Upper School Students Perform in Antigone

Tower Hill’s Drama Department presented the classic Greek tragedy Antigone on Saturday, Oct. 25 at 7:30 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 26 at 2 p.m.  

The 446 B.C. play by Sophocles examined the conflict between Creon’s loyalty to polis (city/community) and Antigone’s devotion to oikos (home/family).

 

“Tower Hill’s Drama Department cracked open this ancient tale and to breathe new life into it,” says theater teacher Darla Max. “When the play begins and the chorus untangles the plot, the tragedy of loyalty, love, justice and duty will be hurled forward into the 21^st century.”

The stage design is one of the largest ever undertaken at Tower Hill. In an attempt to both mimic the ancient Greek theater and bring the story closer to the audience, students and faculty members extended the stage directly over the first few rows of seats. Click here to view a time-lapse video of the project. 

 

In ancient Greece, sets were minimal and included a wall at the most upstage portion of the stage called the skene. Behind it, actors moved for costume and mask changes before returning to the stage as different characters.

 

“Since we are building out in front of the stage, we are unable to use many of the lighting positions we use for other shows,” said Drama Department faculty member Matt Kator. “For Antigone, a new front of house lighting position will be created using truss and chain motors about three quarters of the way into the audience.” 

For the first time Kator used a 3D printer to design, render and build a small-scale model of the Antigone set. He anticipates the technology becoming an even more valuable part of theatrical set design in the future.

Students involved in building the set were:

Blair Isken, Kaitlyn Scott, Benjamin Spiro, Andrew Stack, Adam Reynolds, Julia Molin, Nicholas Fort, Timothy Gouge, Paritosh Raval, Adam Fisher, Michael Gallagher, Luke Solacoff, Pat Mullen, Ann Guzzetta and Jim Guan.

The cast for the production:

Antigone:  Brooke  Hayman                        

Creon:  George Gianforcaro           

Nurse:  Alexis Wrease                        

Ismene:  Rebecca Pettinaro

Haemon:  Spencer Johnson                        

Page:  Safiya Miller           

Jonas: Graham Bright                       

Guard 2:  David Goodman

Guard 3:  Luke Solacoff                        

Messenger: Hudson Pepper

Eurydice: Whitney Polich                        

Polynice:  Brandon Nitsche

Eteoclese: Philip Nickel

Mark  Cordell                                               
Kennedy Medley

Joshua Collier                                               
Renee  Albrecht

Brian  Miller                                               
Jasmine Minhas

Samantha Silvers                                   

Lexi Longo

Caroline DeSantis                                   

Alexandra Caimi

Madison Stern                                   

Rand Barton

Sabrina Luther