Announcing Jeff Ho’s Antigone as the Common Reading Program Selection!

We are thrilled to announce Jeff Ho’s Antigone: Fong as this year’s Arts & Science Common Reading Program selection.

Antigone: Fong, a new adaptation of Sophocles’ play (which Artsci students study in ARTSSCI 1A06 / Practices of Knowledge), was inspired by the 2014 student umbrella protests in Hong Kong and the 1989 uprising in Tiananmen Square. Initially produced by Young People’s Theatre (Toronto, ON) in 2019, the play will be published by Playwright’s Canada Press in Fall 2021, and has generously been made available to students participating in the McMaster Arts & Science Program’s 2020 Common Reading Program.

Jeff Ho / Ho Ka Kei is a Toronto-based theatre artist, originally from Hong Kong. As a playwright, his works include Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land), produced by Saga Collectif; Antigone: Fong, produced by Young People’s Theatre; and trace, produced by Factory Theatre / b current performing arts. He has held residencies with the Stratford Festival, Nightswimming, Cahoots, the Banff Playwrights Lab, Factory Theatre, and is currently the current Bulmash-Siegel Playwright in Residence with the Tarragon Theatre. His works are published by  Playwrights Canada Press. Jeff is grateful to have been honoured with a Toronto Theatre Critics Award for Best New Canadian Play (Iphigenia); nominated for four Dora Awards, thrice for Performance (Box 4901, Prince Hamlet, Hana’s Suitcase) and once as a Playwright (Iphigenia); and a Harold Award (House of Nadia Ross). He is a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada.