A FREE SPECIAL EVENT:
Queen Esther: A Heretical Play from Early Modern Spain
by Harley Erdman
Directed by Aaron Henne
Featuring Robinson Alvarado-Vargas, Abbi Andrews, Eliza Epstein, Willie E. Jones III, and Maya Quiñones. Music provided by Brian Repeta.
Nov. 18 at 4:30 p.m.
The Rand Theater, Bromery Center for the Arts, UMass, 151 Presidents Drive, Amherst, MA
Free and open to the public. No registration required.
In this Illuminated Lecture, a form that weaves theater and music into an academic lecture, UMass Professor Harley Erdman, with the support of five student actors, shares his research on a play from 1613 that landed its playwright, Felipe Godínez, in jail for heresy. What made the play so dangerous to the Inquisition? Erdman delves into the playwright’s crypto-Jewish background and shows how some extraordinary choices in the play might have held a hidden meaning for audience members who were of Jewish heritage but forbidden from practicing their religion or expressing their culture in public. Join us for an entertaining and memorable take on an academic lecture, on a fascinating subject.
A co-production of UMass Theater and theatre dybbuk.
This event is made possible in part by the College of Humanities and Fine Arts, Comparative Literature, the Department of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies, and Spanish & Portuguese Studies.