Readings - The Performance of Roman Comedy

The banner for the 2023 NEH Institute for Higher Education Faculty, "The Performance of Roman Comedy." A beige background. At top, in black Art Deco capital lettering, reads: The Performance of Roman Comedy. Below that, in white sentence-case Art Deco lettering, reads: Boston College & Wake Forest University • Chestnut Hill, MA • July 9–August 4, 2023. Below that, four Art Deco figures in bright colors representing ancient Roman actors, left to right: a red-skinned bald person with a beard and asymmetrical eyebrow, wearing a yellow toga, on a sky-blue background; a light-skinned person with brown hair and a slate palla playing the double pipes on a green background; a red-skinned bald beardless person with a big smile and a blue toga with arms stretched overhead, on a mustard background; and a light-skinned figure wearing red palla and head covering with Green skirt with a big frown, on a red background. In the bottom left, in tiny letters: art by Kevin Quigley.

Quick links

Relief with Menander and New Comedy Masks (Roman, AD 40-60) - the masks show three of his canonical New Comedy characters: youth, false maiden, old man — “Getty Villa – Collection” by The Consortium is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 .

readings folder (access restricted to participants)
before the Institute
Monday, July 10
Tuesday, July 11
Wednesday, July 12
Thursday, July 13
Friday, July 14
Monday, July 17
Tuesday, July 18
Wednesday, July 19
Thursday, July 20
Friday, July 21
Monday, July 24
Tuesday, July 25
Wednesday, July 26
Thursday, July 27
Friday, July 28

Before the Institute

You will need to read all of the following before arriving in Boston for the Institute:

All extant plays by Plautus and Terence.
The 2011 Loeb Classical Library translations by Wolfgang de Melo are readily available at most university libraries and online at the Digital Loeb. Subscriptions to the Digital Loeb are available through many university libraries and through membership in the Classical Association of New England.
Gellar-Goad, T. H. M. 2021. Plautus: Curculio. London: Bloomsbury.
A short introduction to Roman comedy via a study of its shortest play. Read in its entirety. Available in paperback or ebook here.
All videos from the 2012 NEH Institute on The Performance of Roman Comedy.

An image generated by DALL•E of an ancient mosaic of comic masks. There are three masks. The left and right are partially cut off. The background is red. The masks have pale skin, wide-open mouths, big noses, and piercing eyes. — Image created by T. H. M. Gellar-Goad using DALL·E.

At the Institute

All readings to be done during the Institute will be made available to participants in advance of the Institute’s start. Readings are listed under the day they are due: you’ll need to read them prior to the morning session for that day.

Monday, July 10: Space

Timothy J. Moore, morning session expert facilitator
morning session in Vanderslice 117
rehearsals today: ensemble scenes

Required readings

Sander M. Goldberg, “Plautus on the Palatine,” Journal of Roman Studies 88 (1998), pp. 1–20.
Sander M. Goldberg, “Theater without Theaters: Seeing Plays the Roman Way,” TAPA 148.1 (2018), pp. 139–172.

Optional readings

C. W. Marshall, The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 16–56, 72–82.
Here’s a link to some PDFs with resources from Prof. Moore’s presentations.

Tuesday, July 11: Music, Meter, Dance

Timothy J. Moore, morning session expert facilitator
morning session in Vanderslice 117
rehearsals today: smaller scenes

Required readings

A portion of an ancient Greek red-figure vase depicting a young man with wings wearing a robe (with genitalia exposed) and playing a set of two auloi. — “File:Bowdoin Painter ARV 683 123 flying Eros playing auloi (02).jpg” by ArchaiOptix is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 .

“File:Bowdoin Painter ARV 683 123 flying Eros playing auloi (02).jpg” by ArchaiOptix is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 .

T. H. M. Gellar-Goad, “Music and Meter in Plautus,” in A Companion to Plautus, edd. Dorota Dutsch and George F. Franko (Malden, MA, 2020), pp. 251–267.
Timothy J. Moore, Music in Roman Comedy (Cambridge, 2012), pp. 171–209.

Required activity

Following these instructions, take a look at where the meters change in one or both of the scenes in which you will be performing this summer, using Timothy J. Moore’s “The Meters of Roman Comedy” Database.
Here’s a link to some PDFs with resources from Prof. Moore’s presentations.
Here’s a link to some of Prof. Moore’s recordings of Plautine cantica.
Here’s a link to the Barnard/Columbia performance of Euripides’ Herakles with aulos.

Optional readings

Timothy J. Moore, “Music and Gender in Terence’s Hecyra,” in Women in the Drama of the Roman Republic, edd. Dorota Dutsch, Sharon L. James, and David Konstan (Madison, 2015), pp. 68–87.
Timothy J. Moore, “Roman Comedy and the Final Dance,” in Aspects of Roman Dance Culture, ed. Karin Schlapbach (Stuttgart, 2022), pp. 159–178. Available open access here.

Wednesday, July 12: Masks, Costumes, Props

Amy R. Cohen & C. W. Marshall, morning session expert facilitators
morning session in Bonn Studio Theater
rehearsals today: ensemble scenes

Required readings

C.W. Marshall, The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 56–72 and 126–158.

Optional readings

Robert C. Ketterer, “Stage Properties in Plautine Comedy I,” Semiotica 58 (1986), pp. 193–216.
Robert C. Ketterer, “Stage Properties in Plautine Comedy II,” Semiotica 59 (1986), pp. 93–135.
Robert C. Ketterer, “Stage Properties in Plautine Comedy III,” Semiotica 60 (1986), pp. 29–72.
Gesine Manuwald, Roman Republican Theater (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 68–80.
Antonis K. Petrides, “Plautus between Greek Comedy and Atellan Farce: Assessments and Reassessments,” in The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, edd. Michael Fontaine and Adele Scafuro (Oxford, 2014), pp. 424–443.

Thursday, July 13: Actors, Acting Style, Movement

Amy R. Cohen & C. W. Marshall, morning session expert facilitators
morning session in Bonn Studio Theater
rehearsals today: smaller scenes

An ancient mosaic of a theater mask. The mask has pale skin tone, long straight brown hair, and a green wreath around the top of its head. — “Mosaic showing a Roman mask” by A.M. Kuchling is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 .

“Mosaic showing a Roman mask” by A.M. Kuchling is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 .

Required readings

C.W. Marshall, The Stagecraft and Performance of Roman Comedy (Cambridge, 2006), pp. 159–202.

Optional readings

Isabella Tardin Cardoso, “Comic Technique,” in The Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy, edd. M.T. Dinter (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 120–135.
Gesine Manuwald, Roman Republican Theater (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 80–90.

Friday, July 14: Language & Style

Peter Barrios-Lech, morning session expert facilitator
morning session in Bonn Studio Theater
rehearsals today: ensemble scenes

Required readings

Peter Barrios-Lech, “The Language of Plautus,” in A Companion to Plautus, edd. Dorota Dutsch & George F. Franko (Malden, MA, 2020), pp. 221–236.
Evangelos Karakasis, “The Language of Roman Comedy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy, ed. Martin T. Dinter (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 151–170.

Optional readings

Wolfgang de Melo, “The Language of Roman Comedy,” in A Companion to the Latin Language, edd. James Clackson (Malden, MA, 2011), pp. 321–343.
Evangelos Karakasis, “The Language of the Palliata,” in The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy, edd. Michael Fontaine and Adele Scafuro (Oxford, 2014), pp. 555–579.

Monday, July 17: Humor

Erin K. Moodie, morning session expert facilitator
morning session in Vanderslice 117
rehearsals today: ensemble scenes

Required readings

An ancient Greek terracotta figurine from Tanagra of the muse of comedy. A woman with brown braided hair leaning on her left side and holding a smiling mask in her left hand. — “File:Terracotta da tanagra, musa della commedia, 250-200 ac..JPG” by sailko is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 .

“File:Terracotta da tanagra, musa della commedia, 250-200 ac..JPG” by sailko is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 .

Erin K. Moodie, “License to Thrill: Humor and Linguistic Accuracy in Translations of Roman Comedy,” Classical Journal 111.1 (2015), pp. 11–23.
Martin T. Dinter, “Comic Technique in Plautus’ Asinaria and Casina,” in A Companion to Plautus, edd. Dorota Dutsch and George F. Franko (Malden, MA, 2020), pp. 269–285.
Erin K. Moodie, “In Defense of Milphio: Aggressive Puns and Status Transactions in Plautus’ Poenulus,” Classical World 111.3 (2018), pp. 321–350 (n.b., read only pp. 321–324).

Optional readings

Amy Richlin, “The Traffic in Shtick,” in Rome, Empire of Plunder: The Dynamics of Cultural Appropriation, edd. by Matthew Loar, Carolyn MacDonald, and Dan-el Padilla Peralta (Cambridge, 2018), pp. 169–193.

Tuesday, July 18: Metatheater & Plautinopolis

Rachel Mazzara & Niall W. Slater, morning session expert facilitators
morning session in Vanderslice 117
rehearsals today: smaller scenes

Required readings

Niall W. Slater, Plautus in Performance: The Theatre of the Mind (Princeton, 1985), pp. 2–18.
David Christenson, “Metatheatre,” in The Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy, ed. Martin T. Dinter (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 136–150.
Rachel Mazzara, “Plautinopolis: Imagination and Representation in Plautus’ Roman Comedy,” Ph.D. diss. (Toronto, 2021), pp. 22–55.

Optional readings

Adrian S. Gratwick, “Light Drama,” The Cambridge History of Classical Literature, vol. 2: Latin Literature, ed. E. J. Kenney (Cambridge, 1982), pp. 112–115.
Clara S. Hardy, “The Parasite’s Daughter: Metatheatrical Costuming in Plautus’ Persa,” Classical World 99.1 (2005), pp. 25–33.
Rodrigo Lessa and João Araújo, “World Consistency,” in The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds, ed. Mark J. P. Wolf (New York, 2017), pp. 90–97.
Timothy J. Moore, The Theatre of Plautus: Playing to the Audience (Austin, 1998), ch. 3.
Martin Revermann, “The Competence of Theatre Audiences in Fifth- and Fourth-Century Athens,” Journal of Hellenic Studies 126 (2006), pp. 99–124.
Benjamin J. Robertson, “World Completeness,” in The Routledge Companion to Imaginary Worlds, ed. Mark J. P. Wolf (New York, 2017), pp. 82–89.

Wednesday, July 19: Sex, Gender, Sexual Violence

Sharon L. James, morning session expert facilitator
morning session in Bonn Studio Theater
rehearsals today: ensemble scenes

Required readings

An Art Deco figure in bright colors representing an ancient Roman actor: a light-skinned figure wearing red palla and head covering with Green skirt with a big frown, on a red background. Art by Kevin Quigley.

Sharon L. James, “Gender and Sexuality in Terence,” in A Companion to Terence, edd. Antony Augoustakis and Ariana Traill (Malden, MA, 2013), pp. 175–194.
Serena S. Witzke, “Gender and Sexuality in Plautus,” in A Companion to Plautus, edd. Dorota Dutsch and George F. Franko (Malden, MA, 2020), pp. 331–346.
Sharon L. James, “Repetition, civic status, and remedy: Women and trauma in New Comedy,” in Emotional Trauma in Greece and Rome: Representations and Reactions, edd. Andromache Karanika and Vassiliki Panoussi (London, 2019), pp. 49–70.

Optional readings

Anne Feltovich, “Controlling Images: Enslaved Women in Greek and Roman Comedy,” Arethusa 54.1 (2021), pp. 73–92.
Sharon L. James, “Ancient Comedy, Women’s Lives: Finding Social History and Seeing the Present in Classical Comedy,” Humanities Futures.
Sharon L. James, “Case Study IV: Domestic Female Slaves in Roman Comedy,” in A Companion to Women in the Ancient World, edd. Sharon L. James and Sheila Dillon (Malden, MA, 2012), pp. 235–237.
Amy Richlin, “Schrödinger’s Pussy: Slave Actors and Fluid Desire in Early Roman Comedy,” in The Bloomsbury Companion to Gender and Theatre Research, edd. Sean Metzger and Roberta Mock (London, forthcoming).

Thursday, July 20: Class & Enslavement

Amy Richlin, morning session expert facilitator
morning session in Bonn Studio Theater
rehearsals today: smaller scenes

Required readings

Amy Richlin, “Talking to Slaves in the Plautine Audience,” Classical Antiquity 33.1 (2014), pp. 174–226.
Antonin J. Obrdlik, “Gallows Humor: A Sociological Phenomenon,” American Journal of Sociology 47.5 (1942), pp. 709–716.
Michelle Cliff, The Land of Look Behind (Ithaca, 1985), pp. 40–47.
Prof. Richlin highly recommends reading the following optional reading from yesterday’s session, especially for participants who didn’t start with much knowledge about Roman comedy:
Amy Richlin, “Schrödinger’s Pussy: Slave Actors and Fluid Desire in Early Roman Comedy,” in The Bloomsbury Companion to Gender and Theatre Research, edd. Sean Metzger and Roberta Mock (London, forthcoming).

Optional readings

bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation, 2nd ed. (London, 2014), ch. 7.
Amy Richlin, “Role-Playing in Roman Civilization and Roman Comedy Courses: How to Imagine a Complex Society,” Classical Journal 108.3 (2013), pp. 347–361.
Amy Richlin, “The Ones Who Paid the Butcher’s Bill: Soldiers and War Captives in Roman Comedy,” in Brill’s Companion to Military Defeat in Ancient Mediterranean Society, edd. Jessica Homan Clark and Brian Turner (Leiden, 2017), pp. 213–239.
Nathan Rosenstein, Rome and the Mediterranean 290 to 146 BC (Edinburgh, 2012), pp. 86–95.
James C. Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance (New Haven, 1990), pp. 1–44.
Alan Watson, Roman Private Law around 200 BC (Edinburgh, 1971).

Friday, July 21: Ethnicity & Colonialism

Deepti Menon, morning session expert facilitator
morning session in Bonn Studio Theater
rehearsals today: ensemble scenes

Required readings

Deepti Menon, “Travels through the Foreign Imaginary on the Plautine Stage,” Ph.D. diss. (Santa Barbara, 2020), selections.

Optional readings

Peter G. Barrios-Lech, “Theatergrams in Plautine Comedy: the Case of Hanno in Poenulus,” in Plautus’ Erudite Comedy: New Insights into the Work of a Doctus poeta, edd. Sophia Papaioannou and Chrysanthi Demetriou (Newcastle upon Tyne, 2020), pp. 75–120.
Amy Richlin, “Blackface and Drag in the Palliata,” in Complex Inferiorities: The Poetics of the Weaker Voice in Latin Literature, edd. Sebastian Matzner and Stephen Harrison (Oxford, 2019), pp. 49–72.

Monday, July 24: Politics, War, Empire

Matthew Leigh, morning session expert facilitator
morning session in Vanderslice 117
rehearsals today: ensemble scenes

An image generated by DALL•E of an ancient coin depicting a comic mask. There are gibberish letters running around the bottom of the coin. — Image created by T. H. M. Gellar-Goad using DALL·E.

Required readings

Matthew Leigh, Comedy and the Rise of Rome (Oxford, 2004), pp. 57–97.

Optional readings

Robert Germany, “The Politics of Comedy,” in The Cambridge Companion to Roman Comedy, ed. Martin T. Dinter (Cambridge, 2019), pp. 68–84.
Matthew Leigh, Comedy and the Rise of Rome (Oxford, 2020), pp. 1–23.

Tuesday, July 25: Religion

Seth Jeppesen & Dan-el Padilla Peralta, morning session expert facilitators
morning session in Vanderslice 117
rehearsals today: smaller scenes

Required readings

Seth A. Jeppesen, “Religion in and around Plautus,” in A Companion to Plautus, edd. Dorota Dutsch and George F. Franko (Malden, MA, 2020), pp. 317–330.
Dan-el Padilla Peralta, “Slave Religiosity in the Roman Middle Republic,” Classical Antiquity 36.2 (2017), pp. 317–369.

Optional readings

Seth Bernard, “In Search of Aeneas at the Sanctuary of Castrum Inui (Ardea),” Journal of Roman Archaeology 32 (2019), pp. 561–573.
Edward Bispham and Daniele Miano, edd., Gods and Goddesses in Ancient Italy (London, 2020).
Anthony Corbeill, “Dreams and the prodigy process in Republican Rome,” in Sub imagine somni: Nighttime Phenomena in Greco-Roman Culture, edd. Emma Scioli and Christine Walde (Pisa, 2010), pp. 81–101.
Harriet I. Flower, “Fabula de Bacchanalibus: the Bacchanalian cult of the second century BC and Roman drama,” in Identität und Alterität in der frührömischen Tragödie, ed. Gesine Manuwald (Würzburg, 2020), pp. 23–35.
Gesine Manuwald, Roman Republican Theater (Cambridge, 2011), pp. 41–55.
Lisa M. Mignone, The Republican Aventine and Rome’s Social Order (Ann Arbor, 2016).
Eric Orlin, “Urban Religion in the Middle and Late Republic,” in A Companion to Roman Religion, ed. Jörg Rüpke (Malden, MA, 2007), pp. 58–70.
Dan-el Padilla Peralta, Divine Institutions: Religions and Community in the Middle Roman Republic (Princeton, 2020).
Celia E. Schultz, Women’s Religious Activity in the Roman Republic (Chapel Hill, 2006).
Celia E. Schultz, “Roman Sacrifice, Inside and Out.” Journal of Roman Studies 106 (2016), pp. 58–76.
T. P. Wiseman, Unwritten Rome (Exeter, 2008).

Wednesday, July 26: Adaptation & Production

Seth Jeppesen & V. Sophie Klein, morning session expert facilitators
morning session in Bonn Studio Theater
rehearsals today: ensemble scenes

Required readings

An ancient statuette of a comic actor. In black metal, the figure is bent at the knees and bent forward at the waist, head craned towards the sky, right hand on chin in a pensive gesture, left hand spreading open buttcheeks to reveal a prominent anus. — “Comic actor” by Taifighta is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 .

“Comic actor” by Taifighta is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 .

Amy Richlin, Rome & the Mysterious Orient (Berkeley, 2005), pp. 30–52.
Mary-Kay Gamel, “Revising ‘Authenticity’ in Staging Ancient Mediterranean Drama,” in Theorising Performance: Greek Drama, Cultural History and Critical Practice, edd. Edith Hall and Stephe Harrop (Duckworth, 2010), pp. 153–170.
V. Sophie Klein, Plautus: Menaechmi (London, 2022), ch. 4.

Optional readings

Mary-Kay Gamel, “Can ‘Democratic’ Modern Stagings of Ancient Drama be ‘Authentic’?,” in Classics in the Modern World: A Democratic Turn?, edd. Lorna Hardwick and Stephen Harrison (Oxford, 2013), pp. 183–195.
Linda Hutcheon and Siobhan O’Flynn, A Theory of Adaptation, 2nd ed. (London, 2013), pp. 1–32, 141–167.

Thursday, July 27: Reception on the Stage

Serena S. Witzke, morning session expert facilitator
morning session in Bonn Studio Theater
rehearsals today: smaller scenes

Required readings

Antony Augoustakis, “Hrotsvit of Gandersheim Christianizes Terence,” in A Companion to Terence, edd. Antony Augoustakis and Ariana Traill (Malden, MA, 2013), pp. 397–409.
Serena S. Witzke, “‘I Knew I Had a Brother!’ Fraternity and Identity in Plautus’ Menaechmi and Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest,” in Oscar Wilde and Classical Antiquity, edd. Kathleen Riley, Alastair J. L. Blanshard, and Iarla Manny (Oxford, 2017), pp. 321–336.
William of Blois, Alda.

Optional readings

Skim Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest.
Peter G. McC. Brown, “The Eunuch Castrated: Bowdlerization in the Text of the Westminster Latin Play,” International Journal of the Classical Tradition 15.1 (2008), pp. 16–28.
Robert Faulkner, “Clizia and the Enlightenment of Private Life,” in The Comedy and Tragedy of Machiavelli: Essays on the Literary Works, ed. Vickie B. Sullivan (New Haven, 2000), pp. 30–56.
Robert S. Miola, Shakespeare and Classical Comedy (Oxford, 1994), pp. 19–37.

Friday, July 28: Reception on the Screen

T. H. M. Gellar-Goad & Christopher B. Polt, morning session expert facilitators
morning session in Bonn Studio Theater
rehearsals today: ensemble scenes

Required reading

Malamud, Margaret. 2001. “Brooklyn-on-the-Tiber: Roman Comedy on Broadway and in Film.” In Imperial Projections: Ancient Rome in Modern Popular Culture, edd. Sandra R. Joshel, Margaret Malamud, and Donald T. McGuire, Jr. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. 191–208.

Required viewings

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.
Watch Seinfeld season 6, episode 10, “The Race.”

An ancient full-color mosaic of the masks of comedy and tragedy. On the left is a white mask with long braided black hair, gold hair ribbon, and wide-open mouth. On the right is a red-faced mask with big open smile, shaggy brown beard, big black eyebrows, and wreath of green leaves and gold berries. — “Mosaic depicting theater masks Roman 2nd century CE” by mharrsch is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 .

“Mosaic depicting theater masks Roman 2nd century CE” by mharrsch is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 .

Monday–Wednesday, July 31–August 2: Filming

Bonn Studio Theater
No assigned readings for these days!

Thursday, August 3: Preparations for dissemination

Bonn Studio Theater
No assigned readings for this day!

Friday, August 4: Institute wrap-up

Bonn Studio Theater
No assigned readings for this day!

The Performance of Roman Comedy has been made possible by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Democracy demands wisdom.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.