This year is an exciting one for the New School theater department. For this year marks the inauguration of our brand new black box theater. This theater represents the first space in our school dedicated solely to drama, dance, and music. The teachers of our performing arts department at the New School, Dr. Michael Oliver and Dr. Virginia Palmer-Fuechsel, have decided to kick off the opening of our theater with a series of student produced performances of Mary Zimmerman’s “The Arabian Nights.”
When you first hear a name like Arabian Nights, the images that immediately come to mind are genies, magic carpets, and other things of that sort. This play, however, has nothing of that sort, which we feel is a good thing. If you disagree with us, well then I am more then sure you can go talk to Disney and see all the flying carpets you want. This Arabian Nights is rather risqué, dealing with themes of love and lust.
Zimmerman’s play is an adaptation of "The Book of the Tale of the Thousand Nights,” sometimes known as the tale of Scheherazade. The story goes that a king developed the nasty habit of demanding that virgins be brought to him, so he could marry them, make love to them, and then kill them. Each night the process was repeated with another virgin. Then at one point Scheherazade is brought to the king. Scheherazade attempts to distract the king and keep him from killing her by telling him a story. But when dawn comes, the story was not over yet, so the king lets her live another day. She realizes that if she wants to live, she must keep telling suspenseful stories to the king and does so for 1000 nights. The king then falls in love with her and says he will not kill her.
The New School theater department hopes this play will allow us to both explore and better understand the stories of cultures very different from our own, as well as to help us move away from the Disney idea of Arabian culture. This first production in the Black Box Theater allows us to share this message with our school and community, as well provide a fun evening of entertainment.