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Through a Lehigh Faculty Research grant, I traveled to San Francisco to participate in both the design workshops and ultimate production of Crowded Fire’s of The Late Wedding. These workshops, initially commissioned by Crowded Fire and additionally supported by both Tournesol and NEA grants, fostered the unique development approach I have been refining in my approach to new work. Our time was spent creating the visual language of the play through the use of props, levels, and layering of space.

Meng Jinghui, artistic director of the Beijing International Fringe Festival, personally invited our creative team to create a new piece for the 2014 season. Although we we had very limited means, we looked at this unexpected offer as a chance to explore an idea we had for some time: What is the bare minimum we need to make theatre? At this point, we returned to our design-based method of creation based on the questions and nature of humanity, resulting in Labyrinth: Defining Humanity. Using a Provost Faculty Fund grant, I traveled to Beijing for this thrilling opportunity.

For this production, we based our work on a documentary account of a mother who commits an unforgivable act by accidentally killing her own child. Fueled by unending guilt, she cycles through haunting dreamscapes of death and rebirth. As her reality decomposes into surreal nightmare, she voices her infinite despair amidst vivid visual and sound environments. We explored trauma, loss, guilt, grief and ultimately community healing through a richly visual and aural landscape through a multidisciplinary music theatre work that is part theatre, dance, opera, chamber and electronic music.