Background image: A red and purple gradient over a cement-textured background. Stencil letters over the background spell: "They say war. We say strike. Sex strike! Join us!"

Spring 2025 Studio Production

Lysistrata: A Woman's Translation

By Drue Robinson
Directed by Timmia Hearn DeRoy
March 6–9, 2025
Zellerbach Hall | Room 7

This modern-verse translation of Aristophanes' classic comedy blends heightened language and 21st-century sensibilities to explore the power of the sex strike. Now set in a futuristic, drag-influenced, underground bar, this production will address issues of bodily autonomy, sexual and gender agency, and what we are willing to sacrifice in the face of continuous war.

Content Advisory: This is an immersive show, and the actors will be interacting with audience members throughout the play. Audience members will get to choose to sit in higher or lower-interaction sections of the audience and will be empowered to indicate interaction not welcome. This play contains frequent, and sometimes lengthy, sexual under and overtones. Some foul language is contained. Frequent reference is made to war, and sexual violence is alluded to. We recommend the play ages 16+ only. That being said: the utmost care has been taken to include trauma informed best practices in our approach to these subject matters, both within the rehearsal room and for audiences' enjoyment. There are no depictions of sexual violence on stage.

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Acclaim for Lysistrata

"Robinson's translation brought the play to life in a way that I had never seen before... she captured the spirit of the playwright as few modern translators and adapters have. It was funny and bawdy and political." — Arnold Aronson, Professor Emeritus, Columbia School of the Arts

"A funny, smart, and snappy version that remains completely consistent in tone and flows in a truly satisfying way." — Ellen McLaughlin, author of Helen, The Trojan Women, and Tongue of a Bird

"Robinson's hilarious script is almost Shakespearean in its pace. Its rhymed couplet structure kept the audience on their toes trying to guess the rapid fire punchlines." — David Cashman, Back Stage Chicago

Portrait of Drue Robinson

About the Playwright

Drue Robinson has written, directed, and produced over 20 original plays and musicals, including Once Upon The End: A Y2K Fairytale Crisis Musical, which won the People's Choice Award at the Seattle Fringe Festival 2000. She has been awarded the Bellingham Mayor's Arts Award, and a $10,000 Whatcom Foundation Grant. Her play, Lysistrata: A Woman's Translation, was read around the world by more than 420 theatre and private groups in conjunction with the Lysistrata Project in 2003—including groups in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Dublin, Tokyo, London, Sydney, Scotland, and Zambia. Ms. Robinson is a Mensa Scholar in creative writing, and a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

A portrait of Timmia Hearn DeRoy standing next to a window.

About the Director

Timmia Hearn DeRoy is a practitioner and scholar of social justice-based theatre and film. She directs, writes, produces, dramaturgs, and teaches. She works in areas of post-colonial theater practice, transnational feminist praxis, and Disability Justice, and engages in community-oriented and social change focused theater across the Diasporas to which she belongs. Timmia’s directing credits include 10,000: A One-Woman New Play Development by Victoria Taurean (2020) at the Lawrence Arts Center, In the Blood by Suzan-Lori Parks (2019) at the KU University Theatre, an original I Am One musical comedy called Buss de Mark (2016) which premiered at the PRIDE Arts Festival in Trinidad, A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare (2013/4), Two Can Play by Trevor Rhone (2013/4), and An Echo in the Bone by Dennis Scott (2012) at the Trinidad Theatre Workshop.