Olivier Kemeid's The Aeneid

Olivier Kemeid’s version of Virgil’s classic tale shifts Aeneas’s search for a homeland into the modern world of transformation and migration.

A bold new theatrical adaptation of Virgil’s epic Latin poem The Aeneid for the turbulent world in which we live.

Aeneas and his family must flee from their unnamed city and from neighbors who’ve turned into enemies and burned their home to the ground. A daunting journey ensues across borders, through fire, over water, and into the underworld as they make their way to a new land.

Under the helm of celebrated American director Sarah Cameron Sunde, a cast of NYU Abu Dhabi students brings to life the rhythmic prose of Egyptian-Canadian playwright Olivier Kemeid, translated by Judith Miller, who captures the anxiety, danger, and shaky fellowship of the refugee experience: “We who come from a dead city…are going to found the birthplace…of an empire for those who have something broken in them.”