Open to Public / Antigone in Ferguson at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church 2019
Antigone in Ferguson at St. Ann & the Holy Trinity Church
Translated and Directed by Bryan Doerries
Music Composed By Phil Woodmore
Free Event
Wed, Jun 05.2019 7:00 PM
This innovative project fuses dramatic readings by acclaimed actors of Sophocles’ Antigone with live choral musicperformed by a choir of activists, police officers, youth, and concerned citizens from Ferguson and New York City. Each performance culminates in a powerful, audience-driven discussion of race and gender-based violence and social justice.
Featuring a rotating cast of actors, including; Amy Ryan, Chris Noth, Paul Giamatti, Jumaane Williams, Zach Grenier, Kathryn Erbe, Obi Abili, Linda Powell, Josh Hamilton, and David Strathairn.
With the following guest choirs:
R.Evolucion Latina
Brooklyn Interdenominational Chorus
United Voices of Hope
The Guardians
Bethel Gospel Assembly
Abrons Arts
Songs of Solomon
This production is exclusively supported by the Stavros Niarchos Foundation
About the play
-
Antigone by Sophocles
Sophocles’ Antigone is an ancient play about a teenage girl who wishes to bury her brother, Polyneices, who recently died in a brutal civil war. Creon, the new, untested king, has ruled that Polyneices’ body must remain above the earth, and that anyone who breaks this law will be put to death. Antigone openly and intentionally defies his edict, covering her brother’s body with dirt and publicly declaring her allegiance to a higher law, one that transcends that of the state—the law of love. Creon is then forced, by his own political rhetoric, and the by fragile social order that he has barely begun to establish since the civil war, to make an example of his niece, by sentencing her to death. In the process of following through with his own decree, Creon loses everything. At its core, Antigone is a play about what happens when personal conviction and state law clash, raising the question: When everyone is right (or feels justified), how do we avert the violence that will inevitably take place?
Cast Members
-
Diamond Jones
Antigone
-
Josh Hamilton
Creon
-
Willie Woodmore
Tiresias
-
Marjolaine Goldsmith
Ismene/Eurydice
-
Obi Abili
Haemon/Creon/ Messenger
Partners
Explore Projects
-
Refugees & ImmigrationThe Suppliants ProjectThe Suppliants Project tells the timeless story of fifty female refugees seeking asylum at a border from forced marriage and domestic violence. The play not only depicts the struggle of these women to cross into safety, but also the internal struggle within the city that ultimately receives them. Using a 2,500-year-old tragedy by Aeschylus as a catalyst for powerful gatherings and crucial conversations, The Suppliants Project engages diverse audiences in humanizing, constructive dialogue about the challenges of the current immigration crisis and its impact upon all that it touches.
Featuring a chorus of Garifuna singers, musicians, and performers from Belize, Honduras, and Guatemala
-
Domestic ViolenceMedeaMedea timelessly depicts how scorned passion can lead to revenge and, sometimes, unthinkable violence. This project, which premiered at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in June 2016, delves into under-discussed mental health issues that affect women and their families.
-
PandemicThe Oedipus ProjectThe Oedipus Project is an innovative new digital initiative by Theater of War Productions that will present acclaimed actors performing scenes from Sophocles’ Oedipus the King as a catalyst for powerful, healing online conversations about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic upon diverse communities throughout the world. Sophocles’ ancient play, written and performed in 429 BC during the time of a plague that killed one-third of the Athenian population, is a timeless story of arrogant leadership, ignored prophecy, and a pestilence that ravages the city of Thebes. At the time the play was first performed, the audience would have been reeling in the wake of a pestilence and its economic, political, and social aftermath. Seen through this lens Oedipus the King appears to have been a powerful public health tool for helping Athenians communalize the trauma of the plague, through a story that is as relevant now as it was in its own time.