4 by Malpede plus an Intervention

Collected here are four full-length plays and one piercing scene by the eminent poetic language, social justice dramatist, Karen Malpede:
The particular twists in bloodlines, in psychosexual scars, in cataclysmic social forces are what US exposes; the very particular violence and reconciliations that recur endlessly between two disparate human beings who confront one another as lover and beloved.
Better People are to be concocted in this genetic research play that interrogates the true import of better.
From the depths of a dystopia, in the wake of the climate apocalypse, four rebels enact a daring plan to give birth to something new — to beings Other Than We.
In a great leap of fellow feeling, the separate griefs of three diverse characters converge — together with that of a blue roan horse: Blue Valiant.
From the fastness of observation, in Dinner During Yemen, two foreign experts dine to the tune of bloodcurdling screams.
Each of these works represents a heroic attempt to liberate the world.

Karen Malpede is author and director of 20 plays and co-founder with George Bartenieff of Theater Three Collaborative. Other Than We follows Extreme Whether (La MaMa, New York, 2018; ArtCop21, Paris, 2015; Theater for the New City, New York, 2014); the shorts Dinner During Yemen (Signature, New York, 2018), Hermes in the Anthropocene: A Dogologue (University of Iowa, Iowa City, 2019; Reed College, Portland, 2015); the revival of her 1995 The Beekeeper’s Daughter (Theater for the New City, New York, 2016), Another Life (RADA, London and Theater for the New City, New York, 2013; Irondale, Brooklyn, 2012; Gerald W. Lynch Theater, New York, 2011), Prophecy (English Theatre Berlin, 2007 (reading); New End Theatre, London, 2008; 4th St. Theater, New York, 2010), the docudrama Iraq: Speaking of War (Culture Project, New York, 2007; CUNY Grad Center, New York, 2006). Her most recent play, Blue Valiant, written for Kathleen Chalfant, had its debut in 2021. She is author of the anthology Plays in Time: The Beekeeper’s Daughter, Prophecy, Another Life, Extreme Whether, lead editor of Acts of War: Iraq and Afghanistan in Seven Plays, and author of an anthology of early plays, A Monster Has Stolen the Sun and Other Plays. Her short plays, fiction, and essays on ecofeminism, climate crisis, a new green Federal Theater, bearing witness, the Iraq war, the U.S. torture program, etc., are published in The Kenyon Review, TriQuarterly, Dark Matter, Howlround, Transformations, Torture Magazine, New Theater Quarterly, TDR, New York Times, and elsewhere. She was an adjunct associate professor on the Environmental Justice and Theater faculties at John Jay College, City University of New York; McKnight National Playwrights’ Fellowship, New York Foundation for the Arts; Vogelstein fellow; and a member of PEN, Dramatists Guild, ASLE (Association for the Study of Literature and Ecology) and of Brooklyn for Peace.

Sidney E. Cohn Distinguished Professor of Theatre, Comparative Literature, and Middle Eastern Studies, The Graduate Center, The City University of New York

Lydia Koniordou was born in Athens, studied English literature at the Athens University, and graduated from the National Theatre Drama School, in combination with parallel studies in music and dance. As an actress, she has interpreted major roles, both classical and contemporary, in Greece and abroad, collaborating with the National Theatre, the Karolos Koun Art Theatre, the Municipal Theatres of Larissa, Volos, Patras, as well as with the Chatelet Theater in Paris, Teatro Piccolo in Milan and many other. She has worked with eminent theatre directors such as Karolos Koun, Alexis Minotis, Kostas Tsianos, Lefteris Voyatzis, Sotiris Chatzakis, Robert Wilson, Alexander Vassiliev, Yannis Kokkos and others. As a director, besides contemporary plays, she staged many ancient Greek tragedies, for the National Theatre, the Municipal Theatres of Larissa and Volos, the Athens Conservatory and for the Getty Museum in California. For her work and overall contribution in this field, she has been awarded the Karolos Koun and the Critics Awards. She has served as artistic director of the Municipal Theatres of Volos and Patras. Koniordou served as the Minister of Culture and Sports of the Hellenic Republic from November 5, 2016 to August 29, 2018.