The Epic of Gilgamesh

This brand new performance of The Epic of Gilgamesh takes one of the world’s oldest surviving stories—a tale of love, loss, grief, and the search for meaning—and renders it for today’s audiences in a form that bridges time, culture, and genre. Performed by a trio of artists—Danny Sherrard as poet-performer, alongside classical vocalist, Rocky Duval, and composer and multi-instrumentalist, Doug Balliett—this performance will invite audiences into an immersive reimagining of an epic that still speaks with urgency to questions of love, mortality, grief, resilience, and human connection.

Myth and epic stories often feel locked behind academic or cultural barriers, but this performance seeks to break those down. Spoken word has always been a form rooted in access—it thrives in clubs, classrooms, and community spaces as much as in theaters. Pairing this with classical singing voice and reconstructed Sumerian and Babylonian music situates the performance within traditions that are often considered “elite” or inaccessible, but reframes them in a way that is immediate and embodied. In this way, Gilgamesh models equity and inclusion by blending forms across cultural and historical divides and offering them to a broad audience.