A groundbreaking project by and for nurses, The Nurse Antigone presents dramatic readings of Sophocles’ Antigone on Zoom—featuring professional actors and a chorus of frontline nurses—to help frame powerful, guided discussions about the unique challenges faced by nurses before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Antigone, an ancient play about a young woman who puts everything on the line to do what she believes is right, dramatizes the heavy cost of silencing and marginalizing caregivers, especially during times of crisis. By performing Sophocles’ play for diverse audiences, including nurses as well as concerned citizens, The Nurse Antigone aims to generate compassion, awareness, connection, and much-needed healing, while celebrating and advocating for nurses at this critical juncture in the history of their profession.
Co-presented by Theater of War Productions, the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics, and the Resilient Nurses Initiative - Maryland.
Supported by the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund.
Support for our digital programming is provided, in part, by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.
Featuring performances by Margaret Atwood, Tracie Thoms (Rent), Taylor Schilling (Orange is the New Black), Ato Blankson-Wood (Detroit), Bill Camp (The Queen's Gambit), Charlaine Lasse (Registered Nurse, IV Therapy, Neonatal Intensive Care), Amy Smith (Nurse Practitioner, Northwell Health, Hofstra University), Aliki Argiropoulos (Nurse Clinician II, Blood and Marrow Transplant, Oncology Critical Care, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center, The Johns Hopkins Hospital) and New York City Public Advocate Jumaane Williams.
The Nurse Antigone will take place on Zoom Webinar and can be accessed on personal devices. The event Zoom link will be distributed via email and available to registered attendees starting 2 days prior to the event.
This event will be captioned in English.
About the play
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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
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Taylor Schilling
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Margaret Atwood
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Bill Camp
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Jumaane Williams
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Ato Blankson Wood
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Charlaine Lasse
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Amy Smith
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Aliki Argiropoulos
Initiative Partners
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