Hippolyta

Hippolyta is a one-act play based on Euripides’ tragedy Hippolytus. The gender of the main character has been changed from male to female, with all other characters and qualities remaining the same. Hippolyta likes the hunt and is not interested in the realms of Aphrodite. Her stepmother, Phaidra, falls in love with her, but this love is not returned. When Hippolyta’s father, Theseus, King of Athens, returns from a trip, he can tell trouble is brewing but not what kind or where. The story is re-told in contemporary language, with poetic turns of phrase to indicate some of the strangeness in the original.

A staged reading of Hippolyta took place at the Torn Page salon on December 12, 2025; the readers were Anna Crivelli, Jocelyn Kuritsky, Tony Torn, Lee Ann Brown, and Laynie Brown. Another staged reading took place on March 17, 2026, at Judson Memorial Church as part of Salone IV, organized by the Society of Fellows of the American Academy in Rome. The performers were Anna Crivelli (Hippolyta), Jocelyn Kuritsky (Phaidra), Ian Wen (Theseus and Chorus), Lee Ann Brown (Chorus), Vincent Katz (Chorus and Narrator). Puppets used in both readings were designed and built by Gerald L. R. Torn

Veranda of the Grand Gables

This play takes off from Tennessee Williams' use of characters trapped in a transient setting. In place of Williams' realistic development of character and psychological crises, however, it substitutes out-of-control senses of language and of literature, forcing them into disagreement with a "real world" that is by comparison brutal and insensitive. Shocks of juxtaposition, lapses of ordinary good manners, and severe conflicts based on an inability to communicate render this world by turns hilarious and unsettling.

A reading of an excerpt from this play was presented at Zinc Bar in New York City, as part of Boog City's Poets Theater, on Sunday, August 7th 2011. The readers were Jim Behrle, Joe Elliot, Brenda Iijima, Douglas Rothschild, and Sara Jane Stoner.

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