Since Dr. Cohen had the good fortune to grow up surrounded by theatre and by especially Shakespeare, her love of Latin and Greek led naturally to a professional interest in ancient drama, especially the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. Her father, Dr. Ralph Alan Cohen, taught her the importance of understanding drama as texts for performance, and her work on Greek tragedy has always been about interpretation for the stage with particular attention to the conventions of fifth-century Athens.