Posted on 9/10/09. Photos by Andrew Bisdale.

On March 27th in this past spring semester, the Core and the Department of Classics co-sponsored a dramatic reading of one of Aristophanes' plays, featuring students and faculty in gender-bending costum and ribald role. Prof. Stephanie Nelson led her troupe through a performance of "Peace," in which disgruntled Athenian Trygaeus decides to demand that the gods stop making life so miserable. But how to get to Olympus? On the back of a giant flying dung beetle, of course ("What an indecent, stinking, gluttonous beast!").

The goddess Peace herself, this year emobodied by Prof. Stephen Scully sporting long braids and a decidedly 1960s fashion sense, doesn't make an appearance until well into the play, but when she/he does, it is a wall-busting, dachshund-grilling, candy-throwing spectacle. It all ends, as per convention, with a wedding, and all matters of things are well. The show began with a performance by the Fish Worship blues band and enormous quantities of free pizza.

The photos below were taken at a special early performance of this year's show, held on February 28th at the Student Village for an audience of alumni attending WinterFest.

Photo 1: Prof. Stephen Scully, as Peace personified, bursts from her prior captivity.