Ninshaba, 2017
Caravan of Dreams
CARAVAN OF DREAMS is a fantasy about a girl who must save her city from mysterious dark forces. The show was played in the Desert of Maine - 20 acres of glacial sand in the middle of a lush forest. “Ziggurat has long-held devotion to the archetypal, in shows that mingle the mythic with the commedia dell’arte tradition, and “Caravan of Dreams” represents a quintessence of this aesthetic, with primal imagery, gorgeous costuming, entrancing movement and fun physical comedy.” - Portland Phoenix
Red Thread
During a turbulent time in Ancient China, a provincial governor employs Hongxian, a secret female assassin known only as “Red Thread” to protect his province. But after a series of chance events, Hongxian converts to Buddhism and adopts its precepts of non-violence. She faces her greatest conflict as she navigates how to wage her battle against evil without killing. A multiple award winner, Red Thread won the Los Angeles Garland Award for “Best Play of the Year.”
The Puzzle Box
An odd young woman acquires a "puzzle box" - a mysteriously locked box with no door or lid, and no clues. This meeting of strange girl and strange box ignites a series of astonishing events, while a parade of eccentric characters seeks to cure her mania. As the solution to the mystery unravels, the story reveals hidden passages and unexpected turns – just like the box itself. “The Puzzle Box.” is dreamlike world of shifting realities, unimaginable loss and miraculous redemption.
A Cult of Isis
In A Cult of Isis, the audience sees a ritual performed three times. And each time, the performing of it reveals a new layer of information. In the final version, the audience realizes that what they thought they were watching is not what was really going on.
“Combining dance, music, and myth, (A Cult of Isis) is a painstakingly choreographed, detailed piece, with visual and aural layers--Beckie Kravetz's masks, Robert Velasquez's streamlined costumes, Susan Christiansen's haunting music--as artfully calculated as its character revelations.” - Backstage West
Ninshaba
Ninshaba is a goddess story of our own creation, set in a pre-literate, fictionalized Middle-Eastern setting. It is about a girl, Ninshaba, who dreams in a fever that the mother she has never known is a queen, and lives on a far-off mountain. Ninshaba journeys across the desert and is subjected to many trials, some of which exist in parallel realities.
“Ninshaba is an unexpected theatrical treasure.”
-LA Weekly
Aquitania
In the kingdom of Aquitania, a girl plays a board game, and at the same time, a woman, Marguerite, is summoned to solve a military crisis. Why? She is no political tactician. She is a librarian. We discover that Marguerite is enacting with her new friends the same plot that the girl is working out on her board game. Marguerite and the audience set off on a strange and wonderful journey, much like Alice in Wonderland, where you must embrace a new kind of logic in order to triumph.
“Aquitania works wonders. A work of haunting visual beauty and mythological resonance” -Los Angeles Times
Fafalo!
Six actors play eighteen roles in a farce about a perfect idiot who becomes king. The king has died leaving no heirs and an obscure law propels the rascally Fafalo – town janitor – into the role of king. Fafalo basks in the role until the murderous Banjawi arrives, threatening to decimate the kingdom. The spirit of Commedia dell’arte conjures up the excitement of the circus as Fafalo schemes his way to a confrontation, where the stage is set for the most surprising of outcomes.
“A visually dazzling, utter charming tour-de-force.”
- Los Angeles Times
Chomolungma
Chomolungma (the Tibetan name for Everest) is based on the Everest disaster of May 1996, whose real-life drama of survival during an unexpected storm held the hearts of the world that spring. Chomolungma is a mountain drama, set in an unspecified time long ago which is inspired by that historical tragedy. The mountain, and mountain climbing, are a mythic symbol that has been with us since the Sumerian Epic of Gilgamesh.
"Chomlungma transforms the fictionalized chronicle of an ill-fated expedition up the world’s highest peak into a beautiful, haunting mythic quest.” - Los Angeles Times
Hammergirl
Hammergirl is based on the archetypes of Scandinavan myths. A meek queen Hlin, tries unscuccessfully to resolve an age-old feud between the humans and the trulls. Varhild, Hlin’s wicked sister, decides to renounce her powers and lead her kingdom to peace. But without her powers she is a the mercy of the Trulls. Ragnarok, the end of time battle in which the entire universe is destroyed hangs over the play like a dark cloud.
“(Hammergirl) has been luminously realized by Legawiec and a crack design team.” - Los Angeles Times
The Last Days of Tarquinz
The Last Days of Tarquinz is based on the idea that a city would mysteriously disappear. Furthermore, all of the citizens know of the impending disappearance, know the date, and can do nothing about it. In ten scenes, we dramatized what ten different people did on that last day. The play is also a metaphor for theatre itself. Every performance vanishes without a trace, leaving the audience’s memory of it as its only mark.
“No question that Stephen Legawiec’s imagination marches to a totally different drum, but so incredible is his vision that no matter what we find at the end, the journey will be rewarding and fascinating.”
-reviewplays
The Medicine Show
A traveling medic show is stranded in the wilderness because, ironically, all of them are sick. A boy stumbles upon the stranded group and decides that demons are causing the sickness. the same demons that plague the boy’s dreams. The boy battles the demons in order to save the medicine show, but at what price?
“Leave logic at home. The Medicine Show speaks in truths that are part tribal, part Jungian. Miss it at your cost." -LA Weekly
Salamanticus
Salamanticus is about three misfits in search of a mysterious book which is said to contain all the secrets of the universe and, which they hope will set everything right in their world.
”A rousing adventure with a Zen-like edge and considerable philosophical punch…As always, Legawiec, our helmsman into the extraordinary, charts a course as fascinating as it is unexpected.”
- Los Angeles Times.
Kabara Sol
As an attempt to put Film Noir on stage, Kabara Sol is about a master criminal who creates a viruous alter ego to assuage his conscience.