Before graduation, all students at Carleton are required to complete a Comprehensive Project, otherwise known as COMPS. As part of their COMPS projects, theater majors have the unique opportunity to direct and act in their own presentations of famous plays. This interview details the hard work that senior theater major Josh Davids put into his final project, An Iliad, a theatrical rendition of the Greek classic.

Interview with Josh Davids ’15 

How long have you been preparing this performance?

Josh: I have been working on An Iliad for about a year now. I first submitted my proposal to produce the show spring term of last year, but the bulk of the work really started Winter term this year. That’s when my director and I began to block the show and get into the character work.

Have you been collaborating with anyone?

Josh: I have an amazing team of people who have been an incredibly important part of the process. First is my director, Rebecca Stimson, who has been the brains and the foundation of the production.  She agreed to be a part of the play a year ago, without really knowing what she was getting into, and I would have been lost without her intelligence and guiding hand. I have two awesome stage managers, Meg Smith and Dahee Lee who are also my sound and light board operators. In addition, since it’s a one man show, lighting and sound designs are very important, and I have had Ryanne Chitjian and Chloe Bergstrand make the show really come to life through their arts.

What inspired you to select An Iliad? 

Josh: I decided to act in and produce An Iliad for my Theater Comprehensive Project partly because as a theater and classical studies double major, I really felt like it synthesized my two areas of interest. I really connected with the material – the basic premise is that I play an ageless poet who has been alive since the Trojan War and is trying to bring it to life for a modern audience. As a Classics Major, I believe strongly in the relevance of the past, and that studying the past helps us to better understand the present. The Trojan War may seem like fantasy story, but An Iliad really connects it to the very real and very current issues of the destructive power of war and the seemingly endless cycle of violence that seems to be permanently in today’s headlines. In my first reading of the script, I felt a visceral reaction to the text, and I immediately knew I had to perform it.

How long have you been acting? Do you plan to pursue it in the future?

Josh: My first (small) acting role was at the age of four, in a church play, and I grew up loving acting. I did theater camps every summer as a kid and when I got to high school I became very involved with the drama club and even became president. I believe I have performed in over a dozen shows at Carleton, and that’s not counting ones I produced or directed. I do not intend to pursue a career in theater – I have been accepted into law school – but I always want theater to be a part of my life, no matter what I ultimately end up doing.

What has been the biggest challenge you’ve had to overcome while preparing this performance?

Josh: There have been two huge challenges. First is stamina. The show runs for one hour and forty minutes, and that is all me. I literally never get a break. It’s the acting equivalent of running a marathon. The second is memorization, The script is about 46 pages long, and that is ALL in my head. One section of the script lists every major world conflict in the historical age in order. I have to not only remember that but I have to act while doing so!

What do you think people can take away from the performance or the An Iliad in general?

Josh: I hope that people can take from An Iliad a new perspective on the material — most people either were forced to read Homer’s text for a class or associate it with Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom. An Iliad seeks to counter both images. It hopes to make the audience members lose themselves in a text that is thousands of years old, but also to scrub away the idealized heroes that Hollywood has ingrained in our collective consciousness and replace them with human soldiers, struggling with the cost of war.

Performance details

• Thursday, April 16, at 8:00 P.M. (with talk back)
• Friday, April 17, at 9:00 P.M.
• Saturday, April 18, at 9:00 P.M.

All performances will be located in Weitz 172. The show runs 1hr 40 minutes (with no intermission).