Peter Meineck (born 1967) is Professor of Classics in the Modern World at New York University. He is also the founder and humanities program director of Aquila Theatre and has held appointments at Princeton University and University of South Carolina.

Early life and education

Peter Meineck was born in Melton Mowbray, England and grew up in New Malden in South West London. His mother, Margaret was a primary school teacher and his father David, a builder. He has two older siblings. He attended Glastonbury Junior School in Morden and Beverley Boys School in New Malden and left at age 16 to pursue a military career culminating in service with the Royal Marines Reserve while at University. He earned a BA (Hons) in Ancient World Studies at University College London and a PhD in Classics at the University of Nottingham.

Career

He is Professor of Classics in the Modern World at New York University, Honorary Professor in Humanities at the University of Nottingham and an affiliated faculty member in Drama at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts. He specializes in Greek drama, performance and literature, cognitive theory applied to antiquity and the performance of trauma in antiquity. He has also held teaching posts at Princeton University, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, and USC.

Theatre work

He is the director of Aquila Theatre's public programming and has implemented arts and humanities programs aimed at veteran and civilian dialogues, At-Risk students in Harlem and The Bronx, and underserved communities via public libraries. His public programs received a Chairman's Special Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities and have been presented at the Obama and Bush White Houses, the U.S. Supreme Court, U.S. Congress, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Federal Hall National Memorial and throughout the United States. Fellowships include the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, Princeton University, the University of California San Diego, the Onassis Foundation, the Loeb Classical Library Foundation and a Phi Beta Kappa visiting scholar. Peter Meineck worked extensively in London theatre and founded Aquila Theatre in 1991. His stated aim with Aquila is to bring the greatest works to the greatest number and he has developed a sixty-seventy city American tour that brings classical drama to communities of all sizes across the USA. He also developed regular seasons Off-Broadway in New York City and has produced classical drama at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Ancient Stadium at Delphi, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He has directed and/or produced over fifty stage productions including Agamemnon (1991 and 2004 with Olympia Dukakis), Ajax (1992), Wasps (1994), Coriolanus (1995), The Iliad Book One (1999 and 2005), Comedy of Errors (1999, 2003, and 2007), The Invisible Man (2005), Much Ado About Nothing (2001 and 2006), Romeo and Juliet (2007), Prometheus Bound (2007), Catch-22 (2008), An Enemy of the People (2009), Murder on the Nile (2016). Peter Meineck has translated and published several Greek dramas including Aeschylus' Oresteia, Sophocles' Philoctetes, Oedipus at Colonus, Oedipus Tyrannus (with Paul Woodruff), and Ajax, Euripides' Trojan Women, and Herakles and Aristophanes' Clouds, Wasps, Birds and Frogs. He has also adapted the opera libretto for Cherubini’s Medee performed at Carnegie Hall and wrote and directed a new stage adaptation of Joseph Heller's Catch-22. He was a consultant on the film I Am Legend and several other movie projects. Other stage adaptations or co-adaptations include Frankenstein, The Odyssey, The Man Who Would Be King, A Female Philoctetes, and The Canterbury Tales.

Personal life

Peter Meineck married ballerina Desiree Sanchez in 2004.

Awards

Published works (books)

Selected chapters and journal articles

University Press 2017 Constantinidis (ed.), Brill 2016. Entries: Dwellings Furniture Masks Staging of Euripides Staging of Modern Productions Stage Set Stage Vehicles Statues Theatre Architecture Theatrical Space (eds.) Brill, 2013.