The Arabian Nights: A Play

A twelve-member cast enacts Scheherazade's tales of love, lust, comedy, and dreams. Scheherazade's cliffhanger stories prevent her husband, the cruel ruler Shahryar, from murdering her, and after 1,001 nights, Shahryar is cured of his madness, and Scheherazade returns to her family. This adaptation offers a wonderful blend of the lesser-known tales from Arabian Nights with the recurring theme of how the magic of storytelling holds the power to change people. The final scene brings the audience back to a modern day Baghdad with the wail of air raid sirens threatening the rich culture and history that are embodied by these tales.

"If you want theatre at its most unpretentiously poetic, most fetchingly stylish, as humane as it is elegant, I commend to you The Arabian Nights." --New York Magazine

"There's a saying that nobody can read the entire Arabian Nights without dying of pleasure. In Zimmernan's production, that seems a possibility." --USA Today

"[A] feast for the eyes and ears." --Chicago Magazine