Gogol Project
Creative Director
Rogue Artists Ensemble • 2008 • Los Angeles, CA
A theatrical mashup of absurdist Nicolai Gogol’s greatest hits, this hyper-visual ensemble piece used masks, projections, and shifting sets to explore identity, madness, and the surreal machinery of society.
REVIEWS
“... sheer staging opulence and ingenuity.” Critic’s Choic - LA Times LA Ovation Awards Nomination for Costumes & Scenic Design Ovation Honor Award for Music Composed for Theater LA Drama Critics Circle Awards Winner for Writing (Adaptation) Winner for CGI/Video Winner for Puppet/Mask Design Nomination for Lighting Design, Sound Desig, Stage Direction
“Sean T. Cawelti directs, tethering an astonishing number of elements and artists to a remarkably homogenous vision.” -
“Sheer staging opulence and ingenuity combining masked performers, digital animation, immersive sound and music, and, of course, diverse styles of puppetry, this spectacular new piece deftly balances flights of whimsy and depths of darkness.” -
Gogol Project was a dynamic, multi-sensory reinterpretation of Nikolai Gogol’s most iconic short stories — The Nose, The Overcoat, and Diary of a Madman — brought to life through an original script that wove them together into a dreamlike descent through identity, status, and bureaucratic absurdity.
Directed and designed by Sean Cawelti, the production fused high-concept physical theater with immersive storytelling. The show featured transformative scenic design, intricate video projections, stylized movement, and a vivid mask vocabulary to transport audiences through shifting psychological and narrative spaces.
A live ensemble manipulated the environment in real time, creating a surreal and ever-changing landscape of faces, forms, and social critique. Critically acclaimed and award-winning, Gogol Project was a bold exploration of fractured identity through the lens of one of literature’s most surreal voices.