A Poem And A Mistake

The premiere live performance by celebrated playwright Cheri Magid, the inaugural Susan P. Stroman Visiting Playwright, created with and performed by Sarah Baskin, and inspired by Stephanie McCarter, the first contemporary female translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses into verse.

A Poem and a Mistake follows the story of Myrrha, a grad student in the classics, who grapples with how to handle the 50 sexual assaults in Ovid's Metamorphoses. When one of her professors refers to the poem as “being about love," Myrrha pushes him, and suddenly, like the characters in Metamorphoses, the professor is transformed into a young woman who looks exactly like Myrrha. Both characters find themselves in an Ovid-like landscape where transformation is a magical and terrifying confrontation with their own gender, sexuality, and desire.​​

Featuring a prologue talk before and a talk-back after the play with the playwright, actor, and director.​

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​Playwright: Cheri Magid

Actor: Sarah Baskin

Director: Michelle Bossy

• Call the REP Box Office at (302) 831-2204
• Visit the REP Box Office at the Roselle Center for the Arts, 110 Orchard Rd, Newark, DE 19716
• ONLINE TICKETS​​​​

In collaboration with the Department of English and in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Department of Women & Gender Studies, we are pleased to invite you to the premiere live performance of A Poem and a Mistake.

A one-woman show written by the celebrated playwright Cheri Magid, the inaugural Susan P. Stroman Visiting Playwright, and inspired by Stephanie McCarter, the first female translator of Ovid's Metamorphoses. McCarter's translation exposes a number of difficult realities in the original work that previous translations have keep readers from seeing —​​ problems in its representations of women, its handling of the gendered dynamics of power, and its depiction of sexual violence. Magid's play takes us into the world that McCarter's translation opened to readers of Metamorphoses.

Featuring a prologue talk before and a talk-back after the play with the playwright, actors, and director.

This performance promises to be a deeply meaningful opportunity to join with others in thinking about injustices both ancient and contemporary, and to imagine the possibility of seeing the world through the medium of translations and performances that speak to those looking to form a more just and supporting culture today. Please join us for what promises to be an intimate and supportive exploration into mistranslated lives and re-envisioned communities. ​

Join the REP and the entire UD community in celebrating the Department of Women & Gender Studies and their 50 years of teaching, studying, and advocating for the rights of women and justice for all marginalized people.

Enormous strides have been made over the past 50 years of fighting against sex and gender based discrimination ... but there is still much to do.

This ChambeREP performance is in coordination with the Department of Woman & Gender Studies and is part of the Department of English's Susan P. Stroman Playwright Series. ​

​REP productions are supported, in part, by a grant from the Delaware Division of the Arts, a state agency, in partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts. The Division promotes Delaware arts events on www.DelawareScene.com.​