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High School AntigoneBook, Music and Lyrics by Judy KlassWebsite: www.judyklass.com Contact Email: JudyKwrites@aol.com |
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In a sense, this show is “Ancient Greece Meets Grease.” It involves young people asking questions and comparing notes, as in Spring Awakening. Like the play John Proctor is the Villain, it explores how students react to a text that resonates with their own time. As with Indecent, events within my show and the older show within the show get woven together. Arabella has chosen what she thinks of as a safe, bland musical to direct at the local high school – but the new right-wing school board shuts the show down, mid-rehearsal, upsetting the students, particularly strong-minded Elinor. Arabella’s wife Lillian agrees that Arabella’s sleepy hometown is becoming polarized and scary. Lillian knows that Arabella wants to produce Antigone by Sophocles. Lillian suggests that Arabella and the students in her songwriting class turn Antigone into a musical and stage that as the replacement show. The students have fun writing songs and learning about ancient Greek tragedy and comedy. Arabella tries to “flim-flam” Jack – who represents the school board, and is anti-“woke” and upset that his son Corey is a theater kid – by emphasizing that the play being adapted is old and European: a classic of Western civilization! The opposite of CRT and DEI! Arabella appeals to Jack’s white supremacist bent and hopes that he will not notice how subversive Antigone is. Jack remains wary of Arabella. Corey plays Kreon, and he bases the character on his own father Jack, in his testy, thin-skinned, defensive insistence on his own authority. Corey has a crush on Elinor, who plays Antigone and is suspicious of him. Elinor has some harsh things to say to timid Beth, who plays Antigone’s timid sister Ismene, but Beth is surviving high school in a way that works for her. A kid named Sam plays the Greek Chorus, and a kid named Tyler plays Tiresias, the blind seer. During a rehearsal, Corey commiserates with a kid named Fisher, who is gay, and who plays Kreon’s son Haemon, about how impossible they find it to talk to their fathers – even as they play out a scene full of the kinds of father/son tensions they each have to deal with at home. During another rehearsal, Corey and Elinor confront the bad blood between them. The school board wants cuts in the musical, but on opening night, the students push back. The three adults in this nine-character show are Arabella, Lillian and Jack. The other six characters are teens. Elinor and Beth are girls, Corey and Fisher are boys, and Sam and Tyler can be any gender. Jack and Corey are white; casting is open when it comes to the ethnic backgrounds of the other characters. In 2024 and 2025, High School Antigone was chosen as a Finalist in the Water Works Festival run by Live Arts in Virginia. It is a 2025 Finalist in the Fresh Looks Festival run by Shifted Lens Theatre in Colorado. It was a 2025 Semi-Finalist in the ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition. Lucy George of Wordville Press in London took a meeting with me over Zoom; she says she wants to publish High School Antigone, and she is looking into how to market it to TYA theater groups in the US. In April of 2025, Lumos Players in Ohio did a reading of High School Antigone over Zoom as part of their reading series of New Works. I would love for it to have a rehearsed reading or, even better, a workshop. Recordings of all of the songs in the show can be heard at: judyklass dot com/high-school-antigone dot html Eight of my full-length plays and 42 of my one-act plays have been produced onstage. A number of my plays, long and short, have been produced as podcasts. My full-length play Cell is published by Concord Theatricals, and my full-length play After Tartuffe is published by Next Stage Press. My full-length play Country Fried Murder, set at a songwriting seminar, which includes songs and song fragments, won the SOPS competition. It was produced at the Shawnee Playhouse in Pennsylvania in 2019. During the pandemic, it was produced online by Quarantine Players. It’s published by Lazy Bee Scripts in the UK. My full-length play Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One won the Dorothy Silver Award. My short plays have appeared in magazines like Seven Hills Review and Ponder Review, and in anthologies like The Art of the One-Act. Many have had multiple productions in the US – a few in the UK, Ireland and Canada. I co-wrote nine songs for the musical film Cooking for Two, produced in Hong Kong, available on Tubi TV. Several of my produced short plays are short musicals. One was produced onstage in Nashville and NYC, and Lost Souls Monologues in London released a podcast version. My full-length musical Senator Scrooge, for which I also wrote the book, music and lyrics, had a staged reading at Emerging Artists in NYC. Here is a “highlights reel” from that reading: www dot youtube dot com /watch?v=yEchM7iU-tI&ab_channel=JudyKlass
I’m a songwriter in Nashville with various cuts – some of them singles, some of them hit songs in other countries. I wrote lyrics for the musical Mushky & Mo, which had a reading in NYC in the summer of 2024. In terms of the songs below, the first is sung by Corey, whose father is the school board rep. The second is sung by Arabella and Lillian. The third is sung by Arabella and her students as they write their first song for the show within the show. |
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High School Antigone
Book, Music and Lyrics by Judy Klass
Website: www.judyklass.com
Contact Email: JudyKwrites@aol.com
In a sense, this show is “Ancient Greece Meets Grease.” It involves young people asking questions and comparing notes, as in Spring Awakening. Like the play John Proctor is the Villain, it explores how students react to a text that resonates with their own time. As with Indecent, events within my show and the older show within the show get woven together.
Arabella has chosen what she thinks of as a safe, bland musical to direct at the local high school – but the new right-wing school board shuts the show down, mid-rehearsal, upsetting the students, particularly strong-minded Elinor. Arabella’s wife Lillian agrees that Arabella’s sleepy hometown is becoming polarized and scary. Lillian knows that Arabella wants to produce Antigone by Sophocles. Lillian suggests that Arabella and the students in her songwriting class turn Antigone into a musical and stage that as the replacement show. The students have fun writing songs and learning about ancient Greek tragedy and comedy. Arabella tries to “flim-flam” Jack – who represents the school board, and is anti-“woke” and upset that his son Corey is a theater kid – by emphasizing that the play being adapted is old and European: a classic of Western civilization! The opposite of CRT and DEI! Arabella appeals to Jack’s white supremacist bent and hopes that he will not notice how subversive Antigone is. Jack remains wary of Arabella.
Corey plays Kreon, and he bases the character on his own father Jack, in his testy, thin-skinned, defensive insistence on his own authority. Corey has a crush on Elinor, who plays Antigone and is suspicious of him. Elinor has some harsh things to say to timid Beth, who plays Antigone’s timid sister Ismene, but Beth is surviving high school in a way that works for her. A kid named Sam plays the Greek Chorus, and a kid named Tyler plays Tiresias, the blind seer. During a rehearsal, Corey commiserates with a kid named Fisher, who is gay, and who plays Kreon’s son Haemon, about how impossible they find it to talk to their fathers – even as they play out a scene full of the kinds of father/son tensions they each have to deal with at home. During another rehearsal, Corey and Elinor confront the bad blood between them. The school board wants cuts in the musical, but on opening night, the students push back. The three adults in this nine-character show are Arabella, Lillian and Jack. The other six characters are teens. Elinor and Beth are girls, Corey and Fisher are boys, and Sam and Tyler can be any gender. Jack and Corey are white; casting is open when it comes to the ethnic backgrounds of the other characters.
In 2024 and 2025, High School Antigone was chosen as a Finalist in the Water Works Festival run by Live Arts in Virginia. It is a 2025 Finalist in the Fresh Looks Festival run by Shifted Lens Theatre in Colorado. It was a 2025 Semi-Finalist in the ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition. Lucy George of Wordville Press in London took a meeting with me over Zoom; she says she wants to publish High School Antigone, and she is looking into how to market it to TYA theater groups in the US. In April of 2025, Lumos Players in Ohio did a reading of High School Antigone over Zoom as part of their reading series of New Works. I would love for it to have a rehearsed reading or, even better, a workshop. Recordings of all of the songs in the show can be heard at: judyklass dot com/high-school-antigone dot html
Eight of my full-length plays and 42 of my one-act plays have been produced onstage. A number of my plays, long and short, have been produced as podcasts. My full-length play Cell is published by Concord Theatricals, and my full-length play After Tartuffe is published by Next Stage Press. My full-length play Country Fried Murder, set at a songwriting seminar, which includes songs and song fragments, won the SOPS competition. It was produced at the Shawnee Playhouse in Pennsylvania in 2019. During the pandemic, it was produced online by Quarantine Players. It’s published by Lazy Bee Scripts in the UK.
My full-length play Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One won the Dorothy Silver Award. My short plays have appeared in magazines like Seven Hills Review and Ponder Review, and in anthologies like The Art of the One-Act. Many have had multiple productions in the US – a few in the UK, Ireland and Canada. I co-wrote nine songs for the musical film Cooking for Two, produced in Hong Kong, available on Tubi TV.
Several of my produced short plays are short musicals. One was produced onstage in Nashville and NYC, and Lost Souls Monologues in London released a podcast version. My full-length musical Senator Scrooge, for which I also wrote the book, music and lyrics, had a staged reading at Emerging Artists in NYC. Here is a “highlights reel” from that reading: www dot youtube dot com /watch?v=yEchM7iU-tI&ab_channel=JudyKlass
I’m a songwriter in Nashville with various cuts – some of them singles, some of them hit songs in other countries.
I wrote lyrics for the musical Mushky & Mo, which had a reading in NYC in the summer of 2024.
In terms of the songs below, the first is sung by Corey, whose father is the school board rep. The second is sung by Arabella and Lillian. The third is sung by Arabella and her students as they write their first song for the show within the show.