By Mary Zimmerman
Directed and Choreographed
by Ruth Griffin 2012

If you can save one life by telling a story, what story will it be? Start thinking about it now.  You never know when you’ll be called to tell it.

-Literary Times

And so the frame story comes to us a king betrayed by his wife commences to woo, marry and slay a virgin each night.

Scheherazade vows to save the women of her city and goes to the king to marry and be slain. She saves her own life and heals the king populating the darkness of his nights with imaginary characters.  These are tales to entertain and instruct.  An ensemble of 16 actors embodying 45 characters tells our tales. 

Review

In temperament and effect, “Arabian Nights” has an ethereal, touching quality, not unlike being treated to a bedtime story. Beautiful to behold, you wouldn’t really call it a play with dancing. More like a play that dances.

-Donald Munro The Fresno Bee