SKAZKI: A SPELL OF ICE AND SNOW Will Premiere In Boston

Dover, NH writer, Justin X. M. Corriss will see his new musical theatre production, Skazki: A Spell of Ice and Snow premiere at the Plaza Theatre at the Boston Center for the Arts on April 11, 2025.  The play is a reimagining of Russian folklore with thoughtful new interpretations of classic characters like Baba Yaga and Morozko, the Lord of Winter. 

The original inception for Corriss's idea came from reading an article in The Atlantic by modern Russian author Mikhail Shishkin.  In the article, Shishkin decried the mass censorship and backlash against Russian culture following the invasion of Ukraine by declaring, “Culture, too, is a casualty of war.” 

“Skazki was born out of a deep love of history and culture, especially those unfairly maligned and misunderstood due to the past and present influences of totalitarian governments,” says Corriss. “The actions of a government are not the actions of its people.”  Though the musical is a fantasy adventure, many of the show's deeper themes reflect upon the horrors of war and the destruction caused by such totalitarian regimes. 

After studying history through college and acquiring several collections of Russian and Slavic fairytales and myths, Corriss fell in love with the persistent, occasionally absurdist, and mythically vast cultural presence represented in Russian folklore.

“Russian fairytales offered me comfort during a period of unemployment because, instead of telling me, as so many people in my life were at the time, that everything was going to be okay, they told me that things probably weren't, but that I would survive them all the same,” says Corriss.

Corriss's Skazki tells the story of a young peasant girl, Katya, who ventures into the depths of the Russian taiga in search of medicine and magic to help her ailing family. Along the way she is helped by Ivan, a cursed soldier with no memory,  wandering his way through the world. 

“Ivan evolved out of the Ivan of those Russian myths, where he appear as either a bumbling fool or the gallant prince of legend,” explains Corriss.  “The Ivan of Skazki merges these myths, and we find him in the middle of his climatic struggle with the immortal witch Koschei and the god of the Underworld, Veles.  Koschei is very representative of the kind of memory loss totalitarian regimes encourage with their restrictions and endless sense of conflict—you will notice in the play there is no general consensus on who Ivan is at first, and no one can really remember what has happened to Morana, The Goddess of Death and Rebirth.  It is heavily implied this is all the work of Koschei, out to make a hopeless, chaotic world for his own amusement and power. The antidote to all of this is, of course, stories, and therefore history.”

In terms of the differences between Russian fairytales and those fairytales American audiences are more familiar with, Corriss says, “American culture especially emphasizes the lone hero persevering through all of the struggles and coming out alone and changing the world.  Skazki has that too, naturally, but it is not the prince of legends.  Instead it is a girl, a kind gesture to a mourning god, and the power of the stories she was raised with.  Common people and small acts of kindness are often the best resistance against repressive totalitarianism.  Remembering who we are and where we come from are often the best defenses against falling into a world hopeless, with chaos deathless.”  

Corriss, a local sommelier, has written novels, poems, and short stories, and it was one of those novels that was the inspiration for Skazki, his first theatrical script. Corriss developed the play last Summer during Dive In Productions Dive-Incubator Workshop, and a short, non-musical version of the production was staged at New Hampshire Theatre Project as part of Dive In's New Works Festival. 

It was there that New Hampshire Theatre Project Executive Director, Sean Robinson, first encountered the play - appearing as The Deathless One, Koschei - in the workshop production. Robinson marveled at the incredible craftsmanship of Corriss's script and the deep, rich texture of the world of his story.  

“It was honestly a breathtaking piece to be a part of, and it was such an inspiration to me,” says Robinson. “This was some seriously high-level writing - full of surprises and depth. The idea that compassion becomes the key to solving the problems in the story really stuck out to me, and I wondered if a script for a full-length production might exist and possibly be produced.”  

Liza Robinson, who stars as the peasant girl, Katya, was moved by both Corriss's script and his reasons for writing it.  A Russian-Latvian immigrant, Robinson had recently written the acclaimed In the Garden of Z, which had runs in Portsmouth, NH and Binghamton, NY in 2024 and focused on Russian propaganda and the conflicts arising within families over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. While she took a strong stand against the war, Robinson also heard tales of her Russian family in Latvia experiencing ostracizing and shaming due to their heritage - and how even the Russian language was no longer being accepted in society there.  “I recognized and identified with Justin's idea that a culture shouldn't be shamed for the actions of a government regime,” Robinson says.  “It felt very liberating, and I loved the idea of these characters and stories from my childhood being celebrated and shared with American audiences - while also addressing some deeper, relevant themes. It meant so much to me.”

The Robinsons were excited to learn that Corriss had a full script written for a much larger version of the piece.  They all knew that some of the beautiful verse in the script would benefit greatly by having music composed for it - and that the scale and appeal of the story would benefit from becoming a full musical theatre production. 

With a powerful script and a big vision, Corriss and the Robinsons just needed to find a composer to join their team.  Sean Robinson turned to his lifelong friend, Jonathan Blackshire, of Youngstown, OH.  Blackshire, a singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, has written over 100 original songs and released 5 full length albums. He has contributed music to the short film “I am Jane” and the online series “TeleviSean” (produced by Robinson), and often writes songs about social issues and direct action. 

Blackshire was thrilled to take on the task of composing music for Skazki. “I was absolutely hooked from the moment I read the one page summary of the play. The second I finished reading it, I picked up my guitar and wrote the opening melody for the musical. The entire play leant itself to the melodies. I felt like I wasn't writing at all, but was just discovering the music the was always supposed to be behind the words.”

With the full script and score ready for the musical production, the next step was finding the perfect venue for the world premiere.  Robinson's production company Mystic Evidence Productions secured the Boston Center for the Arts, and the premiere date was set for April 11, 2025. Corriss will watch along with audiences, as his original vision is brought to life in a full scale production on the Boston stage.

“(With Skazki), I hope to highlight the importance of embracing multiple viewpoints, remembering the things we fight for instead of the things we fight against, and the magical moments found in things as mundane as a cup of hot tea,” says Corriss.

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