver Taplin, Lorna Hardwick, and the book's editor Sandie Byrne; plus discussion from Edith Hall, Lottie Parkyn, Stephen Harrison, Geraldine Brodie, Owen Hodkinson, Henry Stead, and Hallie Marshall.
Greek Tragedy: Masterclass on Film: Antigone - live discussion
June 2021: Professor Fiona Macintosh (APGRD Director) leads a 30-minute discussion with participants of the first APGRD/Out of Chaos theatre 'Masterclass on Film' (Antigone - find the film above under Creative Practitioners), including Director Paul O'Mahony, actors Tim Delap and Evelyn Miller, and academic collaborators Professor Oliver Taplin (APGRD co-founder) and Dr Lyndsay Coo (University of Bristol).
Kathryn Bosher's Greek Theater in Ancient Sicily - online book launch
June 2021: Co-hosted with Northwestern University, a celebration of Kathryn Bosher and the posthumous publication of her book, Greek Theatre in Ancient Sicily (CUP, 2021) edited by Edith Hall and Clemente Marconi and prepared for publication by LaDale Winling. Speakers included Edith Hall, Clemente Marconi, Sara Monoson, Ruth Scodel, Justine McConnell, Patrice Rankine, and Fiona Macintosh.
Martin Revermann's Brecht and Tragedy - online book launch
Dec. 2021: Martin Revermann (Professor of Classics and Theatre Studies, University of Toronto) talks about his new book, Brecht and Tragedy: Radicalism, Traditionalism, Eristics (CUP, 2021); with Oliver Taplin (Oxford), Fiona Macintosh (Oxford), and Michael Sharp (Classics Editor CUP).
Classics Faculty Reception Seminars
The 2020 Reception Seminar series - Classical Literature and the Mind of Europe - was held online. The seminars took place at 11.30am every Monday during Michaelmas Term (12 Oct. to 30 Nov.). Recordings of the papers have been uploaded to a dedicated playlist (APGRD YouTube).
The 2021 research seminar - Receptions and Comparatisms - will be held online, 5pm (UK time) every Monday during Michaelmas Term (11 Oct. to 29 Nov.). Recordings of the papers will be uploaded to a dedicated YouTube playlist.
Oliver Taplin and Joshua Billings: What is Tragedy?
Recorded Jan 2010, four 15 minute audio dialogues exploring tragedy with Oliver Taplin (Emeritus Professor of Classics and co-founder of the APGRD) and Joshua Billings (Assistant Professor of Classics at Princeton):
Part 1: Defining Tragedy
Part 2: What does Tragedy do for People?
Part 3: Does Tragedy Teach?
Part 4: Is Tragedy still Alive?
Oliver Taplin and Lorna Hardwick: What is Translation?
Recorded in July 2010, four 15 minute dialogues exploring translation with Oliver Taplin and and Lorna Hardwick (Professor of Classical Studies and Director of the Classical Receptions in Late Twentieth Century Drama and Poetry in English project):
Part 1: Is there a Core to Translation?
Part 2: Is there ever a Faithful Translation?
Part 3: Can Poetry be Translated?
Part 4: Who Translates and for Whom?
Archive Only Recordings
Recordings of some past events cannot be released publicly. These recordings can only be listened to for research purposes, on request and in person at the APGRD. See the Visit Us page to arrange an appointment. Archive only recordings include:
Collective Trauma and Contemporary Crisis in Performances of Ancient Tragedies (Online conference, 2021)- A Play after Euripides' Andromeda (2019)
- Performing Pindar (2019) - the development of this project in 2020 can be seen on YouTube
- 25 Years of the Actors of Dionysus (2018)
- Victoria Moul - The Other Muse: Latin and English Poetry in the Seventeenth Century (2017)
- Alice Oswald - a reading (2016)
- Cathy Marston - Choreographing the Katabasis (2015)
- Kae Tempest - in conversation (2014)