All the world's an ancient Greek or Roman stage for Whitman Professor Thomas Hines

A scholar after my own heart - Professor Hines is photographing as many Greek and Roman theaters as possible and making an archive of his information available through a website at Whitman. I see he finances his activities with grants from such organizations as the National Institute for the Humanities. I guess I need to learn how to do that as my archive on Flickr is funded by my own vacation leave, equipment, and funds for airline tickets and meals and lodging.


Last year, Associate Professor of Theatre Thomas Hines of Whitman College received a gratifying and fairly astonishing e-mail from an excited Argentine businessman who’d decided to restore an old mas, a traditional house in Provence. He wanted Hines to know that the Whitman College professor’s online archive of ancient theaters had inspired him to build a Roman theater in the backyard of the property.

The man had found Hines’ trove of information on Whitman’s Web site. Since 2001, Hines has visited 43 Greek and Roman theaters in three countries, taken tens of thousands of photographs and compiled The Ancient Theatre Archive: A Virtual Reality Tour of Ancient Greek and Roman Theatre Architecture.

Hines’ Web site receives more than a thousand hits a day from visitors across the globe. "There are people visiting the site to write papers or to travel," he said. "People pick from it what they want, and everyone is taking something different and doing something new."

One recent shopper was an official from the Direcção Geral das Artes, the ministry of arts in Portugal. He wanted to use several of Hines’ photographs, particularly the Hellenistic theater in Epidaurus, in a national campaign to promote the arts. Hines was happy to oblige. "I was struck by the idea that this could inspire some grade school kid in Portugal to do something with theater," he said.

Thomas Hines (right)

Hines’ ongoing Web project grew out of his desire to provide his own students with a more complete picture of ancient theaters. The success of his initial study - the Roman theater in Ostia Antica, Italy - inspired him to pursue others. As the projects accrued, Hines’ international audience grew.

“When I conceived of the project, I used a model in my mind of an exhibit in a museum," he said. "An intuitive, self-guided tour. I used my skills as a teacher as well as my knowledge of theater."

Hines’ site features thorough surveys, including basic fact sheets, detailed studies, travel guides, directions, a glossary of Greek and Roman theater terminology, and Hines’ own hand-drawn maps and panoramic images. Viewers can take virtual tours of the theaters, zooming in to study them in as much detail as they wish.

Hines, whose set designs have complemented several Harper Joy Theatre productions at Whitman, has even included his own travel accounts in the virtual tour mix. "Today I followed in the footsteps of Alexander the Great, but unlike him, I managed to conquer the city of Termessos," reads one entry from June 2003. "I was luckier than Alex - I had a Fiat, a paved road, and the cranky Termessians were all dead."

The Web site, Hines allows, is no substitute for the real thing. "What’s lacking is the travel experience: meeting people, seeing the setting, the food, the way people treat you, the views, the smells. All of that is beyond anything a book or camera could capture."

Nonetheless, Hines’ site links viewers with some immediacy to a distant past. “Theater is an ephemeral art form," he said. "We have no way of attending an ancient Greek or Roman play, but we still have this one, very large, tangible artifact. This will let people know these places are out there, and that it’s OK to go."

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