1001
No set required—this is a trunk show, using hand props and small costume pieces. If there is a set, it should invoke mazes, the impossible architecture of an MC Escher drawing, the view-from-above of the staircase on Hitchcock’s Vertigo, or the labyrinthine back alleys of East Jerusalem or Cairo.
1001 spins themes and variations from the classic A Thousand and One Arabian Nights by way of philosopher Edward Said. The play combines savage wit, political insight, and Borgesian time-warping to explore the incarnations of love, sex, religion, cruelty and war from ancient Baghdad to the post-9/11 era.
Cast Requirements
4 men
2 women
(multiracial cast, playing multiple roles)
Publisher
Samuel French
Production and Development History
Premiere: Denver Center Theatre (January 2007).
Productions: Contemporary American Theater Festival; Page 73 Productions; Theatre @ Boston Court; Mixed Blood Theatre; Collaboraction; Rorschach Theatre; Company One; Just Theater; New York University; Brown University; UC San Diego; The New School; DePaul University; University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; St. Lawrence University; Montclair State University; Howard Community College.
Originated: Soho Rep Writer/Director Lab.
Developed/read: Soho Rep Phase 2 Lab; Denver Center Theatre’s Colorado New Play Summit; Baltimore Centerstage’s First Look Reading Series; Theatre @ Boston Court; P73 Playwriting Fellowship; O’Neill National Playwrights Conference; New York Theatre Workshop.