Homeridae
By Alexandra Espinoza

Telemachus “Mac” Esmond, the only black instructor in the Classics Department at Humboldt University is dealing with the death of his father, an elusive tenure track job, and his field’s growing disinterest in his passion project: determining the facts about the poet Homer’s origins and life. His former girlfriend and all-around administrative gopher Jaylene Jacoby informs him he has been selected to present at a prestigious conference where his fixation with the “Homeric Question” will be most unwelcome. Mac’s willingness to ignore his interests are complicated when his gifted freshman student Nessa Brown discovers a fragment of a poem in an extinct African language that releases the spirit (and surprisingly, black body) of Homer from a campus statue of his supposed likeness that is slated for removal. Nessa, dealing with her own pressures of the recent death of her mother, an entrepreneurial older brother Herm who resents paying Nessa’s tuition, and the deep sense of alienation she feels on campus, grows further and further committed to completing the poem she discovered and finding out the truth about who Homer was and what he should represent.

Cast
Telemcahus “Mac” Esmond + Hotep #1: Raydell Cordell
Vanessa “Nessa”/”Neith” Brown: Catie Zaleski
Jaylene Jacoby + Spiritually Lifted: Kerrie Forrester
Herman “Herm” Brown: Dominique Morgan
Homer + Hotep #2: Anthony Holmes
Stage Directions: TammyRa Jackson

Director: Kathy  Tyree
Dramaturg: Khalid Yaya Long
Designer: Itohan Edoloyi
Responders: Mary Beth Easley,  Kia Corthron