About the Play:

Lysistrata is a full-length comedy by Aristophanes, translated by Jeffrey Henderson. This edition brings the classic play about the first-ever female strike completely up to date with modern scholarship, providing the first complete account of its history and many new insights on the comic theatre and its social and political context.

Lysistrata blends boisterous comedy and an earnest call for peace. Lysistrata, the first comic heroine, organizes a panhellenic conjugal sex strike of young wives until their husbands end the war between Athens and Sparta while the old women have taken over the treasury in the Citadel of Athena to stop funds from going to the Peloponnesian War. This English translation of Lysistrata appeals to modern audiences because of its lively and imaginative plot, strong and memorable heroine, good jokes, and appeal for peace and tolerance between nations and between the sexes. Noted Greek scholar Jeffery Henderson puts the work in historical and cultural context in his comprehensive introduction. Suggestions for further reading, notes, and map are also included.

Lysistrata was first performed in classical Athens in 411 BC and is the most popular of Aristophanes' plays.

Cast: 4 women, 2 men (alternate casting 3 women, 2 men with doubling)

What people say:

"Henderson's Lysistrata is lively, cheerfully vulgar, and genuinely funny...." — The Classical Outlook

About the Playwright:

Aristophanes (c. 446-386 BC) was Athens's greatest comic playwright, whose plays define the genre of Old Comedy. His was a precise, poetic vision articulated in pin-sharp images, his works being some of the most revealing about the society for which he wrote. Although only eleven of the some forty plays he wrote survive, his unique blend of slapstick, fantasy, bawdy and political satire provide you with a vivid picture of the ancient Athenians – their social mores, their beliefs and their exuberant sense of occasion.

Jeffrey Henderson is known for his pioneering work on Greek drama and politics, and for his translations of the comic playwright Aristophanes. He is William Goodwin Aurelio Professor of Greek Language and Literature at Boston University, and General Editor of the Loeb Classical Library.