The Clouds

Tisch Drama is dedicated to providing students with the artistic and intellectual foundations necessary for  a successful life in the professional theatre and allied disciplines.

NYU, Tisch School of the Arts, Department of Drama

New York University Tisch School of the Arts
Allyson Green, Dean
and
Institute of Performing Arts Department of Drama
Sarah Schlesinger, Associate Dean
Rubén Polendo, Chair, Undergraduate Drama
present
The New Studio on Broadway&#x27;s <blockquote> </blockquote><h2>The Clouds</h2><h3>By Aristophanes</h3><h3>Directed by Orlando Pabotoy</h3><h3>Adapted in collaboration with the ensemble from The Translation by Peter Meineck</h3>
A talkback will be held after the performance on Friday, May 8th at 9:30pm, EST. For tickets, please follow this link:
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-clouds-talkback-tickets-104154980350
Ticket Info:  Please select a ticket for the date you wish to view the performance. A link to the performance will be emailed to you. You may also follow the  links below to the performances.

This production contains sexually explicit content and inappropriate and offensive language.  
<h3>ABOUT THE PHYSICAL ACTING INTENSIVE AND THE PERFORMANCE</h3>
The Physical Acting Intensive in the New Studio On Broadway focuses on ensemble based training in heightened style. 
We use techniques from the commedia dell’arte, clown and mask work as the primary foundation of this class. 
The production (usually a comedy) is an extension of that training and an essential component of the class. 
Past Projects of the Intensive: The Frogs (Aristophanes), The World in the Moon (Goldoni), The Serpent Woman (Gozzi), Red Noses (Peter Barnes), The Buffoons (Margherita Costa). 
This year we are focused on a company adaptation of The Clouds (Aristophanes) and using the Translation by Peter Meineck. 
This production is an adaptation based on Aristophanes I: Clouds, Wasps, Birds, translated by Peter Meineck, published by Hackett Publishing Company, 1998. Produced by special arrangement with Hackett Publishing Company, Inc.<p></p><h3>ABOUT THE CLOUDS</h3>
<em>Clouds </em>was first performed in Athens in 423 BCE in the midst of the generation-long Peloponnesian War between Athena and Sparta. Just a few years prior Athens had been struck by a terrible plague that may have carried off a quarter of the population, a result of the siege-like conditions in the city at that time. People of all classes and backgrounds were thrust together in close quarters and we see this depicted in <em>Clouds</em>, where an old country bumpkin is fighting with his son who begins the play addicted to the aristocratic and very expensive pursuits of the horseman and ends up enrolled in Socrates new-fangled school where one can learn the &quot;Wrong&quot; or &quot;Inferior&quot; argument and use it to defeat the &quot;Right&quot; or &quot;Superior&quot; argument. For our old father, this means being able to get out of paying the debts run up by his son&#x27;s horseriding. These two arguments are actually personified in the play in a hilarious and brilliant debate for the educational soul of this young man. <em>Clouds </em>pokes fun of this &quot;New Learning&quot; the public teaching of philosophy and the art of rhetoric, such a vital new trend in a culture where every cultural action was based on oral arguments. Socrates was said to have stood up in the middle of the play so the rest of the audience could see him as he was being mocked in the play, and it is Plato who years later has his Socrates say in The Apology that the Athenians think of him as that character who flies around in that comedy, referring to his famous entrance on the mechane (stage crane) sitting on a drying rack like an old prune.
<em>Clouds</em> shows us something about the uses and abuses of education and knowledge, about confirmation biases, suspicion, and fear of intellect. The end of the play is disturbingly prophetic as Socrates was condemned to death for just what <em>Clouds</em> portrayed him as doing, corrupting the young and teaching that the gods do not exist. This was not true but what was a hilarious social commentary to the democratic citizens of Athens in 423 became reputational murder to a city defeated in the Peloponnesian War and looking for a person to blame.  Even today some 2500 years later, <em>Clouds</em> is a play that strikes both a familiar comic chord but also hints at the dangers of ignorance.

Original Artwork by Marieke Bauer<p> -</p><h3>PERFORMANCE LINKS:</h3>
Tuesday, May 5th, 2020 - 7pm EST:
https://vimeo.com/412382694/6e701b8f10 

Wednesday, May 6th - 7pm EST:
https://vimeo.com/415709679/0676a11e1f

Thursday, May 7th - 7pm EST:
 https://vimeo.com/415635655/03fa763541 

Friday, May 8th - 7pm EST:
 https://vimeo.com/415636439/8261493396 

Saturday, May 9th - 7pm EST:
https://vimeo.com/416752356/48a7b39054

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The Clouds

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