MEDEA
Through a mix of sound-poems, dance, and traditional scenes, Catherine Theis attempts to jostle Medea from her traditional, male-defined narrative in this modern retelling set in the mountains of Montana. A 2015 Leslie Scalapino Award for Innovative Women Performance Writers finalist, MEDEA features a Chorus of Flames, choreography for The Milky Way, and a collection of palate-cleansing satyr plays to be performed after. Grappling with both love and language, Theis' Medea "wants to join with the world, to meld with it. Let's let her do that—see what falls away."
Catherine Theis is a poet, translator, and scholar. Her translation of the Italian poet Jolanda Insana is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press (2024). Theis is the author of MEDEA (Plays Inverse, 2017), an adaptation of the Euripides story, as well as The Fraud of Good Sleep (Salt Modern Poets, 2011). Her critical book, H.D.’s Dramatic Poetics is forthcoming from Dalkey Archive (2024). Theis has received various fellowships and awards, most notably from the Illinois Arts Council, Del Amo Foundation, Gold Family Foundation, and the Ugo Da Como Foundation. She teaches in the General Education program at USC.
