“Live from Mount Olympus” Returns for Season 4 with Tony-, Emmy-, and Grammy-Winner André De Shields as Hermes

Live from Mount Olympus, the award-winning podcast by the Onassis Foundation, PRX and the TEAM, for kids and families weaves timeless Greek myths created through the artistry of contemporary theater-makers and told through the imaginative power of audio, launches season four today.

The podcast is available free on-demand on all major podcast platforms. Tony-, Emmy-, and Grammy-Award winner André De Shields (Hadestown, the Wiz) returns as Hermes, host of this “GodsPod,” to tell the story of an unlikely friendship between Zeus and the young Titan Prometheus, played by Ato Blankson-Wood (Cabaret, Hamlet, Slave Play). New episodes will drop every Tuesday for five episodes and will then resume with a different myth for part two in October 2024.

The first three seasons of this lively, engaging podcast have been downloaded more than a million times. Now, Live from Mount Olympus Prometheus brings listeners a fast-paced adventure about a god with an unusual gift. Though Prometheus can see the future, his visions are not completely clear and he quickly learns that not everyone wants to know what lies ahead. After glimpsing a coming war that threatens the whole world, Prometheus realizes he must forge an alliance with Zeus and his siblings, the Olympians. But their friendship is tested when they have very different ideas about how to restore a shattered world.

Live from Mount Olympus is a production of the Onassis Foundation and distributed by public media organization PRX, one of the world’s top podcast publishers This richly-imagined audio drama is created and produced by Peabody Award-winning show-runner Julie Burstein, co-produced by the Brooklyn-based theater ensemble The TEAM, and directed by Tony Award-winner Rachel Chavkin (Lempicka, Hadestown), Zhailon Levingston (Tina: The Tina Turner Musical, Chicken & Biscuits), and Keenan Tyler Oliphant (Hadestown, The Broken Ear Set-list). Karen Brooks Hopkins, president emerita of the Brooklyn Academy of Music, is executive producer.

“The myth of Prometheus is perhaps the most profound story in the history of human civilization, said Brooks Hopkins. “It defines the origin of humanity and all that we have become, both good and bad. By embracing Prometheus’ story, our podcast Live from Mount Olympus has reached a new level of significance. I am proud that the Onassis Foundation is supporting the continuation of this transformative series for a fourth season and that we are sharing this great myth with our young audience.”

Listeners’ imaginations will brim with delight as season four of Live from Mount Olympus breathes new life and insights into the story of Prometheus. Combining powerful performances by a talented and diverse cast, with immersive sound design creating a mythic world, this latest LFMO season reflects the continuing power of Greek myths in the 21st century.

“As we dove into the most ancient sources for this foundational myth, we uncovered so many contemporary resonances for young listeners — untested gods who need to learn how to wield awesome powers that can be used for creation — or destruction, struggle with their parents, and try to figure out what matters most even if it means conflict with their best friend,” said Burstein. “Live from Mount Olympus: Prometheus is a buddy adventure culminating in the most daring heist ever attempted on Mount Olympus. A gripping story for tweens and their grownups!”

To extend learning opportunities, Live from Mount Olympus has launched a partnership with inquirED, a national organization committed to introducing inquiry-based learning to classrooms. The new standards-aligned social studies curriculum is now accessible to educators and students in more than 1,600 schools across the U.S. In addition, Athens-based ACS Athens, part of the international network of the American Community Schools, has integrated Live from Mount Olympus into its 6th-grade ELA curriculum to ignite the creative thinking of their students.

Season 1: Perseus (2021) of this bold and original audio drama brings to life the perilous quest of Perseus to save his mother from an evil king, while Season 2: Persephone (2022) tells the story of Persephone, stolen away to the underworld, while her mother Demeter, goddess of the harvest, fights to bring her daughter back. In Season 3: Atalanta (2023), young listeners hear the dramatic story of Atalanta, a girl raised by bears and taught by Artemis and Athena, who holds her own among the greatest heroes in Greece. Guest stars include Anna Kendrick (Scott Pilgrim Takes Off, Pitch Perfect) and Isabella Rossellini (Julia, La Chimera) in the story of Persephone and John Turturro (King Iasus) as Atalanta’s father in Season 3.

Live from Mount Olympus’s dynamic creative team includes writer Nathan Yungerberg, composer Magdalini Giannikou, and New Yorker cartoonist Jason Adam Katzenstein who creates delightful illustrations for each episode. John Melillo is audio producer and Yonatan Rekem is audio editor.

This new season — Live from Mount Olympus: Prometheus — stars Rolls Andre (Kronos), Ato Blankson-Wood (Prometheus), André De Shields (Hermes), Sean Carvajal (Cyclops/Brontes), Jill Frutkin (Polydora/Aphrodite), Abel Santiago (young Hades), Divine Garland (Ganymede), Modesto “Flako” Jimenez (Kratos), Libby King (Campe), Ian Lassiter (Zeus), Zhailon Levingston (Announcer), Christina Liberus (young Demeter), Kimberly Marable (Themis), Jake Margolin (Argus/Protomen), James Harrison Monaco (Atlas), Gregg Mozgala (Hephaestus), Xavier Pacheco (Epimetheus), Kristen Sieh (Galaxaura/Rhea/ Hundred-Handed Ones), Ahmad Simmons (young Poseidon/Crius), Nedra Marie Taylor (young Hera), Ching Valdes-Aran (young Hestia), vickie washington (Callirhoe/Mnemosyne).

About the Onassis Foundation

The mission of the Onassis Foundation, founded by Aristotle Onassis in 1975, will always be human-centric; to create the conditions, explore the ideas, and spark the discussions that lead to a better society.

The Foundation works to promote the rich contributions of contemporary Greek culture throughout the world. The Onassis Foundation’s work is based in Athens but spans the globe, focusing on culture, healthcare, and education. It has awarded more than 7,500 scholarships to young people worldwide since the late ’70s and presents countless cultural events each year. By building the Onassis National Transplant Center until 2024, following the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center in Athens, it creates the conditions to provide health to all, offering the Greek society a hospital for the transplant of solid organs, as well as a center for research and innovation in the field of organ transplantation.

Through Onassis AiR, a program built on the continuous support of artistic research and practice, aiming to foster a space where the artists set the conditions themselves for the development of their work, the Onassis Foundation supports the existing partnerships and members of its broader ecosystem with the local and international artistic community.

And when it comes to culture, it’s not just art; it’s a way of living. At Onassis Culture, with the Onassis Stegi as its hub, the Foundation encourages the talent and energy of local and international artists to thrive and starts conversations that aim to shake and shape society. Onassis Stegi is a center of global contemporary culture that, through a series of initiatives and works, promotes dialogue about democracy, social and environmental justice, racial and gender equality, and LGBTQIA+ rights.

Stegi Radio is Onassis international web radio, thus a cultural platform that focuses on new music productions, speaking through sounds and ideas, tracing current political and critical thought, and crossing an imaginary archipelago for the bolstering of dialog that goes beyond borders and date. The Onassis YouTube Channel is constantly evolving and growing bigger by adding new productions, digital concerts, documentaries, online discussions, and unique content, bringing our common digital future into focus.

In the US, the Onassis Foundation offers generous support for and curation of cultural programming across various art forms and creative endeavors. Onassis USA, based in New York, includes Onassis ONX Studio for Extended Reality, a joint initiative between Onassis USA and New Museum’s NEW INC; an accelerator, a subsidized workspace, and an exhibition gallery located in the Onassis Gallery of Olympic Tower in Manhattan.

About PRX

Celebrating more than 20 years as a nonprofit public media company, PRX works in partnership with leading independent creators, organizations, and stations to bring meaningful audio storytelling into millions of listeners’ lives. PRX is one of the world’s top podcast publishers, public radio distributors, and audio producers, serving as an engine of innovation for public media and podcasting to help shape a vibrant future for creative and journalistic audio. Shows across PRX’s portfolio of broadcast productions, podcast partners, and its Radiotopia podcast network have received recognition from the Peabody Awards, the Tribeca Festival, the International Documentary Association, and more, including in 2022 when Futuro Media and PRX won a Pulitzer Prize. Visit PRX.org for more.

About the TEAM

Founded in 2004, the TEAM is a Brooklyn-based experimental theatre collective spirited by some of the wildest and deepest artists working today. Once described by The Guardian as “theatrical excavators of American culture, American dreams, and the American psyche,” the TEAM collaboratively creates new works about the experience of living in the United States today to generate dialogue about our nation’s past, present, and future through production and touring. They believe how they make is as important as what they make, and their producing practices strive to embody values of collective liberation.

The TEAM has created and toured 12 original works. The work has been seen in New York at the Public Theater, PS122, Vineyard Theatre, the New Ohio Theatre, and The Bushwick Starr; nationally at ArtsEmerson, A.R.T., Walker Art Center, Playmakers Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, Virginia Tech, and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas; and internationally at the National Theatre, Royal Court Theatre, Barbican, Almeida Theatre, and Battersea Arts Centre in London; Edinburgh’s Traverse Theatre; Culturgest in Lisbon; the Salzburg Festival; Galway Festival; Perth International Arts Festival; and Hong Kong Arts Festival. They are four-time winners of the Scotsman Fringe First Award, winners of the Edinburgh International Festival Fringe Prize, the Herald Angel (2011), the Edinburgh Total Theatre Award (2008), the Best Production Dublin Fringe Award (2007), and were nominated for a Drama League Award for Outstanding Musical (2012).

The TEAM is currently supporting six seedling of new works in its Petri Projects lab, and is developing Reconstructing (Still Working but the Devil Might Be Inside), a new theatrical work that explores the possibility (and value) of intimacy between Black, POC and white artists as they work to move through history together in the aftermath of slavery. https://theteamplays.org/