Antigone

Choi created an original score with an eclectic mix of music, including electroacoustic, ballad, jazz, odes with a contemporary American feeling, a gospel prayer to Dionysus and a rock beat in one dance. Also Choi applied Greek Traditional Music, which performed in grief for the dead since B.C 300-400, to prologue and curtain call. UNT College of Music (jazz) students recorded the instrumental parts, vocal parts are performed by theater students, and a student actor will play parts of the percussion score live on stage each night.

Play

Antigone (2007)

UNT gives classic Antigone a modern twist,

featuring world premiere of musical composition by student

University of North Texas Department of Dance and Theatre presents “Antigone,” a new translation by Nicholas Rudall. Directed by Dr. Andrew B. Harris, UNT professor of theatre. Featuring the musical composition of UNT doctoral student Da Jeong Choi

8 p.m. Nov. 9 and 10 (Friday and Saturday), 2:30 p.m. Nov. 11 (Sunday), 8 p.m. Nov. 15 – 17 (Thursday – Saturday) and 2:30 p.m. Nov. 18 (Sunday).

University Theatre in the Radio, Television, Film and Performing Arts Building, located at the corner of Welch and Chestnut streets

$10 for general public

$7.50 for students, seniors and UNT faculty/staff

(940) 565-2428. Box office hours are 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and one hour prior to each performance.

DENTON (UNT), Texas You won’t find any togas in this version of Antigone — a modernized production of Sophocles’ classic presented by the University of North Texas Department of Dance and Theatre and accompanied by an original score by a student from the renowned UNT College of Music.

“The script is as Sophocles wrote it and Nicholas Rudall translated it, but the feeling and tempo of this production is today, maybe even tomorrow,” said director Andrew B. Harris, UNT theatre professor. “Don’t expect to see actors in bed sheets reciting poetic speeches. This production is audacious.”

The University of North Texas Department of Dance and Theatre presents “Antigone” at 8 p.m. Nov. 9 and 10 (Friday and Saturday), 2:30 p.m. Nov. 11 (Sunday), 8 p.m. Nov. 15 – 17 (Thursday – Saturday) and 2:30 p.m. Nov. 18 (Sunday). All performances take place in the University Theatre in the Radio, Television, Film and Performing Arts Building, located at the corner of Welch and Chestnut streets.

Tickets are $10 for the general public and $7.50 for students, seniors and UNT faculty/staff. Call (940) 565-2428. Box office hours are 1 to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and one hour prior to each performance.

In this classic tale, Thebes’ new ruler Creon prohibits his niece Antigone from burying her brother, who died as an enemy of the state. “The play makes it clear that high position and good fortune are never to be taken for granted,” Harris said. “Leadership demands sacrifice. To save the state and keep the laws of the gods is at times the ultimate sacrifice.”

UNT music doctoral student Da Jeong Choi created an original score with an eclectic mix of music, including percussion parts mixed with acoustical instrumentation, odes with a contemporary American feeling, a gospel prayer to Dionysus and a rock beat in one dance. UNT College of Music students recorded the instrumental parts, vocal parts are performed by theater students, and a student actor will play parts of the percussion score live on stage each night. “We are fortunate to have very gifted students in the College of Music,” Harris said. “I always try to find someone to work with from the college because of the high caliber of the students and the fact that it gives a genuine original flavor to the production. The student actors and choreographers love it.” Choi, too, said she loves the energy, dynamics and motion of working with the dancers while she refines her composition.

“It is fun to write any commissioned piece for acoustic instrument or electro-acoustic music, but working with theatre people is more fun since we consistently interact with one another. Interacting is a very significant element in order to polish art,” Choi said.

“This is a very important step for me to write music for a play, not only because this is a first opportunity to enter a new art form, but also because working with them has helped my perspective of art open more widely,” Choi said.

In fact, the music provided the inspiration for the costumes, lighting and setting, Harris said.

“We decided that trying to go back to an archaic Greek setting made little or no sense,” he said. “We wanted something fresh that would speak to today’s audience. The news headlines about the Middle East made it clear that civil wars, the background to Sophocles’ play, can result in the class (do you mean clash?) of East and West. Democracy and tyranny make uneasy bedfellows, and one day when we get a chance to reflect, we may notice that in fighting our enemies we have given in to some of their tactics and practices. The East meets West theme is captured in the set and the costumes.”

Harris, who joined UNT in 2002, has served as chair of theater departments at Columbia University, Southern Methodist University and Texas Christian University. His production credits include shows in Chicago, New York and Texas, including “The Life of Galileo” with Laurence Luckinbill and Tennessee Williams’ “Suddenly Last Summer.”

In March, he received the 2007 Golden Pen Award from the United States Institute for Theatre Technology (USITT) for his book, “The Performing Set: The Broadway Designs of William and Jean Eckart,” published by UNT Press. Harris is also the author of “Broadway Theatre,” which won the Broadway Theatre Institute Award for Excellence in Education.

Choi, who was born in Seoul, South Korea, began conducting at 15. She earned a bachelor of music degree in composition at Dankook University in Seoul and a master of arts degree at Rutgers University. In 2003, she entered the doctoral of musical arts program at UNT. She has earned several awards for her compositions, including second place in the Percussive Arts Society Composition Contest for her composition Mons Montis. In addition, several of her compositions have been published by Keyboard Percussion Publications in Asbury Park, N.J. She serves as a teaching fellow at UNT, teaches piano in Coppell and serves as music director for Aubrey First United Methodist Church. Antigone is her first work for the theatre. In May, she created a composition for Andrew Herta’s film Deception.

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