Handcart Ensemble

Pulitzer Prize-Winning Poet Paul Muldoon on Handcart’s The Burial at Thebes

“I simply can’t imagine a better production of The Burial at Thebes. Handcart Ensemble is a spectacularly gifted group, absolutely equal to the subtleties of Heaney’s text. I’ll go anywhere to see anything they do.” —Paul Muldoon

The Burial at Thebes

A version of Sophocles’ Antigone

by Seamus Heaney

In this adaptation of the Greek tragedy Antigone, Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney brought out the primal imagery of Sophocles’ phrases, infusing with vitality this ancient drama of state authority colliding with tribal loyalty. This intensively collaborative New York premiere featured masks by Jonathan Becker, a choral score by Nathan Bowen, and choreography by Andrea Homer-Macdonald.

Schedule

There were 12 performances from September 7 to September 23, 2006, at The Salvation Army’s THEATRE 315 on West 47th Street.

Cast

Ron Bopst*
Elizabeth A. Davis*
Susan Ferrara*
Matthew Herrick*
Adam Houghton
Tom Knutson
Jane Pejtersen

Director J. Scott Reynolds
Original Music Nathan Bowen
Choreography Andrea Homer-Macdonald
Costumes Cherie Cunningham
Masks Jonathan Becker
Set David D’Agostini
Lighting David Kniep
Stage Manager Erin Williams
Ass’t Costume Designer Samantha Pena


(This page is a summary of a past production. The full Burial at Thebes page as it existed during the run of this show, with calendar, podcast and images, can be found here.)

About Us

Old Wine in New Bottles

Handcart Ensemble produces new adaptations, new translations, and new works for the theater, drawing primarily from classical sources. Read our mission statement for more information.

Handcart's Horizon

Watch here for details on productions planned for the coming year and seasons, which include a reading of Racine’s Iphigenia in a glorious new translation by poet Rachel Hadas, a full production of Homer’s Odyssey as adapted by poet Simon Armitage, and a startlingly orginal version of Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood (for which a teaser will appear in our December benefit of A Child’s Christmas in Wales: Stories and Poems by Dylan Thomas); all from a company described as “the city’s most reliable and interesting presenter of contemporary renditions of classic theatre texts (NYTheatre.com).”

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