Theater of War Productions

07/08/2026

We are delighted to share the full recording of An Enemy of the People, which took place in Athens, Greece on June 24 on the stage of Stavros Niarchos Hall, home of the Greek National Opera.
This special event featured performances by Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man, Poor Things), Jason Isaacs (The White Lotus, Harry Potter), Brían F. O’Byrne (Conclave, Million Dollar Baby), Frankie Faison (Coming to America, The Wire), Marjolaine Goldsmith (Company Manager, Theater of War Productions), Rafika Chawishe (Dangerous Truth, Miss Violence), and Laurie Eustis (poet). These actors were joined by members of the SNF Nostos Youth Advisory Committee, a group of sixteen young people from four continents, who played the Citizens in the play’s famous town hall scene.

We wish to express our immense gratitude to the Stavros Niarchos Foundation, our longtime partner and supporter, for inviting us to perform at SNF Nostos 2026 and help celebrate the foundation’s 30th anniversary. It was an honor to participate alongside an amazing lineup in Athens, including David Byrne, The Flaming Lips, Gorillaz, John Cleese, and more.

The lively, electric performance of scenes from Henrik Ibsen’s 1882 play catalyzed a powerful audience discussion, led by Bryan Doerries, about democracy, public health, climate justice, freedom of the press, and the tension between the individual and collective. We heard from scientists, journalists, nurses, human rights activists, concerned citizens, and students who raised their hands and grappled openly with the play’s core themes.

At a key moment, one of the youngest members of the audience, a primary school student, stood up and responded to the performance with a question that moved the room. “The play left me with a giant question,” he said. “Nowadays, we live in a world full of social media and that affects everything; so, can someone have his own opinion or is everyone’s opinion based on the majority?” As the discussion continued to unfold, the audience in Athens, visibly affected by the young person’s question, answered in a chorus of individual voices and perspectives that wrestled with the text and its relevance to our time.
https://youtu.be/AvPaqJ0Vk00

06/20/2026

We are thrilled to announce our upcoming presentation of An Enemy of the People in Athens, Greece on June 24 at 12pm EDT / 7pm EEST on the stage of Stavros Niarchos Hall, home of the Greek National Opera.

This special event will feature performances by Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man, Poor Things), Jason Isaacs (The White Lotus, Harry Potter), Brían F. O’Byrne (Conclave, Million Dollar Baby), Frankie Faison (Coming to America, The Wire), Rafika Chawishe (Dangerous Truth, Miss Violence), Marjolaine Goldsmith (Company Manager, Theater of War Productions), and Laurie Eustis (poet). These actors will be joined by members of the SNF Nostos Youth Advisory Committee, a group of sixteen young people from four continents, who will play Citizens in the play’s famous town hall scene.

We are delighted to be performing in 2026 SNF Nostos Festival alongside an amazing lineup in Athens, including David Byrne, The Flaming Lips, Gorillaz, John Cleese, and more. We will be going live throughout the week. Follow us on Instagram to join us backstage and behind the scenes, and be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch the event live!

06/16/2026

We are delighted to share these behind the scenes cast photos of Bill Murray, Oscar Isaac, and Lois Smith by the inimitable Beowulf Sheehan.

Thank you to everyone who joined us at BAM in May or tuned in to the live radio broadcast featuring Bill Murray, Oscar Isaac, and Lois Smith. The exhilarating and highly entertaining performance of Paul Bloom’s article “A.I. Is About to Solve Loneliness. That’s a Problem,” published in 2025 by The New Yorker, catalyzed a powerful conversation with listeners and audience members about how loneliness shapes us and the human need for connection in our digital age. It was profoundly moving to wrestle with loneliness collectively, at BAM and with listeners calling in from all over the United States. Thank you to our amazing cast, our hosts Bryan Doerries and Kai Wright, our partners WNYC, BAM, and The New Yorker, and every audience member, listener, and caller for making the event a thrilling success!

You can listen to the radio broadcast recording anytime on WNYC: https://wnyc.org/story/wnyc-studios-presents-theater-of-war/

06/05/2026

Thank you to everyone who joined us at BAM or tuned in to the live radio broadcast featuring Bill Murray, Oscar Isaac, and Lois Smith. The exhilarating and highly entertaining performance of Paul Bloom’s article “A.I. Is About to Solve Loneliness. That’s a Problem,” published in 2025 by The New Yorker, catalyzed a powerful conversation with listeners and audience members about how loneliness shapes us and the human need for connection in our digital age. It was profoundly moving to wrestle with loneliness collectively, at BAM and with listeners calling in from all over the United States. Thank you to our amazing cast, our hosts Bryan Doerries and Kai Wright, our partners , , and , and every audience member, listener, and caller for making the event a thrilling success!

You can listen to the radio broadcast recording anytime on WNYC: https://wnyc.org/story/wnyc-studios-presents-theater-of-war/

We are delighted to share these photos of the event by the inimitable Beowulf Sheehan.

05/23/2026

Please join us on May 27 at BAM for our live radio broadcast featuring Bill Murray (Lost in Translation, Rushmore), Oscar Isaac (Frankenstein, Beef), and Lois Smith (East of Eden, Five Easy Pieces). The actors will perform Paul Bloom’s article “A.I. Is About to Solve Loneliness. That’s a Problem,” published in 2025 by The New Yorker, to start a conversation with listeners and audience members about the human need for connection in our digital age. Buy tickets here: https://www.bam.org/theater/ai-is-about-solve-loneliness

Or tune in on Wednesday, May 27, at 8pm EDT on WNYC 93.9 FM or on WNYC.org to catch the live broadcast!

05/15/2026

Theater of War Productions, BAM and WNYC
Present

A.I. Is About to Solve Loneliness. That’s a Problem
A Live Call-in Radio Show
An adaptation of the essay by Paul Bloom
Directed by Bryan Doerries
Al companionship can soothe loneliness, but can technology meet our human need for connection, as painful and messy as it can be? Psychologist Paul Bloom probed that quintessentially modern question in “A.I. Is About to Solve Loneliness. That’s a Problem,” published in 2025 by The New Yorker. Now, actors Bill Murray (Lost in Translation, Rushmore), Oscar Isaac (Inside Llewyn Davis, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window at BAM), and Lois Smith (East of Eden, Five Easy Pieces) will perform Bloom’s article in a live call-in radio show, presented by Theater of War On The Radio on stage at BAM’s Harvey Theater.

The reading will be followed by a discussion led by Kai Wright (WNYC’s Notes from America, The Guardian’s Stateside) and Bryan Doerries (Artistic Director, Theater of War Productions), featuring calls from listeners. Audience members will also be able to participate in the discussion following the conclusion of the radio broadcast. This special evening concludes the spring season of Theater of War On the Radio, a series that combines readings of timely news stories by all-star casts with listener call-ins. The reading, discussion, and listener calls will be broadcast live from the stage of the Harvey Theater on WNYC and wnyc.org.

Or tune in on Wednesday, May 27, at 8pm EDT on WNYC 93.9 FM or on WNYC.org to catch the live broadcast!

https://www.bam.org/theater/ai-is-about-solve-loneliness

04/29/2026

On Thursday, at 8pm EDT, we’ll be back at WNYC to present the third installment of our new, live show: Theater of War - On the Radio. Actors Adepero Oduye (12 Years a Slave, Pariah, The Big Short) and Jumaane Williams (NYC Public Advocate) will perform “Our Longing for Inconvenience,” a new essay written by Hanif Abdurraqib for The New Yorker. We’ll use the essay to start a conversation with WNYC listeners about “falling in love the old fashioned way” in a world mediated by phones and apps. We’ll explore the tension between our desire for convenience and the friction of older technologies—like Walkmans, disposable cameras, and VCRs—that transport us back to less distracted, seemingly more authentic, times. And we’ll talk about strategies for staying present and resisting the allure of instant gratification to feel more alive.

Tune in on Thursday, April 30, at 8pm EDT on WNYC 93.9 FM or on WNYC.org to catch the live broadcast!

04/27/2026

The Guardian featured The Oedipus Project at Georgetown University!

'[Jesse] Eisenberg, star of films including The Social Network, Zombieland and Now You See Me, described the play as a timeless philosophical argument personified. “You have a guy here who is in denial of his own fate and is slowly coming to terms with it and so, for me as an actor, it creates wonderful dramatic stakes but intellectually it also is a fascinating discussion around denial and fate and, more specifically here, blind leadership.”

He said of Oedipus: “He won’t listen to reason, he ignores evidence and demonises anybody who tries to contradict what he assumes and what he thinks. What’s special about doing it with Dr Fauci, of course, is that it comes with all sorts of other resonance that can be quite allegorically potent.”'

Jesse Eisenberg and Chuck Schumer also star – could 2,500-year-old play teach US something about the climate crisis?

04/27/2026

Thank you to the 700 people who joined us in person for The Oedipus Project at Georgetown University on Tuesday, April 21, and over 1,000 more who joined us on Zoom from all over the world, spanning eighteen countries, including: the United States, Canada, Ghana, Italy, Australia, South Africa, Ecuador, China, Greece, Singapore, Hong Kong SAR, Costa Rica, United Kingdom, Mexico, New Zealand, Jamaica, Taiwan, and Guatemala.

We are delighted to share the full recording of this unforgettable event, which presented acclaimed actors and public servants performing scenes from Sophocles’ Oedipus the King as a catalyst for a powerful, constructive, global discussion about climate change, ecological disaster, ethical leadership, and environmental justice on the eve of Earth Day 2026.

Thank you to our cast for their thrilling, committed performances, including: Jesse Eisenberg, Dr. Anthony Fauci, Jumaane Williams, Chuck Schumer, Mare Winningham, Marjolaine Goldsmith, Bill Irwin, Erika Rose, and Craig Wallace. Thank you to our community panelists: Megan Lickley, Michaela Harrison, Megan Lu, and Nathaniel Rich for their candid responses and powerful insights.

Special thanks go to our partners at Georgetown University who co-presented The Oedipus Project as part of DC Climate Week: The Earth Commons and the Laboratory for Global Performance & Politics. Thank you to Lasser Media for their technical support!

Translated, directed, and facilitated by Bryan Doerries.

The Oedipus Project featuring Jesse Eisenberg, Anthony Fauci