ABOUT

The Byzantine Choral Project is a dynamic collaboration between playwright Helen Banner and composer Grace Oberhofer to make theater using women and non-binary voices. Inspired by the Byzantine Empresses Irene, Maria and Euphrosyne they are creating work that showcases the radical power of strong, diverse performers singing on stage and explores the importance of imagery, representation and iconoclasm in classical and contemporary life.

ICONS/IDOLS is a tetralogy of choral plays for over a dozen singers. Mixing music, movement and text, the four plays recover the secret history of these purple empresses as they ascend in a society with deep animosity towards female rule. Deeply committed to religious icons, these powerful empresses sacrifice personal relationships in an attempt to gain enough power to re-introduce them into an empire that fiercely and violently opposes iconography.

Although we haven’t been producing shows with live performers during the COVID-19 pandemic, we have been creating socially-distanced and audio-based works, including our new podcast! Click here to learn more about the ICONS/IDOLS: Irene podcast, a 12-episode adaptation of the first play in the ICONS/IDOLS tetralogy.

You can also find the ICONS/IDOLS: Irene podcast on all major streaming platforms:

the tetralogy

ICONS/IDOLS is a tetralogy of choral plays currently in development that follows the Byzantine Purple Empresses as they establish their rule against the odds in the ninth century Iconoclastic Wars. Each play tells a different part of the story of grandmother Irene, rejected wife Maria, and grand-daughter Euphrosyne; catching at questions about gender and political imagery within the giant spectacle of dynastic power-play.

IRENE follows Irene's rise from child bride to Empress Regent and her journey from provincial Athens to the palace in Constantinople. A twenty person chorus singing a cappella draws us through Irene's survival as a secret young iconophile in an Empire intent on destroying all religious images.  Deeply committed to religious icons, Irene sacrifices personal relationships in an attempt to gain enough power to re-introduce them into an empire that fiercely and violently opposes iconography. Imprisoned in the palace by her much loved husband Leo for bringing an icon into her rooms, Irene endures a separation from her infant son, that sets mother and son up as rivals for power for the rest of their lives and throws her into alliance with the young eunuch Staurakios.

OUTSIDE OF EDEN plunges into the complex and diverse world of the castrated Byzantine ‘third sex’, telling the story of how the powerful palace eunuchs Staurakios and Aetios use Irene’s guilt over her son’s childhood. Irene cedes power to the troubled Constantine VI and watches the stable political world she built crumble, forcing her to take action once again. By the end of the play, Irene has herself become an icon of the female imperial, dominating the political landscape of the East, but she has had to blind her own son to keep herself in power and faces death and final exile on the island of Lesbos.

In THE NUNS OF PRINKIPO, Irene's legacy has been lost and the imperial throne is being grabbed at by a succession of useless usurpers. Three renegade eunuchs, the angel soldier Stephen, the tattooed Nikitas and the historian Antony, sail to the island of Prinkipo to tempt Irene's grand-daughter, the exiled nun Euphrosyne with a return to power if she agrees to marry the violent peasant soldier they have just made Emperor. As they return to Constantinople, Nikitas has discovered a new radical love for icons that will force him to build a new church with his own congregation. Scored with theremin and bass, Euphrosyne's mother Maria and the radical nuns of Prinkipo fight to keep her within their closed world of prayer. Inspired by the parallels between the counter culture of the eunuchs of the Byzantine Era and the fringe artists who began the grunge and garage rock sounds of the 1990s, The Eunuchs pairs electronic bass with the a cappella, chant-inspired melodies of Irene. 

THE WILDNESS OF SIN sees Empress Euphrosyne restored to an uneasy power but faced with a terrible responsibility over her husband, the violent Emperor Michael. As Nikitas builds a popular challenge to her power, Euphrosyne is forced to develop her own style of politics as an Empress-nun. The score draws on the music of all three previous plays, as well as referencing Kassia, the only known female Byzantine composer, whose intensely beautiful music is woven deep into the final play’s soundscape. 

HOW THE PLAYS FIT TOGETHER. The tetralogy is designed so that eventually each play can function as a stand alone piece, or all four can be presented together either in one long performance or in repertory with each other. Cast size between the plays varies from a minimum of twelve to a maximum of twenty. Each individual play runs between 80 to 100 minutes in performance.

Further programming permutations of the plays are also possible and we often experiment with using the music and writing in different ways. For example, IRENE and OUTSIDE OF EDEN are being written to work together as a double bill, plus THE NUNS OF PRINKIPO and THE WILDNESS OF SIN can be joined together to form one long opera. We are also developing a one hour musical show, THE EMPRESS ARIAS, that showcases all the Empress Arias from the tetralogy and uses eight voices.

LEAD ARTISTS

Helen Banner is a playwright, librettist and songwriter and a member of The Jam at New Georges. She grew up in the British Channel Islands and studied at Cambridge and the Tisch School of the Arts, NYU, where she completed her MFA in Dramatic Writing and was awarded the John Golden Playwriting Award. Her work has been developed at New Georges, the Drama League, the O'Neill Theater Center, Fresh Ground Pepper, the Wild Project, Dixon Place, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, The Lark, the Great Plains Theatre Conference and the Last Frontier Theatre Conference and she was a participant in the Ingram New Works Lab 2015-16 at Nashville Repertory Theater. Her choral play ICONS/IDOLS, written in collaboration with the composer Grace Oberhofer for the Byzantine Choral Project, was the opening show at the New Ohio’s Ice Factory 2016. Helen was a 2016-17 Special Resident at New Georges creating LA DÉROUTE, a medieval water opera, with composer Catherine Brookman for inclusion in their Water City take-over of 3LD Arts and Technology Centre in June 2017.

Helen's play INTELLIGENCE was in the 2018-19 NYTW Next Door Series, directed by Jess Chayes and produced by Lucy Jackson in association with Dutch Kills Theater. The production will be returning to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2021. You can find out more about her work at www.helenbanner.com and https://newplayexchange.org/users/9372/helen-banner

Grace Oberhofer is an award-winning choral composer, who has particular expertise in writing for women’s voices and making non-traditional musical theater. A Tacoma, WA native and a Tufts graduate (B.A. Music, s.c.l.), Grace works as a composer, performer, sound designer, and educator. Since moving to Brooklyn, she has worked in various capacities with the Adirondack Theater Festival, Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater, Corkscrew Festival, and Project Y, among others. She has performed with theater-makers at spots like The Tank, Tacoma Opera, The Brick and 54 Below. Grace is an alumna of the Broadcast Music, Inc. Musical Theater Workshop, as well as the New Dramatists Composer-Librettist Studio. Her compositional projects include the dystopian bunny society musical Hot Cross Buns, A Doll’s House: A New Opera based on the Ibsen play, and the young audiences musical The Color of Things. Her work has been showcased throughout New York, as well as Tacoma and Boston. Her composing for ICONS/IDOLS, has garnered support from New Georges, OPERA America, The Tank and NYSCA. You can listen to samples of her work at www.graceoberhofer.com.

CURRENT AND PAST COLLABORATORS

Emily Caffery began working with the Byzantine Choral Project in 2019 as a creative producer. Originally from the hilltowns of Massachusetts (Abenaki homeland), she is a theater producer, actor, and administrator currently living in Brooklyn (Lenapehoking). She is the artistic producer of The Assembly, developing new work including In Corpo (upcoming at Theatre Row), Seagullmachine (La MaMa), HOME/SICK (JACK), and I Will Look Forward to This Later (The New Ohio). Other producing/management: Public Theater’s Under the Radar Festival; HERE Arts Center and Beth Morrison Projects’ PROTOTYPE Festival; Colt Coeur’s NY Times Critic’s Pick Eureka Day; and Hypokrit Theatre’s Elements of Change, a Climate Week NYC collaboration with UNICEF, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, and GreenPoint Innovations. NY acting includes: Seagullmachine (La MaMa), King Lear (Brick), The Tempest, Marat/Sade (Columbia), Animal Wisdom choir (Bushwick Starr). Select regional: Elektra (as Elektra), The Glass Menagerie, Steel Magnolias, all in SE Michigan. Alumna: Wesleyan University, National Theater Institute. emilycaffery.com

Afsoon Pajoufar is the designer for THE PURPLE ROOM, our audio installation at the New Ohio in May 2021. Afsoon is a NYC based freelance designer of stage and environment for play, opera and live performance. Arriving at set design from a background in fine arts and film. She earned her MFA in Set Design at Boston University. Her designs have been shown on Off-Broadway and regional theaters such as Theatre For A New Audience, ART New York, Fisher Center at Bard, Harvard TDM, MIT Theatre, New Repertory Theatre, Kitchen Theatre, Actor’s Shakespeare Company, Prelude Festivals and etc. Her design for "Cabaret" was chosen for the 2019 American Exhibit at the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space. Afsoon moved to the United States from Tehran, Iran. www.afsoonpajoufar.com

Colette Robert directed our first two Ice Factory shows and many of our early workshops and concerts. Recent directing credits include: MA RAINEY’S BLACK BOTTOM (NYU Grad Acting), MARY'S WEDDING (Chester Theatre Company), BIG LOVE (Sarah Lawrence College), HOW MY GRANDPARENTS FELL IN LOVE (EST, New York Times Critic's Pick), WHAT EVERY GIRL SHOULD KNOW (NYU/Stella Adler Studio), HOTTENTOTTED (The Tank, Ars Nova/ANT Fest), THE MOUNTAINTOP (Chester Theatre Company), ICONS/IDOLS (The New Ohio/Ice Factory Festival), FLOPS, FAILURES, AND FIASCOS (The Civilians), and WHEN LAST WE FLEW (Diversionary Theatre and FringeNYC, GLAAD Media Award). Colette is a member of Ensemble Studio Theatre, a co-facilitator of the New Georges Jam, and The Drama League's 2018 Beatrice Terry Director in Residence. Alumnus of the Mabou Mines Resident Artist Program, Lincoln Center Directors Lab and The Civilians R&D Group. Colette was previously an Audrey Resident at New Georges and a Van Lier Directing Fellow at The Public. She has developed new work with EST/Youngblood, Atlantic Theatre Company, The Old Vic, Ma-Yi, Naked Angels, Vineyard Arts Project, NYTW, Classical Theatre of Harlem, Labyrinth Theatre Company, and the Sundance Theatre Lab. M.A., RADA and King’s College, London. B.A., Yale University. www.coletterobert.com

 Past Productions

icons/idols: In the Purple Room

An Archive Residency World Premiere
Socially-distanced, immersive sound installation with no live performers in the space
Excerpted from play one, ICONS/IDOLS: Irene
April 30-May 22nd, 2021
New Ohio Theatre

A teenage girl takes the most dangerous object in the world into the main palace in Constantinople. She takes a little painted icon into a place where all icons have been destroyed.

ICONS/IDOLS: In the Purple Room is a choral drama and immersive installation that premiered at The New Ohio Theatre. Audience members follow the young orphan Irene into the heart of Byzantine power as tensions between religious and political factions threaten to rupture an empire.

Listening to the story unfold on their phones, a socially distanced audience is guided through a space charged with birth and death, where power is fought over and exchanged, the mighty can be destroyed, and fragile bodies attempt to channel the divine.

With a haunting score inspired by Byzantine chant, featuring the voices of ten female and non-binary performers, In the Purple Room wrestles with how to make something new out of a shattered world.

Link here for program and show notes.

ICONS/IDOLS: OUTSIDE OF EDEN

Ice Factory Festival 2018
Live showcase production of play two, ICONS/IDOLS: Outside of Eden
June 26-29, 2019
New Ohio Theatre

Empress Irene is ready to retire. She should hand over power to her son Constantine, but he's a traumatised man who relies on his violent bodyguard to control the city. Conspiring with her eunuchs, Irene struggles to set up a legacy for her grand-daughters to rule as future Empresses. An explosive mix of opera and theater that explores the relentless drive to tragedy in female stories. The second play in the ICONS/IDOLS tetralogy of choral plays about the Byzantine Empresses.

An Archive Residency Production

Book and Lyrics by Helen Banner
Music by Grace Oberhofer
Direction by Colette Robert
Music direction by Feranda Douglas
Co-Producers -- Alexandra Cadena and Madeleine Goldsmith

With: Hilary Asare, Iris Beaumier, Carolyn Berliner, Emily Brown, Hannah Eakin, Kristian Espiritu, Shanta Parasuraman, Yael Shavitt, Katie Weber, and Joell Weil

Scenic Design: An-Lin Dauber
Lighting Design: Jay Ryan
Costume Design: Emily Bono
Stage Manager: Margaret Gleberman

icons/idols: Irene

Ice Factory Festival 2016
Live showcase production of play one, ICONS/IDOLS: Irene
June 29-July 2, 2016
New Ohio Theatre

ICONS/IDOLS is a choral play for over a dozen woman singers. Mixing music, movement and text, it recovers the secret history of the Empress Irene as she ascends in a society with deep animosity towards female rule. Deeply committed to religious icons, Irene sacrifices personal relationships in an attempt to gain enough power to re-introduce them into an empire that fiercely and violently opposes iconography. This is the first part of a cycle that will chart Irene’s rise from child bride to Empress Regent as well as the purple Empresses that follow her.

Book and lyrics by Helen Banner
Composed by Grace Oberhofer
Directed by Colette Robert
Choreographed by Erik Thurmond

With: Jessica Cannizzaro, Rachel Caplan,Gabriella Concepción, Katie Consamus, Helen Coxe, Isabella Dawis, JoAnn Eubanks, Eileen Farley, Lynnette Freeman, Aja Singletary, Adenike Thomas, Katie Weber, Akyiaa Wilson, Adam Davenport

Scenic Design: Angelica Borrero
Costume Design: Madeline Corson
Lighting Design: Jay Ryan
Props Design: Ryan Courtney
Line Producer: Eric Marlin
Prod. Stage Manager: Jenny Ainsworth
Assoc. Set Designer: Trang Nguyen
Sound Mentor: Nathan Leigh
Sound Design: Grace Oberhofer
Assoc. Producer: Rachel Abrams
Asst. Stage Manager: Patrick Harnett-Marshall

Press and Media

IN THE PURPLE ROOM REVIEWS:

These are some reviewers’ thoughts from our recent immersive sound installation at the New Ohio Theater in May 2021.

“Ms. Oberhofer’s music is accomplished and lushly performed. In its organic, highly emotive qualities, the score calls to mind the haunting compositions of the late Elizabeth Swados.”
— Adrian Dimanlig, Interludes

“Grace Oberhofer has composed a truly fantastic acapella score.... The music is instantly recognizable as being inspired by the Byzantine Empire, with choral movement and harmonies which were a delight for this music teacher to listen to. It has a gorgeous ability to evoke the sacred and the spooky all at once. It has been expertly sound designed and mixed.”
— Edward Mylechreest, N

“Full of blood-chilling horrors and passion crushing everything in its way. The emotional turmoils are conveyed beautifully in acapella choral singing by the voices of ten female and non-binary performers.”
— Asya Gorovits, New Show New York

“Each actor and singer captured the tensions, fears, and joys of these characters beautifully.... Kay Weber as Irene specifically, drew you in with their deep love, desperation, and honesty as Irene must navigate the impossible.”
—Max Berry, On Stage

Contact Us

For additional audio demos, press kit, and further information about both The Byzantine Choral Project and the ICONS/IDOLS tetralogy, please get in touch with us below.

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Graphic and Photo Credits: Stephen Cyr, Eliot Olson, Jo Chiang, Radme Rahul and Diego Quintanar.

Audio Engineering for website sample: Fernando Familiar

The development of ICONS/IDOLS received funding from OPERA America's Opera Grants for Female Composers program, supported by the Virginia B. Toulmin Foundation.

ICONS/IDOLS was developed in part at Ice Factory 2016, a program of New Ohio Theatre, and The Jam, New Georges’ performance lab for early career female artists, as well as The Tank, a home for emerging artists.

ICONS/IDOLS: In the Purple Room was developed through the Archive Residency, a program of New Ohio Theatre and IRT Theater. newohiotheatre.org | irttheater.org

ICONS/IDOLS: In the Purple Room is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.