Actors unite behind anti-war message of Greek tragedy

NEW YORK -- From the Brooklyn Academy of Music to a coffeehouse in northern New Mexico to the National Theatre of Iceland, actors are planning a day of international theater protest against a possible war with Iraq.\nMonday, participants in all 50 states and on six continents will read "Lysistrata," Aristophanes' bawdy comedy of ancient Greece in which women withhold sex until men agree to outlaw war.\nAt last count, 919 readings were set in 56 countries, and the number was climbing, according to Kathryn Blume and Sharron Bower, two New York actresses who started the Lysistrata Project.\nThe project began with Blume, who had been working on a modern adaptation of "Lysistrata" as a screenplay. She had heard about a group called Theaters Against War that was urging theater companies to put an anti-war statement in their programs or make a curtain speech against war. Blume thought she would do a reading of "Lysistrata" as her contribution.\nThat same day in early January, Bower called suggesting they work together on something. "It was a magic moment in the history of politics and theater," Blume said. "It turned into something very large very fast."\nBy the next night, the women had readings planned in two other cities, and the Lysistrata Project was born.\n"We put up a Web site, e-mailed everyone we knew and they e-mailed everyone they knew," Blume said. "Soon we were getting e-mails from all over the country and all over the world."\nAmong those who responded were Michael Paulukonis, a volunteer at Artists for Art, a community-based, nonprofit arts organization in Scranton, Pa., and Stefan Baldursson, artistic director of the National Theatre of Iceland.