NIU SCHOOL OF THEATRE AND DANCE PRESENTS

Antígona Furiosa

by Griselda Gambaro

Translated by Marguerite Feitlowitz

Directed by Frankie DiCiaccio

Director and Choreographer: Frankie DiCiaccio

Assistant Directors: Antonio Horn and Jamel Hill

Lighting Designer: Ross Wheeler

Assistant Lighting Designer: Bridget Kearbey

Sound Designer: Frankie DiCiaccio

Technical Director: Emery Foster

Properties Designer: Sasha Norman

Dramaturg: Hans Herrera

Stage Manager: Sophia Dimond

Assistant Stage Manager: Maeve Emery

This show is approximately 1 hour 10 minutes with no intermission.

This production includes symbolic depictions of suicide, death, civil war, and political violence.

This performance includes haze, strobe lighting, and loud sounds.

Antígona Furiosa was published in Information for Foreigners: Three Plays by Griselda Gambaro. Edited and translated by Marguerite Feitlowitz, Northwestern University Press, 1992.

CAST

Antígona
Serenity Deida

Coryphaeus
Mosi Weinberg

Antinous
Summer McDonald

Creon
Sophie Rohr

Haemon
Sebastian Vega-Barrios

Ismene
Nya Warner

DIRECTOR'S NOTE

“The responsibility of the artist or intellectual is to refuse to enter into that perverse system of thought in which people become abstractions,”

Griselda Gambaro, in conversation with Marguerite Feitlowitz, BOMB Magazine, 1990.

“It’s been really clear in this timeline that the people are doing a much better job defending core constitutional values than our institutions are right now,” Professor Kate Shaw, Strict Scrutiny podcast, 16 February 2026.

In July of 2010, I stepped off a plane in Buenos Aires, Argentina. I’d read that southern hemisphere winters would be much milder than those I’d grown up with in upstate New York. I packed only a fleece and a thin scarf. Outside, I was pummeled with sleet and freezing cold. It was my first time abroad and the first time I realized that expectation and reality can differ so drastically. We often think we know the story from afar, but through firsthand experience, we meet with truths more nuanced, difficult, and messier than we might’ve hoped.

In Buenos Aires, I studied Argentine literature and read Jorge Luis Borges, Juilo Cortázar, Silvina Ocampo, Manuel Puig, and our playwright, Griselda Gambaro—authors whose worlds can’t be easily mapped; whose realities slip, invert, end, and begin again; whose characters call out from the darkness. I read about Argentina’s history of government repression, the profound violation of rights during the so-called “Dirty War” of the 1970s and 80s, and the 30,000 desaparecidos—the migrants, dissidents, students, intellectuals, artists, and children who were denied due process, kidnapped, tortured, and disappeared by the government. Through this authoritarian strategy, the governing military junta circumvented the law while manufacturing a sense of plausible deniability. As Creon says, “If she wishes to die there, let her die. If she wishes to live hidden under this roof, let her live. We will be cleared of her death…” Societal ambivalence toward life, truth, and justice doesn’t merely permit gross violations, it necessitates them.

More than a decade after my time in Argentina and an entire hemisphere away, I am experiencing a world whose physics and psychology starkly contrast the stories we were once told about it. Here and now, Gambaro’s warnings about power and memory are instructive. She asks us to probe the role of authority, how it is wielded and by whom, and from where it derives power. Gambaro cautions us against the inadequacy of capitulation, fatalism, and acquiescence. Through Antígona, she demands accountability and historical accuracy.

Grief about the state of our world is unmooring, and self-preservation and nihilism have a magnetic pull. We need to ground ourselves in the life-giving, the true, and the just, lest we slide into hopelessness. I am grounded by the work of the Argentine group Las Madres y Las Abuelas de La Plaza, who continue to demonstrate and tell the stories of los desaparecidos, decades after their kidnappings; by local community members who, in the face of increasing personal risk and despite efforts to scapegoat vulnerable neighbors, offer them solidarity and support instead; by the idea of six people, a crew of designers and technicians, and an audience convening to participate in the telling of an ancient story. By the perseverance of the persecuted. By every Antígona.

Despite unthinkable odds, Gambaro urges each of us toward the grounding force of righteous fury—in the service of righteous action.

Frankie DiCiaccio
17 February 2026
DeKalb, Illinois

DRAMATURG'S NOTE

Griselda Gambaro and the Disappeared

Hans Herrera, Dramaturg

The possibilities and implications portrayed in Griselda Gambaro’s electric Antígona Furiosa suggest a myth continued: a world suffused with repetition that embodies the fantasy that the dead never stay dead, but allow us to behold their afterlives in our own daily rituals. Indeed, the Argentine’s life might likewise seem the stuff of Greek legend: despite oppression, exodus from her homeland, and bloody tragedy, her craft became foundational to political theatre while Gambaro emerges as one of the most important artistic voices in Latin America. Yet that which we understand, that which might be found, can only ever have as much sight as a keyhole to the entire truth. These dramatic flares must grapple with all they cannot illuminate: the immensely complex, mercilessly real landscape of Gambaro’s life and legacy.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1928, Griselda Gambaro sought out her education from an early age. At her public library, she found early inspiration for her writing in dramatists like Eugene O’Neill, Anton Chekhov, and Luigi Pirandello, with her style most heavily influenced by the works of Armando Discépolo, whose grotesco criollo was instrumental in Gambaro’s developing artistry. Gambaro’s work provokes the unconscious conditioning that runs through her audiences, playing with their laughter and disgust as bystanders who witness the grotesquely “normal” atrocities she puts before them. Her “prismatic” quality, as translator Marguerite Feitlowitz describes it, brilliantly separates life into its vivid colors that compose both what the experience is and could be, even if it requires an unbearable reconciliation with our actions. As Gambaro once said regarding her responsibilities to society:

“I believe that an artist is a product of a society and works for that society. Even though art has never been able to prevent the horrors of the world, it has enabled us to become conscious of those errors.”

Having first published at 24 and being awarded the National Endowment for the Arts at 39, Gambaro’s presence grew to become intensely radical against the regimes she lived under. The violence she wrote about mirrored the political whirlwinds that Argentina bore throughout its history. While her early career augmented the struggles wrought from the populist police state of Juan Perón, much of her later work (including Antígona Furiosa) confronted La Guerra Sucia, or “The Dirty War”, and its aftermath. After the fall of the Peronists in 1976, the military dictatorship of the “Process of National Reorganization” sought an ideological genocide of Peronists, socialists, communists, leftists, their sympathizers, and their associates. Books, such as the works of Marx and Freud, were banned, seized, and burned. Gambaro had to burn her manuscript of the play Información para extranjeros, and was eventually forced into exile following the censorship of her novel Ganarse la muerte by General Jorge Rafael Videla. Approximately 30,000 people were abducted, tortured, and killed. Los Desaparecidos, or “The Disappeared”, as the victims were called, included both adults and children, including as many as 500 newborns taken from prisoners and adopted by high-ranking military families.

However, Argentinians refuse to lose their Disappeared to the dark. During the Dirty War, guerrilla theatre artists performed in factories and warehouses to disseminate art and rally voices for resistance, often deflecting the humiliating torture tactics used by the police back into their depictions of the government. When the regime eventually succumbed to international pressure in 1983 after losing Las Islas Malvinas in a war against the United Kingdom (which now calls the islands “The Falklands”), the subsequent administration led by democratically-elected president Raúl Alfonsín prosecuted many of the government officials of the regime, but eventually mandated a full-stop on the trials in 1987 under military coercion. This cut-off was heavily criticized, with groups such as the “Mothers and Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo” continuing to campaign for answers to the tens of thousands still lost across the country.

The government status of “illegal” and the vanishing acts that follow can never simply be “a thing of the past”. Not in Argentina, Latin America, or anywhere else in the world. The ambiguity of the disappeared does not allow anyone the honor of rest. Perhaps it is our greatest duty as citizens, as people, as the living, to find them in every way possible and extend beyond their unknowns. While this is an immense landscape, Gambaro’s art offers us shoes to run in. To feel how others live, to step out and step in and return and return and return.

Works Cited

Betsko, Kathleen, and Rachel Koenig. Interviews with Contemporary Women Playwrights. 1st Beech Tree Books/Quill ed., 1987. pp. 184-199.

Evangelista, Liria. Voices of the Survivors: Testimony, Mourning, and Memory in Post-Dictatorship Argentina, 1983-1995. Garland Pub., 1998.

Gambaro, Griselda. Information for Foreigners: Three Plays. Translated by Marguerite Feitlowitz. Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1992.

Jehenson, Myriam Yvonne. “Staging Cultural Violence: Griselda Gambaro and Argentina’s ‘Dirty War.’” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal 32, no. 1 (1999): pp. 85–104. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44029421.

Laufenberg, Marin. “Laughing It Out: Strategies of Affectively Remembering Dictatorship in Griselda Gambaro’s Antígona Furiosa.” Latin American Theatre Review, vol. 51, no. 2, 2018, pp. 173–91, https://doi.org/10.1353/ltr.2018.0009.

Levine, Annette H. Cry for Me, Argentina: The Performance of Trauma in the Short Narratives of Aída Bortnik, Griselda Gambaro, and Tununa Mercado. Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2008.

Poulson, Nancy Kason. 2012. “In Defense of the Dead: Antígona Furiosa, by Griselda Gambaro.” Romance Quarterly 59 (1): pp. 48–54. doi:10.1080/08831157.2012.626378.

Zandstra, Dianne Marie. Embodying Resistance: Griselda Gambaro and the Grotesque. Bucknell University Press, 2007.

CAST BIOS

Serenity Deida

Antígona

Serenity Deida (she/her) is a third-year B.F.A. acting major here at Northern Illinois University. She most recently was seen in for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf as Lady Orange and Green, Macbeth as Donalbain/Macduff son ,and Anon(ymous) as Calista/Ritu/Chorus. Serenity would like to thank everyone involved in creating this production especially the director, cast, and crew. Serenity also wants to thank her family, friends and professors who have been so supportive through this artistic journey. Serenity hopes you enjoy the NIU SOTD production of Antígona Furiosa.

Summer McDonald

Antinous

Summer McDonald (she/her) is in her second year as a B.F.A. actor at Northern Illinois University (NIU). Other roles she’s played include, Metellus Cimber and others in Julius Ceasar, Joe Keller in All My Sons, and Peter Quince in A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. She’s so thankful to be working on a show as great as Antígona Furiosa and she’s been so grateful for her cast and crew. She would also love to thank, her friends Quinn, Sam, Gavin and Stephanie for always giving her motivation to reach her goals. Her parents, always coming to her aid to support her. Her boyfriend, Gio, for being her backbone when times were tough. And for the audience, thank you for coming out to support us. We hope you enjoy the show.

Sophie Rohr

Creon

Sophie Rohr (she/they) is a junior majoring in psychology and minoring in theatre studies. This is their first production at NIU. She has previously been in productions at Palatine High School. They are grateful to be a part of this production, and are happy that they have the opportunity to work with this group of people.

Sebastian Vega Barrios

Haemon

Sebastian Vega Barrios (he/him) is a third-year B.F.A. acting major at Northern Illinois University. This is his fourth production at NIU. Past roles include Ligarius/Artemidorus/Octavius in Julius Caesar, directed by Kay Martinovich, as Pascal/Mr. Mackus/Strygal in Anon(ymous), directed by Miranda Gonzalez, and as adding clerk/husband/Judge in Machinal, directed by Alexander Gelman. He has also been a writer, producer, and actor in short films at the Festival Ponte Los Cortos in San Juan, Puerto Rico. These projects include Elijah (2023), Otro yo (2022), Resiliencia (2021), Solo un juego (2020), Basta (2019), and El deseo de Sebastian (2018). Sebastian would like to thank his family for their unwavering support since he began pursuing what he loves. Sebastian is infinitely grateful to be part of such a wonderful production like Antigona Furiosa. He loves the themes the production explores in light of the current state of the world. Instagram: _sebassvb_

Nya Warner

Ismene

Nya Warner (she/her) is currently a junior pursuing her B.F.A. degree in acting. This will be her fourth production. Nya has previously been cast in Macbeth, Anon(ymous!) , and for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. “It’s been an amazing journey and I’m excited to be a part of another great production!”

Mosi Weinberg

Coryphaeus

Mosi Weinberg is a second-year B.F.A. acting student at Northern Illinois University. Mosi draws on his foundational experience at the Piven Theatre Workshop and the outstanding training he’s receiving at NIU. He has performed in Peter Pan, Emperor’s New Clothes, and many improv shows in Chicago. He is so excited to perform for you all at the show.

PRODUCTION TEAM BIOS

Frankie DiCiaccio

Director and Choreographer

Frankie DiCiaccio (they/he) is a theatre-maker, educator, and community organizer who splits their time between New York City and DeKalb. At NIU, Frankie has been an Instructor in the School of Theatre and Dance and is currently teaching for the Nonprofit and NGO Studies program. At NIU, Frankie has directed The Walk Across America…, Love and Information, Edward II, and Booked and Blessed…or BUST! Frankie has worked on productions in Chicago (Steppenwolf Theatre Company, Chicago Shakespeare Theater, The Shakespeare Project of Chicago, TimeLine Theatre), Boston (American Repertory Theater, Club Oberon) and New York (The Dare Tactic, LaGuardia Performing Arts, The Shakespeare Forum). Most recently, Frankie directed the world premiere of Kanika Asavari Vaish’s 2nd Murderer with SoHo Shakespeare Company at the Flea Theater in New York City. Frankie has taught and been a guest artist at numerous university theater departments, including Wagner, DePaul, Northwestern, and Adelphi. In addition to theatre, Frankie works with multiple nonprofits and community efforts, including Barb Food Mart (a food pantry serving families in the DeKalb public school district), Common Table DeKalb (a grant-funded series of community-building events that include free meals and story-sharing across DeKalb County,) and DeKalb Migrant Aid (a committee of volunteers striving to welcome immigrants to the area with compassion and meaningful support.) Frankie holds degrees from Northwestern University and the American Repertory Theater/Moscow Art Theater School Institute at Harvard University. Learn more at frankiediciaccio.com

Emery Foster

Technical Director

Emery Foster is a second-year M.F.A. technical direction student at Northern Illinois University. They received their B.A. in visual art (concentration in scenic design) at Southeastern Louisiana University, which is in their hometown of Hammond, Louisiana. Their previous professional credits include carpentry at Upstaging, Inc., contract technical directing for Elgin Community College, and freelance scenic designing in New Orleans.

Sasha Norman

Props Designer

Sasha Norman, Props Designer is a third-year theatre design and technology student who has been working in the theater industry for over a decade. She has collaborated with an independent performer and toured to 45 states, performing at notable venues like the NASA Space Center, Disney World, and with organizations such as the Tampa Bay Lightning, and the Miami Dolphins.

She has served as deck crew chief for numerous productions, including The Wizard of Oz, Beauty and the Beast, and most recently Macbeth. Sasha has also worked on flight crew for Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She was honored to participate in a two-week intensive study abroad experience at the Antalya Theatre Festival and throughout the Greek Islands.

Her experience extends into stage management and design, having assistant stage managed and props designed for Prowess. She currently works in the prop shop at the Paramount Theatre in Aurora and recently served as prop designer and assistant scenic designer for for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf. She is now preparing for upcoming projects, including sound design for The Comedy of Errors.

Sasha is deeply grateful to the props team and for all the hard work everyone has contributed to this production.

Hans Herrera

Dramaturg

Hans Herrera (he/him) is a third-year B.A theatre studies and art history candidate. He has previously served as the assistant director for Accidental Death of an Anarchist with the School of Theatre and Dance, dramaturg for both parts of the Invictus Theatre Company’s Angels in America, wrote A New Life and Equal as We Are for the NIU 24 Hour Play Festival, and serves as a mentor for the NIU Penguin Players. On stage, Hans has appeared as Marullus/Soothsayer/Caesar’s Assistant in Julius Caesar, as well as Jo/Casey in Holler River with the School of Theatre and Dance. He also presented at the American Society for Theatre Research 2025 Conference: Generative Acts, analyzing Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya as a source of ecocriticism in the industrializing Russian Empire. You may have also seen his work with the NIU Foundation, appearing in the Huskies United 2025 campaign trailer, providing voiceover for the Huskies Unleashed promotion, and co-hosting the multi-million-dollar Forward fundraising event. He is eternally grateful for your support in the arts and hopes that you enjoy the show!

Sophia Dimond

Stage Manager

Sophia Dimond (she/her) is a fourth-year B.F.A. acting major here at Northern Illinois University (NIU). This is her first time stage managing, and her last mainstage production at NIU. She has previously been seen in Julius Caesar as Cassius, Holler River as En, and Mary Stuart as Lord Shrewsbury amongst other shows. Sophia is so thankful to the production team and cast for working so hard with her to put together this show. She is also immensely grateful to her friends, instructors, family, and boyfriend for providing constant support during this process and throughout her overall NIU journey. She thanks you for coming and hopes you enjoy Northern Illinois University’s production of Antígona Furiosa!

PRODUCTION STAFF

Scenery

Scenic Coordinator – Sahin Sahinoglu
Scene Shop Supervisor – Adam Rager
Student Technicians – THEA 295 students
Run Crew – Clara Coran, Aubrey McGee

Costumes

Costume Design Advisor – Jeremy W. Floyd
Costume Director – Lori Hartenhoff
Costume Shop Supervisor – Elias Dennis

Lighting

Lighting Design Advisor – Brandon Wardell
Resident Head Electrician – Chris Kurszewski
Lighting Shop Graduate Assistants – Christopher Christ, Ross Wheeler
Lighting Shop Student Employees – Emily Christianson, Reece Deidrick, Conall Doherty, Thomas Readling
Lighting Shop Student Electricians – Crowler Bonomo, Hans Herrera, THEA 210A students
Light Board Operator – Naija Sherwood, Clara Coran
Sound Board Operator – Irismichelle Martinez-Garcia

Properties

Properties Director – Dave Doherty
Properties Shop Employees – Kayleena Lopez, Sasha Norman
Properties Shop 295/395 Students – B. Leni, Jamel Hill, Michael Kocher
Properties Crew – Alice Duncan and Maevelynn Terry

Production Management

Technical Direction Advisor – Tracy Nunnally
Stage Management Advisor – Angela A. Miller
House Managers – THEA 366 and THEA 497 students

Production Promotional Artwork – Cornelia Reed

SCHOOL OF THEATRE AND DANCE FACULTY AND STAFF

Richard Arnold (Emeritus)
S. Alan Chelser (Emeritus)
Judith Chitwood (Emerita)
Gibson Cima
Roxanna Conner
Stanton Davis
David Doherty
Lila H. Dole (Emerita)
Jasmine Eleazar
Elias Dennis
Jeremy W. Floyd
Paula Frasz (Emerita)
Kent Gallagher (Emeritus)
Kathryn Gately (Emerita)
Alexander Gelman
Richard Grund
Lori Hartenhoff
Jennifer Ingle-Grund
Paul Kassel
Chris Kurszewski
Paige Larkowski
Marc Macaranas
Bethany Mangum-Oles
Kay Martinovich
Terrence McClellan (Emeritus)
Angela A. Miller
Randall Newsom (Emeritus)
Tracy Nunnally
Richard Poole (Emeritus)
Adam Rager
Patricia Ridge (Emerita)
Deborah Robertson (Emerita)
Michel Rodriguez Cintra
Sahin Sahinoglu
Stephanie Sailer
Taryn Sarto
Robert Schneider (Emeritus)
Sarita Smith Childs
Brandon Wardell

Tickets

Tickets for Theatre and Dance productions are available online only. There are prices for adults, seniors, faculty and staff, and non-NIU students. NIU students are admitted free of charge to all performances with pre-reserved tickets. Most recitals are not ticketed.

Upcoming Events

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