Bryan Doerries with Lucas Kane and Shadi Ghaheri

Writer and director Bryan Doerries with director and choreographer Shadi Ghaheri and theater maker Lucas Kane, discuss creative life in the context of our new social reality.

Bryan Doerries is a writer, director, and translator, who currently serves as Artistic Director of Theater of War Productions. A self-described evangelist for ancient stories and their relevance to our lives today, Doerries uses age-old approaches to help individuals and communities heal from trauma and loss. During his tenure at Theater of War Productions, the company has presented diverse projects across the United States and internationally. The company uses dramatic readings of seminal plays and community conversations to confront topics such as combat-related psychological injury, end-of-life care, police and community relations, prison reform, gun violence, domestic violence, sexual assault, the refugee crisis, and addiction. Doerries’ books include The Theater of War: What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today, The Odyssey of Sergeant Jack Brennan, and a collection of his translations of ancient Greek Tragedies entitled All That You’ve Seen Here is God. Among his awards, he has received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Kenyon College, and in March 2017, he was named Public Artist in Residence (PAIR) for the City of New York, a joint appointment with the New York City Department of Veterans’ Services and Department of Cultural Affairs. Read more

Lucas Kane is a Brooklyn-based film and theater maker, whose work ranges from documentary to experimental film to community-based forum theater. He graduated with a degree in Cultural Anthropology from Lewis & Clark College in 2015 before moving to Ecuador to complete a series of short documentary films on topics ranging from traditional weaving practices of the Cañaris to male sex work in Quito. After being deeply inspired by a vibrant tradition of street theater, he returned home to NY in 2018 to further develop his craft in theater, as well as film and photography, working and interning at institutions such as The Documentary Group and the Guggenheim Museum. For the past year, he’s worked as an assistant director to Peter Brook and Marie Hélène Estienne on the world tour of their 2019 production of Why? and the 2020 production of Shakespeare Resonance: La Tempête at the Bouffes du Nord in Paris.

Shadi Ghaheri is a theatre director, choreographer and writer from Tehran, Iran based in New York City. She graduated from Yale School of Drama with a MFA in Directing. She has directed Lucretia (HERE), Last Days of Judas Iscariot (Williams College), Shahr-e-Farang (Spectrum NYC), The Girl is Chained, Death of Yazdgerd, Titus Andronicus, and choreographed Passion (Yale School of Drama), The Slow Sound of Snow and a trio devised movement pieces named, فریاد, Butterfly’s Terror and Post Scream and Terror with all-female company (Yale Cabaret). For several years, Shadi has been doing theatre workshops with children refugees under age of 18 from Afghanistan who are working under terrible conditions in Iran. Shadi is a 2016 Paul and Daisy Soros Fellow . She was recognized as SDC Student Director Initiative Honorable Mention in the 2013 Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival. Shadi was the directing fellow 2018-2019 at Rattlestick Playwright Theatre and the winner of Robert L.B. Tobin Director-Designer Showcase, Opera America 2019. Read more

The New Social Environment — Daily conversations with artists, writers, filmmakers, poets around the world where we discuss creative life in the context of our new social reality.