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In partnership with the Pittsburgh presents... Youth Symphony Antigone Antigone By Sophocles Directed by Wayne Brinda & Meagan Reagle May 14-22, 2011 New Hazlett Theater Generously funded by and supporters like you! FOR TEACHERS EDUCATOR PREVIEWS Come join Prime Stage Theatre for our *FREE* Educator Previews during our final dress re- hearsals! All attendees are allowed to bring one adult guest, also free of charge. Previews begin at 8 pm and take place at the New Hazlett Theater in Pittsburgh’s Historic Northside (www.newhazletttheater.org). Please RSVP to [email protected]. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow Friday, October 29, 2010 The Glass Menagerie Friday, March 4, 2011 Antigone Friday, May 13, 2011 PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT WORKSHOPS Due to unfortunate circumstances, Prime Stage Theatre is postponing its upcoming professional development workshop until May 2011. Stay tuned for more information, coming shortly! Keep checking our website at: www.primestage.com/workshops.htm. PERUSAL SCRIPTS Excerpts from scripts of all our productions are available for your perusal. Please email stu- [email protected] to request a copy. Generously funded by and supporters like you! FOR TEACHERS & STUDENTS POST-SHOW CHAT SESSIONS Stay after the school matinees to ask questions of both the actors and the characters! During the 20-minute post-show chat sessions, delve into the minds and reasoning of the characters and then ask questions of the actors about the rehearsal process, theatre performance, and their ex- periences working on that particular production. No registration required. ADOPT-A-SCHOOL PROGRAM Prime Stage Theatre’s flagship education program strives to increase adolescent literacy through theatre in underserved and underperforming school districts in the Western Pennsyl- vania area. In this FREE program, schools receive tickets and books for each Prime Stage pro- duction, 10 in-school workshops, and professional development opportunities for teachers. If you would like your school to become involved, please download an application at our website, http://www.primestage.com/adopt_a_school.htm TECHNICAL MENTOR PROGRAM Prime Stage Theatre’s technical mentor program is open to any student interested in learning about sound, lights, costumes, set design, props, backstage crew and even box office manage- ment! Through hands-on experience during the production process and attentive guidance by Prime Stage artists, students leave the program with workforce skills and a deeper appreciation for the theatrical craft. For more information, contact [email protected]. IN-SCHOOL EXPERIENCES—NEW OFFERING Want to explore acting exercises with your students? Learn about set or sound design? Find out about theatre movement or fight choreography? Dive into the text through improvisation and writing? Prime Stage now offers in-school workshops to meet your needs. Prime Stage artists come to your classroom to show and teach their craft. Topics are tailored to each school’s needs and are subject to availability. For more information, contact [email protected]! Generously funded by and supporters like you! Antigone Resource Guide Welcome to Prime Stage Theatre: Volume 2, Issue 3 where literature comes to life! 2.25.2011 Resource Guide created by Alyssa Dear Educator, Stage Theatre will Herzog Melby for Prime Stage Theatre. Please do not reproduce now be producing two Welcome to the 2010-11 any part of the study guide for useful guides for you publication without permission. season at Prime Stage to use in the class- Theatre! It’s been my room. The first is pleasure during my first what you are reading year with Prime Stage to Did you know… right now—the Re- meet many educators source Guide. You told Prime Stage Theatre from the Western Penn- us you wanted the has been in existence sylvania region and to resource guides as for over 13 years. make connections with soon as you could get local youth through the Our Town ’s your hands on them, and Prime Stage Theatre power of live theatre. We PST 2009 we’ve delivered. Filled very first production was had a very successful A Woman Called Truth with historical back- other information to help season last year with about Sojourner Truth. ground and context, class- you and your students acclaimed productions of room activities, and other enjoy and understand our Our Town, Tuesdays with Prime Stage Theatre curricular content, the unique and artistic inter- Morrie, and Romeo and first performed at the resource guides are pretations of the texts. Juliet. We are thrilled to Station Square Play- meant to be used when The production guides be back with new, chal- house (now Hard Rock teaching the text of our will be up on our website lenging, and relevant Café). production. 4 weeks prior to the open- productions of three clas- ing of a production. So sics: The Legend of Sleepy The second guide we will check the website Hollow, The Glass Me- be publishing is a Produc- often during the year— nagerie, and Antigone. tion Guide. The produc- www.primestage.com. Check out what’s inside! tion guide will include We are excited to an- We look forward to seeing information such as actor nounce something new you soon at the theatre! Antigone in 30 sec- 5 bios, design information, based upon feedback from onds…or Less! rehearsal notes, and ~Alyssa Herzog Melby teachers like you. Prime Sophocles 5 Pre-Reading Activi- 6 Curriculum Connections Corner ties Putting it in Context 8 Prime Stage Theatre is Arts and Humanities: committed to directly 9.1-9.4 correlating our programs The Family Tree in 9 to the PDE Academic Reading, Writing, Antigone Standards. Antigone and Speaking, & Listening: this resource guide may 1.1-1.8 Reading Activities 10 be used to address the following curriculum con- History: Post-Reading Activi- 12 tent standards: 8.1-8.4 ties 14 Add’l Resources Page 5 Antigone Before the Show Antigone Creon, Oedipus’ brother and Anti- attempts to reason with him, but to gone and Ismene’s uncle, ascends to no avail. Haemon leaves, promising in 30 seconds… the throne. His first decree as king: Creon that he will regret his decision. Eteocles should be buried and cele- Shortly thereafter, Tiresius, the The play begins outside of Thebes brated as a hero; Polynices should be knowledgeable prophet, shares with with Oedipus, the exiled former king, left to rot for the birds because he Creon the devastating prophecy that and his two daughters, Antigone and was a traitor. Anyone who chooses to one of his own children will soon die Ismene. News has reached them that bury Polynices faces death. Antigone, as reparation for Creon’s refusal to their two brothers, Polynices and hearing this decree, is outraged at bury Polynices. Creon has a turn of Eteocles, are preparing to battle over the direct affront to the gods. The heart, but it is already too late: Anti- the throne in Thebes. Polynices had way she sees it, only the gods can gone has hung herself, Haemon has left Thebes to gather an outside army make that decision, not Creon, even killed himself in grief and anger, and while Eteocles had stayed in Thebes if he is the king. She attempts to per- Creon’s wife, Eurydice, commits sui- and gathered its citizens to his side. suade her sister to help her bury cide upon hearing that her son has Polynices arrives to ask for his fa- Polynices, but Ismene cowers at the died. Such is the cost of pride... ther’s blessing, but is received with a thought of death. Antigone, un- curse from Oedipus: both brothers daunted and intent on doing the ...or less! will die at the hands of one another. right thing, leaves and buries her Antigone chooses to bury her brother, Before he leaves, Polynices begs his brother. She is caught by the guards, Polynices, against the decree of her sisters to promise him that should he however, and brought before Creon uncle, King Creon. Creon insists she die in battle, they will properly bury who immediately holds true to his must die, but not before he, too, loses him. The battle ensues, and Oedipus’ decree and orders her death. Hae- his family due to his prideful ways. curse comes true—both brothers die. mon, his son and Antigone’s fiancée, Sophocles Although details of his life remain Iophon. Somewhat late in life he sired scattered over several documents over an illigetimate son, Ariston, by a hundreds of years, scholars have de- woman of Sicyon, Theoris. Both of his duced that Sophocles was born at sons were said to have taken up tragic Colonus in Attica in 495/4 BCE. He playwriting as well. One incident in lived a long life —90 years—and died his life that remains clouded in in- in 406/5 BCE. During his 90 years, we trigue is a charge that Iophon brought also know that he rose to the top of the against his father. Upset with the living Greek playwrights from the favoritism he felt Sophocles showered approximately 20 awards that he re- upon Ariston, he charged his father ceived at the festival of Dionysus. His with mental incapacity. To defend his first play, The Triptolemos, premiered sanity, Sophocles recited an ode from in 468 BCE and tooK first prize at the Oedipus Rex and was acquitted on the festival. Sophocles is said to have spot. No one knows if this is entirely written over 110 plays during his ca- true or not, but what does a little fam- reer, but the only extant plays we have ily gossip hurt anyone? today are Ajax, Antigone, Trachinai, Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles’ memory and status as one Electra, and Philoctetes. Besides play- of the great Greek tragedians became writing, Sophocles is widely believed solidified for all time when Aristotle Bronze bust of Sophocles to have taken up many political and singled out his tragedy, Oedipus Rex, http://www.classics.upenn.edu/myth/php/ military positions during his time, as the premier model of tragic struc- including serving as general in the ture in his aesthetic philosophy work, innovations in dramatic writing in- Athenian army.