Welcome
Hi. My name is Jeff Wright. I am the researcher, the writer and the storyteller behind Trojan War: The Podcast. My day job is telling stories from the Trojan War Epic, live on stage. I love the work. But in any live show, time constraints are a real issue. No matter how engaged my audience, I cannot expect them to sit still for more than about two hours at a go. So I could never tell the FULL Trojan War Epic on stage, because it would take about 25 hours!
But then I got the idea of a podcast serial. A podcast, I realized, was a way to tell all of the stories, to include all of the awesome episodes, and to introduce every one of the really compelling characters. And Trojan War: The Podcast IS about 25 hours long.
What is the Trojan War Epic?
So back in Bronze Age Greece, sometime around 1250 B.C.E. or so, there was a war. Or there might have been a war. We don’t really know — that was a long time ago: the historians and the archaeologists are still debating exactly what happened back then. But whatever the actual historical facts, stories about that war soon began to spread across the Bronze Age world. For the first 500 years or so, the stories were all spread by word of mouth, by storytellers like me. Then about 700 B.C.E. or so, the Greeks figured out written language, and some parts of the story got written down in an epic poem titled The Iliad — by a guy (or a bunch of guys) named Homer. Following Homer, other writers got inspired, soon storytellers everywhere were adding episodes, and more and more accounts of the Trojan War – a war which may or may not have happened – began to appear. By the year 19 B.C.E. even the Romans were in on the fun and a guy named Virgil added brand new episodes to the continually evolving plot. A few years after that, the Romans collected all of the Trojan War stories that they could find, and filed them away in a massive library in Constantinople, where some of the stories survived the worst of the Dark Ages. And that is why we have the stories today. Sadly, many of the original versions have been lost, so storytellers like me have to work with the “fragments” of story, plot and character that survive, and do our best to “glue all the bits together” into one big epic plot.
The good news is that there is truly wonderful content to work with: Achilles, Helen of Troy, Zeus, Aphrodite, Hector, The Trojan Horse … the list goes on. And all of the elements that we adore in our epic stories are here: love, hate, war, revenge, action, betrayal, sex, violence, cowardice, courage, geopolitics, magic, and even a few gods. Scholars tell us that the Trojan War epic is Western culture’s “original and foundational epic”. I like to think of it as the granddaddy of all of the other epically big stories that we know and love.
How Does the Podcast Serial “Work”?
The quick answer is that the Trojan War epic is one really big story. So to make it portable – so that you can listen along on your commute to work, or during your time at the gym, or wherever else it is that you tune in to podcasts – I am breaking the Trojan War epic down into bite-sized episodes, or “chapters”. I will try to keep each episode to about an hour. At the start of each podcast, I will tell the next installment in the continuing story. Following the story, I will invite you to stick around for some “post-story commentary”. I will use the commentary to play around with some of the concepts, trivia, and cool ideas that relate to the section of the story I have just told. I promise that there will be no “plot spoilers” in the commentary: just some value-added insights, and a lot of geeky fun.
You will want to listen to the episodes of Trojan War: The Podcast in sequence, and not to skip any episodes. The entire podcast serial follows a deliberate story arc – jumping in and out of episodes at random might get pretty confusing.
A Little Bit about Me …
When I am not performing live or podcasting, my passions include wilderness canoe tripping, playing in the kitchen, collecting interesting whiskey, and hanging out in the gym. My other projects include:
TROJAN WAR: THE LIVE SHOW
Book a live telling of the Trojan War epic! Jeff tells history’s most awesome epic in theaters, classrooms and large auditoriums. Jeff tailors the content and length of his live performances to the specific needs of your audience and event. Trojan War: The Live Show is uniquely suited to “extended duration audiences”: guests on a cruise ship; guests at a lodge or resort; guests on a multi-day tour. For such audiences Jeff weaves an extended story arc which includes new episodes each day. Jeff also delivers entertaining and informative post-performance “edu-tainments”.
LEADERSHIP LESSONS FROM A BRONZE AGE WAR
Jeff’s performs two highly entertaining live corporate shows: “Leadership Lessons from a Bronze Age War” and “The Odyssey: A Parable of Failed Leadership”. Each show integrates contemporary Leadership Theory and Behavioral Economics into an instructive exploration of the leadership and teamwork “blunders” committed by Bronze Age warlords – and by contemporary managers and CEOs.
HOW TO MAKE LOVE IN A CANOE
How to Make Love in a Canoe is a series of personal stories that chronicle Jeff’s adventures – and misadventures – over a lifetime of wilderness canoe trips. But what Jeff’s canoe stories are REALLY about is our relationships – with siblings, parents, partners, and our children. Through a performance that is wildly entertaining, occasionally poignant and always “laugh till it hurts” funny, Jeff delights audiences with his accounts of the infinite ways in which love can be made … in a canoe. A twice-sellout at Ottawa’s National Arts Center 4th Stage.
