These stage plays, The Tower of Gilgamesh and The Acts of Gilgamesh, are loosely based on the Sumerian Gilgamesh legend. Together they form a comedic tragedy exploring - with humor, imagination, and spirited language - ideas about free will, love, creativity, friendship, and religion. It is in Sumer that civilization began: the first writing, numbering, accounting systems, the first literature, and, for better or worse, the Tower of Babel.