A Host of People (AHOP) has been creating a new, interdisciplinary, multimedia performance called Cleopatra Boy to premiere in Detroit, in September 2019. This show challenges the way that women and other non-straight/white/male leaders’ histories are re-written, maligned, or erased. AHOP’s ethos is to create original works that ask the audience the same questions we struggle with in rehearsal; Who and what shapes our idea of historical figures? How might we and U.S./Western society on the whole view Cleopatra if her story was told accurately?

The iconic Egyptian pharaoh’s historic, mythic, and fictional (mis)representations across time inspires our ensemble to create a performance that speaks to the present moment, in light of recent examples of women leaders and public figures being publicly mistreated. Part pageant, part courtroom drama, part interactive party, our audience will shape-shift from spectators, to community members, to witnesses as we collectively address the injustice of non-cisgendered people being stripped of their own narratives, in order to rethink and remake history.