PBS Doc "Lysistrata: Female Power & Democracy" Story Outline

This PBS Documentary focuses on the provocative ideas in Aristophanes' classic Greek play Lysistrata. This comedy about a sex strike to end war presages the rise of female leadership from a joke towards a necessary reality. Insightful interviews with prominent scholars and female leaders expose the ancient connections among violence, sex, drama, and politics. Interviewees include the Dean of Hofstra Drama James Kalb, Greek drama scholar Victor Bers from Yale, Elizabeth Scharffenberger from Columbia, Mary English from Monclair State (on the role of women), Jeffrey Hurwitt (on Greek forms in modern architecture) and many contemporary female leaders including Norma Kamali, Jane Fonda, Katrina Vanden Heuvel, Carol Jenkins, NY State Senator Liz Krueger, Katha Pollitt and many others.