Those familiar with the work of director and author Mary Zimmerman know that her creations are beautiful to behold. As many of her shows have toured from their Chicago points of origin, Zimmerman had a wide audience on both coasts even before winning a 2002 Tony Award for her direction of Metamorphoses. Whether staged simply with a few oriental rugs (The Arabian Nights) or with lavish scenery and costumes (Journey to the West), Zimmerman's work strikes a harmonious balance of color, movement, music, spoken word, dance and design, drawing on a wide range of Western, Middle Eastern and Asian classical sources. Her latest effort, Galileo Galilei, is a 90-minute opera written with composer Phil[...]