Peter Meineck (born 1967) is the Artistic Director and founder of Aquila Theatre. Peter is also a clinical professor of Classics at New York University. He has also held appointments at Princeton University and the University of South Carolina.
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Peter Meineck was born in Melton Mowbray Leicestershire, England and grew up in New Malden, Surrey in the UK where he attended Beverley Boys School. His earned a BA (Hons) in Ancient World Studies in the departments of Greek and Latin at University College London and his PhD in Classics at the University of Nottingham. He worked extensively in London theatre and founded Aquila Theatre in 1991.[1] His aim with Aquila is to bring the greatest works to the greatest number and he has developed a sixty-seventy city American tour that brings classical drama to communities of all sizes across the USA.[2] His work with Aquila has been seen regularly in New York City at the Clark Studio at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, 45 Bleecker, Manhattan Ensemble Theatre, Classic Stage Company, Baruch Theatre, The Skirball Center, The New Victory Theatre and Theatre Row. Aquila has also performed at the White House and around the world, recently in Greece, the UK, Germany, Bermuda, Poland and Hungary. He has directed and/or produced over 50 productions including; Aescyhlus' Agamemnon, Sophocles' Ajax, Philoctetes and Oedipus Tyrannus, Aristophanes' Clouds, Frogs, Wasps and Birds, Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, Shakespeare's Coriolanus, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Comedy of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Romeo and Juliet, and As You Like It. He has also designed lights for over 30 productions. HIs work has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Humanities, The New York State Council for the Arts, The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, The Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, Southeast Arts, Southern Arts, The Charles Hayden Foundation, The Onassis Foundation, The Laura Pels Foundation, The Carnegie Mellon Foundation and The New York Times Foundation.
Peter Meineck also directs the Aquila Shakespeare Leaders After School Program at Frederick Douglass Academy in Harlem has taught workshops and masterclasses on Shakespeare, Greek Theatre and Masks all over the US and Canada. He has also designed lighting for more than 40 shows. He has published several volumes of translations of Greek plays and is a regular contributor the humanities journal *Arion. His articles and reviews have appeared in The American Journal of Philology, Classical World, The New England Theatre Journal and American Theater. He has recorded several series of lectures for Recorded Books and the Barnes & Noble Portable Professor Series (When Gods Walked The Earth, Classical Mythology: The Greeks, Classical Mythology: The Romans, Greek Drama). He translated the opera libretto for Cherubini’s Medee performed at Carnegie Hall and a new stage adaptation of Joseph Heller's Catch-22 Other stage adaptations he has written that have been produced include, The Trojan Women, The Oresteia, The Canterbury Tales, The Invisible Man, The Man Who Would Be King and Aristophanes Clouds, He also acts as a mythology consultant most notably to Will Smith on the film I Am Legend. He now Lives in Katonah, New York Directing projects include Aquila Theatre's Catch-22[3] and Julius Caesar. [4] Comedy Of Errors, The Iliad: Book One, An Enemy of The People. He is currently Clinical Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient Studies at New York University and has held teaching posts at Princeton University, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and USC. He is director of the Ancient Greeks/Modern Lives[5] Program supported by the National Endowment of the Humanities (NEH Chairman's Special Award). He has served as a Member of the American Philological Association Committee for the Performance of Classical Texts; was a Summer Fellow at the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, DC, Regents Lecturer at the University of California, San Diego, Director in Residence, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX, Translator in Residence Gustavus Adolphus College and President, University College London Classical Society. He is a member of the Katonah and Bedford Hills Volunteer Ambulance Corps and the American Philological Association.
Meineck married ballerina Desiree Sanchez in 2004.[6] They have two children.