Missouri Southern Theatre Department will present The Trojan Women, a classic Greek tragedy by Euripedes, at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 7 through Saturday, Oct. 11 at the Bud Walton Theatre.

The production has been in the making for three weeks, and director Jim Lile, theatre department chair, said the play has been a great fit for the program.

The story illustrates life for Trojan women after the 10-year war and defeat by the Greeks. The city of Troy has fallen and the women are handed to Greek soldiers as prizes for their victory. The production follows the lives of these women who have just been captured and are fearful of what lies ahead.

Although the play is a classic Greek tragedy, Lile chose a translation by Edith Hamilton that features contemporary language without losing the ritualistic feel of Greek theater.

“We’ve taken a very contemporary tack with this,” said Lile, “because what Euripides is saying about the human cost of war is still very current and applicable, so it’s like it happened yesterday.”

The cast includes Mollie Sanders as Hecuba; Valerie Stockton as Cassandra; Erica Zeyn as Andromache; Sean Botts as Talthybuis; Laramie Ellis as Helen; Kendrick Carlock as Menelaus; and Anthony Eden and Cameron Lopez as soldiers. The chorus includes Samantha Green, Kelsey Hale, Christy Hernandez, Inge Logtenberg, Miranda Neely, Tonya Richardson, Tinsley Rutledge and Jamie Strong.

Each key actor has created a backstory for her character, including where she was when she was captured, and what she was doing and wearing.

Lile said he thought the play would be perfect for Southern theater students because of the large number of women in the program and the many female roles this production calls for. Although the play is sad, filled with what he called “unrelieved gloom and misery,” Lile hopes that the audience will be able to relate the story to the human cost of war in modern times.

“Every night we see or hear statistics about refugees and how many people are leaving this country and who got bombed and who got shelled and it’s all over the place,” said Lile. “These are people that are involved here … We hope it puts a little more [of a] human face on what’s going on.”

The play will be an hour long and have no intermission. Admission is free for Southern students, faculty and staff and tickets are $3 for adults and $1 for senior citizens and other students.