(W) Francesco Barilli (A/CA) Alessandro Ranghiasci Athens, 399 BC. In what may be remembered as the first trial for crimes of opinion, Socrates is sentenced to death. Accused of corrupting youth with atheistic doctrines, the philosopher's line of defense is uncompromising and defiant. He is thus sentenced to drink hemlock by an even larger majority of jurors, and once in prison, awaiting execution, he refuses to flee lest he violate those laws to which he has always been devoted. Socrates was not only one of the best known and most influential philosophers in human history, but also the first martyr for his own ideas. His trial tells how the greatest democracy of the time could have sentenced the best of its citizens to death.

(W) Francesco Barilli (A/CA) Sakka A gorgeously rendered, emotional exploration of the life and death of one of the most famously tormented painters in human history. Through an emotional dialogue between Vincent and his own madness, the artist revisits the most significant loves and losses of his short life. From his tender and tumultuous relationship with his brother Theo, to the famous quarrel with Gauguin that resulted in the self-mutilation of his ear, to the extreme act of self-harm that led to his death, Vincent Van Gogh channeled an extraordinary light as bright today as it was upon his death in 1890. Now in print for the first time in English, Van Gogh: Sadness is Forever casts its own light onto the darkest shadows of the painter's life and inspirations.