February 26, 2025
We are thrilled to have welcomed playwright, author, and actress Ellen McLaughlin (Oedipus) to celebrate the publication of The Greek Plays 2, her new collection of adaptations and modern reimaginings of classic Greek tragedies. McLaughlin breathes new life into the works of Sophocles, Homer, Euripides, and Aeschylus, prompting her readers to consider questions that remain relevant today: Does political strife and the trauma of war irreversibly alter us as individuals? In the aftermath of such violence, can we retain elements of our former selves? Can civilizations withstand humanity’s basest instincts?
To explore these questions alongside McLaughlin, we welcomed actor Kathleen Chalfant, known for her work on Broadway and the screen. Their conversation was accompanied by performances from Obie Award-winning actor Martin Moran; Kelley Curran (The Gilded Age); Josiah Bania (Elementary); and Laura Heisler (The Harbinger).
The Center for Fiction is thrilled to continue its collaboration with Theatre Communications Group for this event, with past events featuring Jackie Sibblies Drury and Claudia Rankine; Annie Baker and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins; Heidi Schreck and Paula Vogel; Sarah Ruhl and Matthew Aucoin; Aleshea Harris and Nissy Aya; Lynn Nottage and Damon Tabor; Martyna Majok, Naveen Kumar, and David Zayas; Taylor Mac and Laura Collins-Hughes; Will Arbery, Chloé Cooper Jones, and Leslie Jamson; James Ijames and Jonathan McCrory; Tony Kushner and Isaac Butler; Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and Jocelyn Bioh; Quiara Alegría Hudes; and Samuel D. Hunter and Rob Weinert-Kendt.
Featured Book
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The Greek Plays 2
By Ellen McLaughlin
Published by TCG
Ellen McLaughlin returns with a new collection of adaptations and modern reimaginings of classic Greek tragedies. Drawing on works by Sophocles, Homer, Aeschylus and more, these plays breathe fresh life into timeless questions and conflicts that still feel startlingly relevant today: Can civilization survive humanity’s basest instincts? What do we do about the human compulsion toward violence? Are we irreversibly transformed by the trauma of war and political strife, or is there a chance we can recover a part of our former selves? This collection includes the plays Ajax in Iraq (from Sophocles), Kissing the Floor (Sophocles), Penelope (Homer), Mercury’s Footpath (Euripides), and The Oresteia (based on Aeschylus’ trilogy Agamemnon, The Libation Bearers, and The Eumenides).
In Conversation
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Ellen McLaughlin
Ellen McLaughlin
Ellen McLaughlin’s plays have received numerous national and international productions. They include Days and Nights Within, A Narrow Bed, Infinity’s House, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Tongue of a Bird, The Trojan Women, Helen, The Persians, Oedipus, Ajax in Iraq, Kissing the Floor, Septimus and Clarissa, The Names We Gave Him, Penelope, Blood Moon, Mercury’s Footpath, and The Oresteia. Producers include: The Public Theater, The National Actors Theatre, Classic Stage Company, Ripe Time, Prototype Festival, One Year Lease, Flux Theatre Ensemble, and New York Theatre Workshop (NYC), Actors Theatre of Louisville, The Actors’ Gang (LA), Intiman Theatre (Seattle), Almeida Theatre (London), The Mark Taper Forum (LA), Oregon Shakespeare Festival, the Getty Villa, Guthrie Theater, and Shakespeare Theatre Company (D.C.), among other venues. Grants and awards include: Helen Merrill Award for Playwriting, Great American Play Contest, Susan Smith Blackburn Prize, the NEA, the Writers’ Award from the Lila Wallace–Reader’s Digest Fund, the Berilla Kerr Award for Playwrighting, and the TCG/Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship for Ajax in Iraq at the A.R.T. Institute. She has taught playwriting at Barnard College since 1995. Other teaching posts include Bread Loaf School of English, Yale Drama School, and Princeton University. Ms. McLaughlin is also an actor. She is most well known for having originated the part of the Angel in Tony Kushner’s Angels in America, appearing in every U.S. production from its earliest workshops through its original Broadway run.
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Kathleen Chalfant
Kathleen Chalfant
Kathleen Chalfant’s Broadway performances include Angels in America (Tony and Drama Desk nom.), Racing Demon, Dance With Me. Off-Broadway: A Woman of the World, Wit (Drama Desk, Lucille Lortel, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, Connecticut Critics Circle, Obie Awards), For Peter Pan on Her 70th Birthday, A Walk in the Woods (Drama Desk nom.), Tales from Red Vienna, Miss Ovington & Dr. Dubois, Talking Heads (Obie Award), Dead Man’s Cell Phone, Nine Armenians (Drama Desk nomination), Henry V (Callaway Award). Other New York credits include Year of Magical Thinking, Hellzapoppin’: What About the Bees?, The Vagina Monologues, Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Endgame, Sister Mary Ignatius…, The Investigation of the Murder in El Salvador. Film credits include Old, Isn’t it Delicious?, R.I.P.D., The Bath, In Bed With Ulysses, Lillian, Duplicity, The People Speak, Lackawanna Blues, Perfect Stranger, Dark Water, Kinsey, Laramie Project, Random Hearts, A Price Below Rubies, Murder and Murder. Select television credits: recurring on The Affair, The Strain, The Americans, House of Cards, Rescue Me, The Book of Daniel, The Guardian, Law and Order, One Life to Live, Madam Secretary, High Maintenance, Elementary, Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight (HBO), Georgia O’Keeffe (Lifetime), Voices from the White House (PBS). Awards: 1996 Obie Award for Sustained Excellence, 2004 Lortel Award for Sustained Excellence of Performance, 2015 Lifetime Achievement Award from the League of Professional Women. 2018 OBIE Award for Lifetime Achievement. She has received the Drama League and Sidney Kingsley Awards for her body of work and holds an honorary doctorate in Humane Letters from Cooper Union.
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Josiah Bania
Josiah Bania
Josiah Bania’s previous theatre credits include: Manhattan Theatre Club, Mark Taper Forum, Shakespeare Theatre Company, Geffen Playhouse, American Repertory Theater, Yale Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, Dorset Theatre Festival, Artists Repertory Theater, and others. He is full-time faculty in the MFA Acting program at Brooklyn College, teaches classes at HB Studio and privately, and has taught at Yale Summer Conservatory, Williams College, New York Conservatory for the Dramatic Arts, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn.
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Kelley Curran
Kelley Curran
Kelley Curran can be seen, as Turner, in Julian Fellowes The Gilded Age for HBO. She has appeared off-Broadway in The Half-God of Rainfall at NYTW; at The Public Theater opposite Glenn Close in Mother of the Maid, and as Clytemnestra in Ellen McLaughlin’s world premiere of The Oresteia at The Shakespeare Theatre Company of DC. Kelley has also appeared on Broadway in Present Laughter with Kevin Kline, and at The Signature Theatre, Classic Stage Company, Theatre For a New Audience, and LAByrinth Theatre Company, among others. She made her network television debut on NBC’s The Blacklist, and recently appeared on the CBS drama God Friended Me. In 2019 she made her feature film debut in The Man Who Killed Hitler and Then The Bigfoot. Kelley has been nominated for a SAG Award, won The Callaway Award, Emery Battis Award, NTC Emerging Professional Award, and in 2016 was nominated for a Drama League Award alongside Lupita Nyong’o, Michelle Williams and Lin Manuel-Miranda. She has also been nominated for both a Princess Grace and Helen Hayes Award.
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Laura Heisler
Laura Heisler
Laura Heisler’s Broadway credits include Coram Boy. Off-Broadway and regional: Kin (Lortel & Drama League nominations), The Patron Saint of Sea Monsters, Doris to Darlene, and People Be Heard, all at Playwrights Horizons; The Mistakes Madeline Made (Naked Angels); Everything Will Be Different (Soho Rep); Orpheus Descending (TFANA); BFF (WET); The Given (Studio Dante); Too Much Memory (Rising Phoenix); Top Girls and Bus Stop (Williamstown); Build and Miss Julie (The Geffen); Stunning and Rocket to the Moon (Woolly Mammoth); Good Faith (Yale Rep); Eurydice (world premiere, Madison Rep); The Language Archive (South Coast Rep); Compleat Female Stage Beauty and The Taming of the Shrew (Old Globe); and many others. TV includes: Evil; Chicago Med; The Americans; Elementary; Madam Secretary; Law & Order; Law & Order: Organized Crime; Grey’s Anatomy; The Middle; Bones; Ugly Betty; Numb3rs; The Defenders. Film: The Harbinger, We Go On, As Good as You, Cold Souls, Coach, Yellowbrickroad.
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Martin Moran
Martin Moran
Martin Moran’s most recent play, THEO, premiered at Two River Theater. He was awarded a 2013 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Off Broadway Solo Show for All The Rage and a 2004 OBIE Award and two Drama Desk Nominations for his play The Tricky Part, based upon his award winning memoir. His writing has appeared in Ploughshares, The Pushcart Prize anthology and The New York Times. His Broadway and Off-Broadway credits include: Funny Girl, Spamalot, Cabaret, Titanic, Wicked, Bells Are Ringing, How To Succeed in Business…, Big River, O’Earth (The Foundry Theater), Floyd Collins (Playwrights Horizons) A Man of No Importance, (Lincoln Center Theater) Cider House Rules and 3 Kinds of Exile at The Atlantic Theater, The Cradle Will Rock with City Center Encores! and Brecht’s A Mans A Man at Classic Stage Company. Film/TV credits include: The Newsroom; The Big C; Z-Nation; Possible Side Affects; Private Parts; Law & Order; Law & Order Criminal Intent; Dellaventura; Mary and Rhoda. He has worked regionally at The Longwharf, The Old Globe, Two River Theater, The La Jolla Playhouse, Williamstown Theater Festival, Trinity Repertory Company, and The Intiman. He was a fellow at The Macdowell Colony and he wrote the Book and Lyrics for the 2012 solo musical, Borrowed Dust, with composer Joseph Thalken. His second memoir, All The Rage, A Quest was released in 2016 by Beacon Press.
