Playwright Sophocles brought Antigone to the stage in 441 BCE with themes of civil disobedience, rule and order, politics and love of family. We find ourselves as a society dealing with some of the same issues many years later. CJ Miller, Middle School Theater teacher and Antigone director/writer brought the story to life for the AFS community saying, “Antigone has been on my dream list of plays to direct for about ten years. So much has happened in my own personal life in that time as well as the world itself and through all of that, the themes of Antigone have stayed with me. After looking long and hard for a middle school appropriate adaptation of the script, I decided to just write it myself.” CJ worked on the script, making it age appropriate and weaving modern events into the story that paralleled the oppression the original character Antigone faced.

Ian Sellers ’26 was an assistant director of Antigone and expressed that he was skeptical about the story translating well with these updates to the script saying, “CJ made amazing changes that I didn’t think would make any sense at all, like when he combined the Spike Lee movie Do The Right Thing with the ‘riot’ scene.” Kennedy Dingle ’26, who played Antigone echoed these sentiments saying the parallels to recent uprising made the play “extremely relatable.” When describing the character that she played, Kennedy said, “She’s this awesome no-nonsense character who you know is going to act when she sees injustice.”

Congratulations to CJ and the entire cast and crew who worked so hard to bring this story to life in such a unique and beautiful way.

Watch the CJ Miller Adaptation of Antigone on YouTube if you missed it!