Antigone: Sophocles, Contemporary Version

When Creon refuses to bury the body of Antigone’s unruly brother, Antigone’s anger quickly turns to defiance. Creon condemns her to a torturous death: she’s to be buried alive.

Acclaimed playwright Roy Williams takes Sophocles’ play and, by placing it into a contemporary setting, brings this classic tale vividly to life.

A timeless story about loyalty and truth, about how we make meaning out of life and death, and what in the end really does matter.

Roy Williams’s adaptation of Antigone received its world premiere on 19 September at Derby Theatre, in a co-production between Pilot Theatre, Derby Theatre and Theatre Royal, Stratford East, before going on a national tour.

Roy Williams, OBE, worked as an actor before turning to writing full-time in 1990. He graduated from Rose Bruford in 1995 with a first class BA Hons degree in Writing and participated in the 1997 Carlton Television screenwriter’s course. The No Boys Cricket Club (1996) won him nominations for the TAPS Writer of the Year Award 1996 and for New Writer of the Year Award 1996 by the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain. He was the first recipient of the Alfred Fagon Award 1997 for Starstruck (1998), which also won the 31st John Whiting Award and the EMMA Award 1999. Lift Off (1999) was the joint-winner of the George Devine Award 2000. His other plays include Night and Day (1996); Josie’s Boys (1996); Souls (1999); Local Boy (2000); The Gift (2000); Clubland (Royal Court, 2001), winner of the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for the Most Promising Playwright; Fallout (2003); Sing Yer Heart Out for the Lads (2002), Little Sweet Thing (2005), Slow Time (2005), Days of Significance (2007), Absolute Beginners (2007), Joe Guy (2007), Baby Girl (2007), Out of the Fog (2007), There’s Only One Wayne Matthews (2007), Category B (2009), Sucker Punch (2010), adaptation of The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner (2012), Advice for the Young At Heart (2013) and Kingston 14 (2014). He was awarded the OBE for Services to Drama in the 2008 Birthday Honours List.