The Acting Company Presents “Odyssey” at W&L The Oct. 9 performance will take place in the Lenfest Center’s Keller Theatre.

By Emily Innes
September 29, 2023

The Lenfest Center at Washington and Lee University presents The Acting Company’s “Odyssey” on Oct. 9 at 7:30 p.m. in Keller Theatre. Based on the revelatory new translation by Emily Wilson, the production brings new humor and grace to a familiar story of adventure and belonging.

Tickets are required and available online or in person at the Lenfest Box Office.

Adapted and directed by Lisa Peterson, “Odyssey” brings new life to the ancient epic, following the story of four young women in a refugee camp who retell Odysseus’s adventures as they struggle with their own search for a home. Through its extraordinary characters, “Odyssey” explores what it means to host a stranger and follow the rules of generosity while questioning what it means to “belong” after there is no longer a place to call home.

“Peterson’s unique and surprising adaptation and her brilliant direction of our company of Middle Eastern, North African and Eastern European actors is an ode to our collective need for home, forgiveness and grace,” said Kent Gash, artistic director of The Acting Company. “It is vital and essential storytelling born out of a special collaborative impulse.”

The Acting Company is the only professional theater principally dedicated to the development of young classical actors, and was founded in 1972 by John Houseman and Margot Harley, alumni of the first graduating class of the Drama Division of The Juilliard School. The Acting Company has launched the careers of numerous celebrated actors, including Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, Rainn Wilson and Jesse L. Martin, and brings high-quality professional theater to hundreds of communities across the United States.

Order your tickets online today or call the Lenfest Center box office at 540-458-8000 for ticket purchase information. Box office hours are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-4 p.m. The cost is $33 for adults, $30 for seniors, $27 for W&L faculty and staff and $8 for students.

For a full list of this season’s performances, visit the Lenfest Center’s website.

The Lenfest Center for the Arts, home of the Department of Theater, Dance, and Film Studies and the Department of Music and Department of Art and Art History is a multi-use facility designed and equipped to accommodate a broad spectrum of the performing arts, including theater, musical theater, opera and operetta, choral and band music, dance and performance art in one energizing complex.