Solo Performance: The Parliament of Poets
Rhapsode: Frederick Glaysher
Company: Apollo’s Troupe
Contact: Frederick Glaysher | ApollosTroupe@Fastmail.com
Further details at Apollo’s Troupe on EarthrisePress.Net 
Ringwald Theatre. November 13, 2022. 2-minute Youtube. https://youtu.be/8ko4gZDmKhg

"Like a story around a campfire." —From the Audience

“A hopeful vision of peaceful coexistence as one united humanity. The performance was thought-provoking, moving, and inspiring. Our world is desperately in need of this message of peace, love and humanity.” —Rev. Eric Williams, St. Philip’s Episcopal Church, Rochester, MI

“Impressed, moved to laughter, tears. Held our attention for 90 minutes, stayed so energized, a feat in itself. A creative, powerful message with so many of the poet masters, phenomenal! Amazing life-time work!” —Rev. Leonetta Bugleisi, Unitarian Universalist

“Certainly wowed the crowd with the performance and the words themselves.” —Albany Poets News, New York

"A great epic poem of startling originality and universal significance, in every way partaking of the nature of world literature." —Hans Ruprecht, Carleton University, Ottawa, Canada

"Mr. Glaysher has written an epic poem of major importance." —ML Liebler, Poet, Department of English, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan


The theatre company Apollo’s Troupe will perform the critically-acclaimed epic poem, The Parliament of Poets, written and performed solo by Michigan poet Frederick Glaysher.

As a universal interfaith story, The Parliament of Poets tells the tale of a journey toward cosmos, Christian and spiritual unity, “Spiritual, Not Religious.”

The more than fifty performances have included the Studio Theatre at Hilberry Theatre, Ringwald Theatre, Theatre NOVA in Ann Arbor, Shelton Theatre in San Francisco, and a variety of settings, Unitarian and Episcopal churches, Rochester and Ann Arbor Parks, and The 8th Parliament of the World’s Religions 2021. 

This 90-minute solo stage adaptation of Mr. Glaysher’s epic work in verse keeps intact much of the beautiful poetry that exemplifies what one reviewer called a “spectacular book” while seeking to reach a wider audience with its message of how poetry and artistry from all times and cultures can elevate the world and redefine our lives for the better. 

Taking place on the moon at the Apollo 11 landing site, a lone poet finds himself charged by Don Quixote and “The Parliament of Poets” to spread a message of beauty, unity, and love to all nations of our fractured modern world. He is then sent to meet with the great poets, myths, and characters from history, East and West, to be mentored on his spiritual quest and interfaith journey toward enlightenment and understanding, an inspiring vision of our human aspiration for the Divine. 

The cast is comprised of the poet himself, as persona and solo rhapsode, playing the role of the main character and wayfarer, The Poet of the Moon—and Black Elk, Chief Seattle, Don Quixote, Merlin, Milton, Du Fu, Faerie Queene, Tolstoy, Dante, Borges, Sogolon, and other poets from around the world as they seek together the meaning of our common humanity. 

Mr. Glaysher grew up in Rochester, Michigan, and earned two degrees at the University of Michigan, the latter a Master’s in English, and where he studied with the American poet Robert Hayden and is the editor of his collected prose and poetry, as well as the executor of the Hayden Literary Estate.

The canto with the Old Testament prophet-poet Job on the moon broods on the Holocaust and the meaning of suffering, taking the audience deep into the tragedy of modern times, while offering peace beyond understanding. At Chartres Cathedral, Dante guides The Poet of the Moon through its labyrinth, while in an Anglican country parish church in England he prays and communes with many of the great poets of English literature and history, as elsewhere around the world and on the moon.