This tool is unavailable at the moment. Please try again later.
Start planning your production with a cost estimate you can save and share with your team. Just answer a few questions.
This estimator is only for amateur productions. Professional customers should contact the Licensing department directly to enquire about a title's availability: [email protected]
Important: The cost quoted is an estimate only and may differ when you apply for a licence.
A PLAYSCRIPTS TITLE
Short Play, Drama / 1w, 10m plus ensemble
A drama adapted by Ellen McLaughlinBased on the play by Aeschylus
In this moving and poetic adaptation of Aeschylus’ drama, Queen Atossa and her subjects must find a way to continue to live in the shattered world they once called home at the fall of the Persian Empire.
In this moving and poetic adaptation of Aeschylus’ drama, Queen Atossa and her subjects anxiously await news of their King Xerxes’ expedition to Greece. What they hear is inconceivably horrifying: the vast Persian Empire has fallen, with an entire army lost. Now the scant survivors of a catastrophic campaign, including Xerxes himself, must find a way to continue to live in the shattered world they once called home.
The Persians premiered in New York City with National Actors Theater at Pace University’s Schimmel Center for the Arts in April 2003. Directed by Ethan McSweeny, the production featured Brennan Brown, Len Cariou, Ed Dixon, Christina Dunham, Herb Foster, Mike Horowitz, Ben Lebish, Roberta Maxwell, Michael Potts, Henry Stram, Henry Strozier, Michael Stuhlbarg, Charles Turner, Jon De Vries and Yueni Zander.
COUNSELORS / CHORUS – 50s and olderCHAIRMANSTATETREASURYJUSTICERELIGIONARMY GENERALNAVY ADMIRALHERALD – 20s-30s, veteranATOSSA – 50s, Queen of PersiaDARIUS – 50s-60s, King of Persia, deadXERXES – 20s-30s, his son, current King of Persia
“Delivers a classic Greek tragedy while remaining contemporary.” – Magazine 6000
“Eerily contemporary... Why? Consider the plot: a superpower’s inexperienced, hubristic leader – who hopes to conquer a minor enemy his father tried unsuccessfully to fell a decade earlier – charges into a doomed military invasion. The invasion is pushed by yes-men advisors and predicated on bad intelligence. And this all takes place in the Middle East. To anti-war theatre folk, The Persians strikes the topicality jackpot.” – Smithsonian Magazine
“The trilogy won the first prize in the City Dionysia of Athens in 472 BCE and the resonance of the play for audiences from ancient times to the present remained, and remains strong in Ellen McLaughlin’s riveting adaptation.” – Undermain Theatre
“The play unfold[s] like a dramatic poem that ramp[s] up to a tragic climax in a quick and compelling show.” – Dallas Voice
“Visceral... less a heroic cheer for the victors, and more a soul-shaking evocation of the dreadful toll of war on everyone touched by the bloody conflict... McLaughlin’s rhythmical, concrete languages is at its most compelling... It’s a powerful reminder that no matter where war is being fought, human lives are destroyed among both the dead and the living. We must always ask ourselves if our motives are worthy of such suffering.” – Onstage NTX
“The play is a true classic: We see the present and future right there... Ellen McLaughlin serves and uses The Persians with true power and grace.” – The New York Times
“There’s absolutely no need to beware of struggling with difficult, musty with age language or themes. Ellen McLaughlin’s new version is crisp and easily comprehensible.” – Curtain Up
The Persians – Set Timelapse, Undermain Theatre
The Persians – Audience Reaction, Undermain Theatre
Ellen McLaughlin’s plays have received numerous national and international productions. They include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity’s House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Tongue of a Bird, The Trojan Women, Helen, The Persians, Oedipus, Ajax in Iraq, Kissing ...
by Ellen McLaughlin
Ellen McLaughlin