“Show, don’t tell” is one of the most basic rules of dramatic writing. Yet the ancient Greeks told-rather-than-showing all the time: convention forbid onstage violence, so messengers recounted the tragedies’ grisly denouements. Five years ago, shortly after she had told friends she was giving up theatre, JoAnne Akalaitis got the idea to assemble some of those monologues — describing the sacrificing of Iphigenia, Pentheus being torn to pieces by the Bacchae, the poisoning of Jason’s bride by Medea, the slaughter of the Persian army — into a work called Bad News! I was there. – American Theatre