In response to gun violence in our Champaign-Urbana community and in our high schools, and in tribute to victims of this violence, some of them students such as Jonathan McPhearson of Centennial High School, we are proposing a collaborative theater event based on Xtigone, a play by Nambi E. Kelley, which adapts Sophocles’ Antigone, an ancient play whose themes resonate with the effects of violence on families and communities.
Xtigone speaks directly to gun violence within African-American communities in Chicago (World premiere: African-American Shakespeare Company, San Francisco [2015], Director: Rhodessa Jones). We envision students, teachers, and staff from our two high schools (Central and Centennial High Schools) participating in a staged reading and performance workshops and discussions under the direction of Paul O’Mahony, Director of the acclaimed Out of Chaos Theatre company, based in London (https://www.out-of-chaos.co.uk). Participants will perform and engage with Kelley’s Xtigone in selected venues in Champaign-Urbana in March 2022.
Xtigone/Antigone Project: staged reading and performance workshops, based on a story of violence within the family and the community. Xtigone is an urban adaptation of Antigone that speaks to the rise of gang violence in the playwright’s native Chicago and speaks out against the rising number of the deaths of children. Antigone’s counterpart in Xtigone, Tigs, the sister of one the young men who die in gang shootings, stands up against the Mayor’s, her uncle’s arrangements for a quick funeral and takes the bold action of uncovering her brother’s face—a gesture that looks back at Mamie Till Bradley’s insistence for an open casket funeral for her son, Emmett Till. Antigone and Xtigone cry out for political action and speak directly to the trauma of gun violence and the devastation they visit upon families and communities.
Many theatre companies, artists, theatre practitioners, and playwrights have re-envisioned ancient Greek theatre to speak to communities of color and social justice. This wave has been growing stronger and stronger since the 1990s. We hope that Antigone/ Xtigone will continue this work and allow all to engage in the project with their minds and hearts. Students will be given the opportunity to participate in the production in various ways (acting, set design, music, tech support, prompter, costume design, etc.) or simply as audience members. It is our hope that friends, family members, and other community members will come together for this opportunity to participate in this shared experience of viewing and reflecting together on what the play(s) means to us today in our present moment of unprecedented violence in our community.
COLLABORATING TEAM: Charence Higgins (Theatre, UIUC); Paul O’Mahony (Out of Choas Theatre, London, UK), Patricia Phillips-Batoma (Translation and Interpreting Studies, UIUC; Secretary of PTSA, Central High School), Sam Smith (KCPA), Angeliki Tzanetou (Classics, UIUC)