NC State University Theatre has a new addition to its faculty this year. Mia Self, the new assistant director, teaches acting and directing, and will be making her directorial debut this spring with Seamus Heaney’s “The Burial at Thebes.”  

Self grew up all over the Southeast, but at age 13, she moved to Black Mountain, North Carolina. She said growing up near Asheville gave her exposure to what would become her life’s dedication: theater.

After working as a performer with a children’s theater for five-and-a-half years and traveling around the country, Self decided to go back to graduate school because she fell in love with working with teachers. She became particularly interested in teaching students critical and creative thinking skills using poetry and performance.  

After earning her Master of Fine Arts degree at the University of Mississippi and spending three years at the university doing voice, movement and directing work, she went to work at Alice Lloyd College in Eastern Kentucky, where she taught public speaking, theater and voice and movement workshops. She then spent seven years at Lenoir-Rhyne University before coming to NC State 

Self said her experience here has surprised her.

“I am still really blown away by the fact that this program exists in a school that is so focused in other areas; this is not a school that is focused in the humanities,” Self said. 

Self’s favorite roles during her acting career include her time playing Hecuba at the University of Mississippi, where she said she fell in love with Greek theater; and Jocasta in the Roman version of the Oedipus story. She said her love for theater stems from her experience witnessing actors living and understanding intense human experience and relating to it through their performance art.

Self is interested in the creative process for everyone, even if someone is not necessarily a “theater person.”

“The fact that there are things to be learned from creating theater for people who are not theater artists is amazing,” Self said. “What is really interesting is when people really want to be involved when they are from totally different disciplines.” 

John McIlwee, the director of University Theatre, remarked that Self’s directorial debut this spring is an exciting adventure for everyone involved in the production. He said that Heaney’s version of the Antigone story references a prior adaptation that graced the opening season of the University Theatre 50 years ago.  

 “‘The Burial at Thebes’ is a version of the Antigone story written by Sophocles and first performed in the fifth century BC,” McIlwee said. “This is the third part of the Oedipus story and it focuses on the act of the burial of Polynices and the drama among Antigone and Creon. Self admired the version because it is about “reveling in the language.”

Self said she would really like a multi-ethnic cast for “The Burial at Thebes” because she felt it would really help connect the play to current social issues. 

“As I look at the show, and I look at the things that are happening in the world, I think, gosh, this play so connects with conversations that have been happening with Ferguson, with the police saying, ‘You’ll be OK if you don’t push back and don’t challenge,’” Self said. “This play is about ,‘this is the right thing to do. Don’t question the right thing to do.’ The people of Ferguson are Antigone saying, ‘I hear what you are saying and it just doesn’t feel right to me.’” 

McIlwee stated that Self’s interpretation of “The Burial at Thebes” is both fresh and innovative with a modern setting.

“She is making it much more accessible to modern audiences, which has enabled University Theatre to show the distinct differences in today’s production and the one we presented fifty years ago,” McIlwee said. 

Self believes that “The Burial at Thebes” will help students step back and try to understand how not to get too involved in either side to learn how to have genuine conversations. She encourages students to take the little day-to-day injustices and use them as practice for the bigger things going on in the world. 

“Regardless of the intention, art is the reflection of the beliefs of the artist about what the world is,” Self said. “That is the value of it—we have ‘ah-ha’ moments when we see these artists’ perspectives and realize that what we never realized is true, and in our gut we get it, and feel like it’s connected to us in some way. That’s why we need to have art. We could look at life as, ‘It sucks and then we die,’ or out of the chaos that human beings, people, have this imperative to create meaning and order.”

University Theatre will present “The Burial at Thebes” March 27-29, April 8-12 and April 15-19.