February 21, 1999 Teman Treadway To Appear at the Library of Congress in "To Ithaca: Selections from Homer's <em>Odyssey</em>"

Actor Teman Treadway will present "To Ithaca: Selections from Homer's Odyssey Read in the Various English Translations" at 6:45 p.m. March 11 at the Library of Congress. The program, featuring selections made by Mr. Treadway and directed by Alyn Beauchamp, is presented under the auspices of the Gertrude Clarke Whittall Poetry and Literature Fund. The reading will be held in the Mumford Room on the sixth floor of the James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Ave. S.E. Tickets are not required.

Mr. Treadway will read 34 selections ranging in length from 15 seconds to 15 minutes. The selections will be arranged like a continuous story. A program will list each translator and the years of translation. The oldest translation will be George Chapman's, from 1614-15. The most recent translation will be Robert Fagles's, from 1996. Other translators include Alexander Pope, William Cowper, William Cullen Bryant, S.H. Butcher and Andrew Lang, Samuel Butler, A.T. Murray, Ezra Pound (a "condensation" rather than translation), Robert Fitzgerald, and Constantine A. Trypanis.

Mr. Treadway has acted at Ford's Theatre, Studio Theatre, Round House, SCENA, Theatre of the First Amendment, Potomac Theatre Project, MetroStage, Source, Interact, and the Maryland Shakespeare Festival, among others. He has recently appeared as the Master of Ceremonies in Brecht's Jungle of the Cities; Talthybius in Euripides' Trojan Women; Thomas Mendip in The Lady's Not for Burning; Don Quixote and Cervantes in The Man of La Mancha; and Tyler Moss in Crossing Delancey, for which he received rave notices. Last year he and Ms. Beauchamp founded the Providence Theatre Company and directed George Bernard Shaw's Androcles and the Lion.

In previous appearances in the Library of Congress literary series, Mr. Treadway read the English translations of three Pegasus Prize-winning novels, The Turbulence by Jia Pingwa, Year of the Frog by Martin Simecka and Night by Bilge Karasu. Last season, he read from the works of William S. Burroughs in the program "The Name Is Burroughs."

The Poetry and Literature Center, which administers the poetry series, is also the home of the Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, a position that has existed since 1936, when the late philanthropist Archer M. Huntington endowed the Chair of Poetry at the Library of Congress. Archibald MacLeish, who was Librarian from 1939 to 1944, determined the Consultant in Poetry should be an annual appointment. Since then, many of the nation's most eminent poets have served as Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress and, after the passage of Public Law 99-194 in 1985, as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry.

The 1997-1999 Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry, Robert Pinsky, is the award-winning translator of The Inferno of Dante and a creative writing professor at Boston University. As part of the Library's Bicentennial, Mr. Pinsky is selecting a broad cross section of Americans reading their favorite poems aloud. In the year 2000, when the Library celebrates its 200th birthday, Mr. Pinsky will present 200 video and 1,000 audio tapes of these readings to the Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature as one of the Library's birthday gifts to the nation. These readings will augment the already existing Archive of Recorded Poetry and Literature, which has recordings of 2,000 poets and authors reading their work. Among them are Robert Penn Warren, Robert Frost, Maxine Kumin and Gwendolyn Brooks.

Interpreting services (American Sign Language, Contact Signing, Oral and/or Tactile) will be provided if requested five business days in advance of the event. Call (202) 707-6362 TTY and voice to make a specific request. For other ADA accommodations, contact the Disability Employment office at (202) 707-9948 TTY and (202) 707- 7544 voice.