In February, we created the key art (poster image) for Promethean Theatre Ensemble’s Antigone, which opens June 3 at the Den Theater in Chicago and runs through June 27.
As was the case with The Book of Will, artistic director Jared Dennis and I sat down to discuss the look and feel of the play and the overall direction for the poster image.
This version of Antigone was written by Jean Anouilh and produced in Nazi-occupied Paris during the Second World War. Being a play about resistance, it seems remarkable that it made it past the censors. Yet, this version of the play is a complex, nuanced work of art that explores the motivations behind each character. It’s not a melodrama of good vs. evil but an examination of human choice that appears very timely again in 2026.
In our second discussion about the poster, we met with director Elaine Carlson and Antigone actor Heather Dennis (last seen here with Jared in Golden Age of the Silver Screen). We talked about the contemporary aesthetic of the play.
Planning the Poster
In the poster, we wanted to show Antigone as a woman of class, but unglamorous—as though she’s just been arrested by Creon’s men. Dirt smudges her hands and nails from where she had been digging a grave for the brother she’s forbidden to bury.
In our conversation, I learned that we’re not going to see Antigone’s act of civil disobedience onstage. Thus I realized that the image we were making might be what the audience associates with Antigone at the time of the arrest. It was therefore important to think through and plan out this image and discuss its key elements.
We decided Antigone’s hands needed to be dirty. Heather brought some makeup to grime up her fingers. Antigone’s hands seemed like they needed to be a central element. Similarly, we chose to keep makeup and retouching minimal and unglamorous. For example, distracting flyaway hairs were to be removed, but we’d preserve the rest. This would help us contrast the dignity of Antigone’s class with a sleepless, disheveled appearance following Antigone’s arrest upon burying her brother.
I sketched a few different lighting setups, imagining how this image might look. We photographed some variation of each of these.
The Spotlight
Jared had mentioned the possibility of Antigone’s hands being bound with zip ties. We conceived of an image with Antigone in a harsh spotlight, hands bound, slightly raised in surrender. We photographed several variations on this theme and one that looked just like my childish scrawl above.
Emphasis
I thought it might be interesting to place the light in two different places: Antigone’s face and hands. We photographed this too, similar to my scrawled sketch, albeit with a slightly different lighting scheme and no rim lights.
Mugshot
On the afternoon of the shoot, I thought it might be interesting to shoot Antigone’s mugshot. I mentioned this during the session, and Distant Era MVP Elizabeth produced a chalkboard that we used for this purpose. Heather did such a great job acting this mugshot. I particularly like the defiant head tilt in the first image. I loved making these from the last-minute inspiration.
Red
Jared had mentioned the color red as a possible element. Heather wore a blue top, so this would work well for contrast. I put up a red seamless background. First, I lit Heather in a style somewhat inspired by the drawing, with the key light straight on and above. I wanted more dimension, however, so I changed things up and lit Heather with hard light in a high contrast Rembrandt pattern, somewhere between an art photo and a mugshot. This was the look Promethean chose for the poster. In it, Antigone raises her dirty hands below her chin. Heather did some wonderful hand acting here, making compelling visual shapes while displaying Antigone’s engagement ring from her fiancé Haemon.
At the end of the shoot, we had several options that would serve our purpose, but this last one seemed like it would work best for the posters and promotional materials for the show. We would later use this look as inspiration for the character portraits for the show.
In the next edition of The All Worlds Traveller, we’ll share images from the show, which opens June 3 at the Den Theatre in Chicago and runs through June 27. Tickets for Antigone are available here during the show’s run.
Thanks very much to Heather and Jared Dennis and to Antigone director Elaine Carlson for all your help and compelling discussion as we created the poster art for this show. Thanks also to Distant Era MVP Elizabeth for her assistance on set.
