Target Margin presents the SINDBAD LAB, a performance festival dismantling and rebuilding the classic Sindbad tales from The One Thousand and One Nights running May 31 – June 24. Actor and director STEPHANIE WEEKS is one of four lead artists selected to lead the labs. Her lab, MORE WONDER, PLEASE, runs first. We talked to Stephanie about what to expect.

You’ve worked with Target Margin in the past as an actor (Mourning Becomes Electra, As Yet Thou Are Young And Rash). Are those experiences informing your approach to the Lab?

100% Absolutely. For me when I think of Target Margin, I think of the work as very expansive. Truly a place that challenges what can happen in a theater space and I love that. So I am actively trying to go beyond myself to examine and challenge what I think is possible in a theater.

What was your relationship to One Thousand and One Nights, or even just the story of Sindbad the Sailor? How has it changed since beginning work on the Lab?

I didn’t really have a particular relationship to One Thousand and One Nights and/or Sindbad and the Sailor. I do remember having a children’s book which had the story of the Fisherman and the Genie and I loved that story. It was only later when I was approached to perhaps direct a lab did I come to find out that it was part of One Thousand and One Nights. Funny how things connect!

The story of Sindbad the Sailor has been told often, and sometimes quite problematically, in popular culture. What are you hoping to excavate, correct, reinvigorate, or change in your iteration?

I am honestly not really familiar with the other versions so, with that being said, I’m definitely not looking to correct or reinvigorate anything. In line with expanding my vision of what can happen in the theater I am not really looking to tell the story of Sindbad in a literal way. I am more interested in it thematically and what keeps coming up for me is the sense of Wanderlust and how the human spirit despite hardship still seeks and yearns for more… Wonder. So for me I am working on it in a very autobiographical way with the actors delving into our personal stories of courage, wanderlust and the search for more wonder.

What’s your “setting off to sea,” AKA what adventurous, foolhardy thing can’t you stay away from?

AHHHHH. I have no idea. Perhaps Acting! It is adventurous and many would call foolhardy! It may sound cliche but I dare say it’s my truth!

You’ve been working closely with actors and a designer to devise your Lab piece. What is that process like?

The process is fun, challenging, exciting, scary…. I am working with people that I’ve never really worked with before so it’s always a bit scary and challenging to not knowing how it’s going to go. I wanted the challenge of working with new people. What is incredibly thrilling is to see what people bring into the room and what ideas and energy they bring in. Everyone is part of the solution in what we are trying to create and we are all figuring out the puzzle together.

Which Sindbadian value could you use more of? Pick one and tell me why: DUMB LUCK, SENSE OF ADVENTURE, RADICAL HOSPITALITY, PERSEVERANCE, or RESOURCEFULNESS.

I’m picking two!! Dumb Luck because I could always use a little luck on my side and Radical Hospitality because I think the whole world could use more of it.

What’s next for you?

I am WONDERING about that myself! I am not sure of what my next voyage will be but whatever it is I am looking forward to it!