Four seasons · Four cities · One migration
The Four Hebs
William Shakespeare's tragedy of Rome and Egypt, staged at every change of season along the road Egypt's obelisks travelled. The play opens in Manhattan in spring, crosses to London for summer and Paris for autumn, then comes home to Luxor and the pyramids of Giza in winter. A prologue in Luxor, under February's eclipsed full moon, sets the journey in motion.
Heb (ḥb) is the ancient Egyptian word for festival, as in the Heb Sed, the jubilee a pharaoh celebrated to renew his reign. Each season of this tour is one heb.
The route
Three obelisks left Egypt in the 1800s. Two came from Heliopolis and now stand in Central Park and on the Thames, both called Cleopatra's Needle. The third left the gate of Luxor Temple for the Place de la Concorde, and its twin still stands in Luxor today. The Four Hebs travel that road in reverse, one city per season, and finish where the stones began. The journey opens with a prologue in Luxor on the night of February's lunar eclipse.
| Heb | Opens | City | Stage | Gala |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prologue | 20–21 Feb 2027 · lunar eclipse | Luxor · Thebes | Luxor Temple | Night of the shadowed moon |
| I · Spring | 20 Mar 2027 · equinox | Manhattan | Delacorte Theater, Central Park | Light show at Cleopatra's Needle; ball at the Temple of Dendur |
| II · Summer | 21 Jun 2027 · solstice | London | Cleopatra's Needle, Victoria Embankment | Midsummer evenings beside the Embankment Gardens |
| Interlude | 2 Aug 2027 · total eclipse | Luxor → Cairo | Patron expedition by Nile | Black Moon performance in London, 31 Aug |
| III · Autumn | 23 Sep 2027 · equinox | Paris | Théâtre de Verdure du Jardin Shakespeare | Opening at the Obélisque de Louxor; ball under the Louvre Pyramid |
| IV · Winter | 22 Dec 2027 · solstice | Luxor · Thebes | Luxor Museum and Luxor Temple | Homecoming exhibition; lighted night tour of the temple |
| Finale | Winter 2027–28 | Giza | Giza pyramid complex stage | All three pyramids lit after the final curtain |
The scarab. Khepri, the scarab god, rolled the sun into the sky each morning. Spring opens the migration under his sign.
More than twenty spring evenings at the Delacorte Theater, each one followed by a short walk across the park to the obelisk that has stood behind the Met since 1881.
Antony and Cleopatra on the Delacorte's open-air stage, 1,800 seats facing Turtle Pond and Belvedere Castle. Proposed with The Public Theater, which operates the Delacorte and has staged Shakespeare there since 1962.
A short illumination of Cleopatra's Needle, the granite obelisk of Thutmose III on Greywacke Knoll, a few minutes' walk east of the theater.
Drinks and dancing in the Sackler Wing around the Temple of Dendur, a sandstone temple built about 15 BC and given to the United States by Egypt in 1965.
Sample evening. Times are illustrative.
The falcon. Horus, the falcon of the sky, watches over the season when the sun stands highest.
The play crosses the Atlantic to the Thames and is staged beside London's Cleopatra's Needle, the sister stone of the Central Park obelisk, with the roses of the Victoria Embankment Gardens in summer bloom behind the audience.
Antony and Cleopatra performed on the Embankment between the needle's two bronze sphinxes, with the river and the South Bank as the backdrop.
Ticket holders are pointed to the British Museum's Egyptian sculpture galleries, a short walk north of the Embankment.
About 42% of the sun is covered as seen from London. A public viewing at Cleopatra's Needle, with eclipse glasses handed out, while patrons watch totality in Luxor.
A performance at dusk on the night of August's second new moon, with the Needle lit against the darkest sky of the month.
The Egyptian Mau. The spotted cat of the tomb paintings, sacred to Bastet. Paris takes the cat.
Autumn begins at the Obélisque de Louxor, the one stone on the route that came from Luxor itself. The play moves to a nineteenth-century garden theater in the Bois de Boulogne, and the season closes under the glass pyramid of the Louvre.
The season opens at the Obélisque de Louxor on the Place de la Concorde, raised there in 1836 after leaving the gate of Luxor Temple.
Antony and Cleopatra at the Théâtre de Verdure du Jardin Shakespeare in the Pré Catelan, an open-air stage of about 250 seats set among gardens planted after five Shakespeare plays.
A closing ball beneath the glass pyramid of the Louvre, steps from the museum's Egyptian Antiquities galleries.
The jackal. Anubis, guide through the night, leads the winter tour through the temple after dark.
Winter brings the migration to ancient Thebes, where the Paris obelisk's twin still stands at the gate of Luxor Temple. Here the season is a homecoming.
An exhibition at the Luxor Museum built around objects with ties to Thebes, brought back as loans or returns arranged with Egypt's Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities and the lending institutions.
A lit tour and entry through Luxor Temple, from the pylon of Ramesses II and its standing obelisk to the colonnade of Amenhotep III.
The cast, crew and guests board a Nile expedition boat at the Luxor corniche to begin the voyage north.
The Nile perch. The great fish of the river. The Upper Egyptian town of Esna was called Latopolis, city of the perch.
From Luxor the company sails north, downstream, on a Nile expedition boat. The voyage ends at the Giza Plateau, where Antony and Cleopatra is staged for the last time and all three pyramids are lit.
The Nile flows north, so the migration rides the current from Thebes toward the Delta, with stops planned along the way.
The closing performances on a stage within the Giza pyramid complex, with the Great Sphinx below the plateau.
Khufu, Khafre and Menkaure lit together, the last light show of the migration.
Proposed beneficiaries
Each season raises money for the theater, park and museum that host it. The institutions below are the proposed beneficiaries of each heb.
Heb I · Spring
Heb III · Autumn
Societies that study and protect Egypt's monuments in every city the tour visits.
Inquiries
For sponsorship, patronage, venues, press and partnership inquiries about The Four Hebs.
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