Adaptations of plays by Menander
Most of the surviving ancient material on New Comedy is in the form of plays by Menander who wrote in the fourth century BCE and his work has come down to us in fragmentary form. I have written adaptations of four of his plays, which have been self-published as paperbacks on Amazon together with a short book Menander and Life on the background and social contexts of the plays.
The first two have been performed for film. More detail is on separate pages on this site.
The other two have not yet been filmed but the paperbacks are on Amazon and the plays can be performed royalty free.
In the original performances the unfolding story, or main action, would have been interspersed by several song and dance numbers by a separate group of performers known as the Chorus. We have none of the text for these dances but I have written some new ones, choosing themes that seemed to me pertinent to those arising in the plays. These additions, I suggest, round the plays out, giving them more potential to provide a satisfying performance experience. I have also written some new material where there are large gaps in what has come down to us.
The composer Penny Shipley has written music for the choral dances and the printed music scores, together with the texts that accompany the dances are also available on Amazon as Music for Menander.
The music and masks for the performance of Not the Same Old Samia are featured in a short film on Youtube.