Emily Węgrzynowicz
Minister | Director | Actor | Designer
Study Abroad
BADA Greek Theatre Program
Over the summer of 2025, I spent about a month in Europe with the British American Drama Academy in their Greek theatre program. We spent time in London, various cities in Greece (including Delphi, Athens, and Nafplio), and finally spent a few days in Oxford.
Our days in London took place at the academy. We would have class everyday from 10am-6pm and then sometimes go to see a show in the evenings. Class during the day consisted of a few hours of lecture (usually from a classicist from a local university or Oxford), a couple hours of movement, and then a couple hours of acting. We spent lots of time reading and rehearsing scenes from all sorts of Greek tragedies, including but not limited to: Antigone, Medea, Oedipus, Trojan Women, the Oresteia, and others.
When we got to Greece, we did a lot of touring sites such as the sanctuary of Apollo at Delphi, the Acropolis and all its related museums, and other ancient sites. When we were not on tours, we were doing acting classes and rehearsing scenes with our fellow classmates.
Oxford was the shortest and last leg of our trip. We spent five days there, but they were packed. They consisted of lecture after lecture from various students and professors from the Archive of Performances in Greek and Roman Drama (APDRG) about all sorts of subjects having to do with the classics. Then, we would have more acting with our course instructors in the evening. We often had up to 10-hour days. On the very last day in Oxford, we attended the annual APDRG symposium where we listened to presentations from PhD candidates in the classics department at Oxford.
There are not enough words to describe what this experience was like. I learned and did so much in such a tight period of time. It is an experience I will never forget and that shaped me so much as an artist and as a person. Here is a section of a reflection that I wrote in Greece that sums up a lot of my thoughts:
"The mountains here are beautiful. They set a scene that is picturesque but khthonic in a way too. These theatres are carved out of the earth. The earth is god. The sky is god. The plants are god. Theatre is blessed by gods. There is no separation between nature, gods, and performance. It’s grounding to perform in the heat of the sun with the gravel under your feet. It’s hard. It makes you work harder. The characters of tragedy have to work so hard all the time. They are always 10 seconds away from death, right? Between that, the elements, the robes, and the masks these ancient actors were working insanely hard during these festivals. Especially considering they did four plays in sequence in a single day. It’s really amazing. It makes everything matter so much more in the text. It’s big. It’s heightened. It’s holy. It’s a sacrifice of one’s own body and mind to the play that you are putting on. There’s literally an altar on the stage. You are the sacrifice to Dionysus. The actor is the servant of the play, the gods, and the city. It’s truly noble. It’s no wonder this was such a huge deal to them."
Performance at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
THTR 335: The London Theatre Experience
Relfection
The London Theatre Experience was a fantastic class. I learned so much about theatre history, general British history, British culture, and international travel. Prior to this trip, I had only ever been to Europe once to go to Poland, so needless to say, I was more than thrilled when I got into this program. I will be the first to admit that this class is not for the faint of heart or legs. Everyday was an early day, a late night, and several miles of walking. It was incredibly worth it though. I saw a total of 18 shows in three weeks and visited multiple incredible museums as well.
My favorite show that I went to in London was The Burnt City- an immersive theatre experience based on Greek mythology and plays by writers such as Euripides and Aeschylus. I was already thrilled going into this as I have been fascinated by the Hellenic world and its folklore for a long time. I was also pretty nervous, though, because I had been told in advance it was going to consist of a lot of sensory stimulus and possibly be a little spooky. It definitely was at the beginning. For the first half of our time there, I made sure to stick with someone I knew at all times, but once I got more familiar with how the experience works and what I should expect from it, I ventured off on my own to follow different characters and get their plotlines. This show took six years to develop and took place in a massive warehouse, so you can imagine how complex it all is and how much there is to take in. I enjoyed it so much the first time and wanted to get more out of it that I went back a couple days later with Avery to see it again.
Outside of an academic context, this trip was informative on getting to know how another country works and how its citizens interact with each other. From football culture, to walking and driving on the left side of the road, to sarcasm and "yankee baiting", there are a lot of small things that make the UK different from America, but added all together, it almost makes you feel like you're in a foreign country or something like that. It was a bit jarring but so fascinating to get to watch how people from a different part of the world behave.