The Women of the House of Atreus re-imagines an ancient Greek myth about a cursed royal bloodline. The show flows between the three female characters as the curse poisons their lives and leaves nothing but tragedy in its wake, plunging these women into the depths of grief, sorrow, and rage. Amidst brutal killings, ruthless revenge plots, and horrific visions, these women are forced to confront their destinies as the string of fate tightens around them. Will the string that connects them all strangle them in the end?

This piece was my first year final performance for my MFA, and I wanted to experiment with adaptations, movement, and ensemble theatre. The most experimental part of the project was the string that connected the three performers at the wrist for the duration of the performance. I wanted to literalize the connection the three women had as well as the restrictive nature of their lives through the string. It was an interesting challenge the actors and I had to overcome in rehearsals. The string proved to be incredibly finicky, so the movements of the actors had to be both precise and consistent in order for the string to work. It was a difficult, yet rewarding experience as we witnessed the string become a character in its own right through our work in the rehearsal room. I learned a lot from The Women of the House of Atreus that I plan to put into action with the expanded version, They Weave with String that Suffocates.

Written & Directed by Zazi the Artist

Killian is a poet with a knack for the cynical unknowingly searching for his muse. Ollie is an astrophysics prodigy determined to find the joy in everything. When they are assigned as partners for a big project in their sociology class at university, they will have to reckon with a force neither were expecting - love.

I wanted to explore how to bring the coming-of-age-style montage to the theatre stage. I found that lighting and sound played major parts in achieving the style - the lighting helped show time passing and the music would help set the tone of the montage. It was important to me to also achieve a very surreal, dreamlike quality to the show. I utilized the lighting a lot in order to make the stage look colorful to create that dreamlike quality, as well as to help differentiate between the many set changes. 

Written & Directed by Zazi the Artist

Enjoy an exciting night filled with Oscar Wilde short stories and plays! A Wilde Night of Wild  highlights two of Wilde's short stories, The Selfish Giant and The Happy Prince, and an abridged version of The Importance of Being Earnest.

The summer before I moved to London, my high school drama teacher invited me back to help her co-direct the production drama class's fall show, which was a compilation of some of Oscar Wilde's works. She asked me to direct the 30-minute abridged version of The Importance of Being Earnest while she focused on the short story adaptations. As I had already directed the full-length version, I jumped at the opportunity to direct the abridged version for my high school. I did much of what I had done for the full length version, but changed some bits around to fit the new script. It was a joy to work with the high school students, and it reaffirmed my desire to become a theatre educator.

Written by Oscar Wilde, Arranged by Sharon Maley

Directed by Sharon Maley & Zazi the Artist

In Collaboration with the San Diego Guild of Puppetry

Tilly's melancholy is of an exquisite quality. She turns her melancholy into a sexy thing, and every stranger she meets falls in love with her. One day, inexplicably, Tilly becomes happy, and wreaks havoc on the lives of her paramours. Frances, Tilly's hairdresser, becomes so melancholy that she turns into an almond.

I decided to explore a minimalist design approach to this piece, both out of necessity and out of a desire to challenge my typical maximalist style.  I mainly did this through the set, prop, and costume design. Everything in the show was either purple or white, purple representing melancholy (as it's a combination of both red - passion - and blue - sadness) and the white representing a "normal" mood. Black was used as a neutral color for any supplemental costume or prop pieces. I also leaned into the surrealist nature of the script through the blocking and things like the purple/white color scheme.

Written by Sarah Ruhl

Directed by Zazi the Artist

This famous play tells the story of two men, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrieff, who both assume the identity of a fictional man named Ernest, leading them both to fall in love and find an assortment of problems along the way.

This was my first full-length, in-person show that I directed, and I learned a lot about my style as a director as well as what it means to be a director in general. The main artistic choice I made with this piece was a deliberate timeless-ness throughout it. The point of The Importance of Being Earnest is to poke fun at the elites in order to highlight their superficiality and stupidity. That element of the show felt so universal that I did not want to restrict it to the elites of Wilde's time, but also to the elite's throughout all of history. With this in mind, I decided to make the costumes feel like they all came out of different time periods; Cecily's dress was a modern sundress, Gwendolyn wore a dress reminiscent of the 1920s, Lady Bracknell wore a dress closer to the time period of Wilde, and so on. I would have loved to incorporate this idea throughout the piece in the set, props, and set decoration, but did not have the funds to do so.

Written by Oscar Wilde

Directed by Zazi the Artist

Peter lures Wendy away from her nursery to the magical world of Neverland, where she joins his adventures with Tinker Bell, Tiger Lily, and the menacing Captain Hook. A low-tech, inventive adaptation that pays homage to the darker themes of J. M. Barrie's original, Peter/Wendy will mesmerize audiences of all ages.

This was my first ever full-length show that I directed, but unfortunately it was a COVID show. This meant that we were not in-person, but instead did an audio drama/podcast format. This was a great learning experience for me in terms of sound design, as I had never really done any sound design before this show. Luckily I had a great sound designer and editor who helped me tune my ear to what worked and what didn't work in an audio setting.  My idea for this show was a group of children at a slumber party playing make-believe with the story of Peter Pan. While this was great in terms of character work for my actors, there was not much I could do through audio to portray that idea. I would love to return to this piece to fully produce this show the way I had always wanted to.

Written by Jeremy Bloom

Directed by Zazi the Artist