In 1997, I worked on a production of Seamus Heaney's  play The Cure at Troy at the Milwaukee Chamber Theatre. It was the professional American premier of the play and Heaney came to our opening night...and liked the show.

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I appreciate his handling of the English language, and so when I settled on directing a version of Antigone for the spring of an election year, I read his version. This process allowed me to introduce the cast to some of my colleague's scholarship: Greg Delanty was a friend of Seamus Heaney's and had brought him to Saint Michael's College twice; and Jeffrey Trumbower is a religious studies professor whose scholarship touches on traditional care for the dead. The cast explored ideas with each of these scholars at the beginning of the process.

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Because the play deals with themes of war, death, capital punishment and suicide, I instituted a custom of breathing in to Thebes at the top of runs and breathing out of Thebes at the end of runs. I want my cast to be as fully present in the moments of the play as possible, and able to walk away from it at the end of the rehearsals. They have done a beautiful job on the whole show.