GAMBIER, Ohio – Bryan Doerries, co-founder of Theater of War Productions and a graduate of Kenyon College, has returned to the college in a yearlong virtual residency for the 2020-21 academic year.
The residency will include two virtual performances per semester in addition to a series of lectures for Kenyon staff and students. Doerries' organization also has plans during the residency to present its theatrical production to a mixed audience, including Knox County residents and students attending other Ohio colleges. The fall lineup features Antigone in Ferguson on Oct. 8 and a theatrical presentation of the Book of Job, which will be open to the public with a date to be announced.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck, the production was forced to shift its presentations to Zoom, a challenge Doerries welcomes.
"Our audiences have grown in the last five months; we've touched more than 52,000 people online with these performances," Doerries told the Mount Vernon News. "Now we're pivoting to this one-year residency with Kenyon, which we're thrilled about; especially myself, because I went to Kenyon."
While Kenyon College is hosting Theater of War, the planned theatrical presentations have a larger aim— mainly, to build bridges between various communities who rarely communicate and interact with one another. In particular, Doerries' Book of Job project set for later this year will be intended for residents of Knox County.
"This next project, which is based on the biblical Book of Job, will be structured as a kind of ecumenical interfaith dialogue," Doerries said. "We plan to reach out to Nazarene as well as other churches and synagogues in Mount Vernon and the surrounding area and go well beyond the hill to engage people in Knox County."
Doerries' organization got its start in 2008 with hospital-conducted readings of Greek tragedies to patients, caregivers and doctors who had experienced their own traumas that were difficult to express.
"It was clear in those early readings in hospitals that the audience there knew more than I did about these plays and what they signify and what they speak to," Doerries said.
Since its inception, Theater of War has conducted more than 1,500 performances worldwide at hospitals, prisons, military bases, megachurches and homeless shelters. Doerries quickly discovered that individuals from completely different walks of life could find meaning and interpretation in Greek tragedies, regardless of education. Theater of War boasts widely acclaimed actors such as Damien Lewis, Oscar Isaac and Frances McDormand.
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