In Laboratory Theater’s SHERRI ZAHAD AND HER ARABIAN KNIGHTS, a fictional performance troupe – perhaps from the Middle East, perhaps from Las Vegas – attempts to rehearse a ballet based on tales from Sir Richard F. Burton’s translation of The Arabian Nights, but ends up falling prey to the forgotten ghosts from these ancient stories.

… an independent, well-to-do lady vies against her irresponsible and conniving sisters…a young prince sets out to capture the heart of a beautiful before she marries an evil hunchback…a sea-faring adventurer attempts to thwart fate but unwittingly murders an innocent boy…

SHERRI ZAHAD AND HER ARABIAN KNIGHTS willfully submerges fragments of Burton’s The Arabian Nights into a sea of cross-dressing, slapstick physicality, idiosyncratic dance, stand-up comedy, and Vegas lounge act. Rimsky-Korsakov’s well-known symphonic suite, Scheherazade, Op. 35, provides a structural backbone for Laboratory Theater’s signature layering of choreography, text, singing, improvisation, and imitation.

SHERRI ZAHAD AND HER ARABIAN KNIGHTS was developed, in part, during a month-long residency, February 2007, at Dixon Place.