"I don’t know if what I’ve done is write a musical," James Sugg ponders, of James Joyce Is Dead and So Is Paris: The Lucia Joyce Cabaret, his latest and most engrossing project as musical spearhead for Pig Iron Theatre Co. At least, as far as the musical categorization goes, he’s willing to be persuaded. "I mean, there’s a hell of a lot of music in the show. And people sing."

Sugg expresses the healthy confusion of a musician bringing together talented instrumentalists and exuberant performers for what is, essentially, a rock show in cabaret clothing. "I suppose I've always been fascinated by contemporary music as a vehicle."

For Sugg, a performer and musician whose path thus far has branched out -- from sound design duty on early Pig Iron projects such as Gentlemen Volunteers (for which he moved from his old stomping grounds Seattle and New York to Philadelphia in 1998) through to bringing cabaret and karaoke to the afterhours scene as one half of Brothers Suggarillo -- James Joyce Is Dead is more a case of climbing a different tree. Through his commitment "to sound design, particularly as a live element," he found himself whipping up compositions on previous productions; of these, perhaps the grandest (and most daring) was his contribution to the Arden's pastoral take on As You Like It last year, adapting Shakespeare's poetry into country-style hoedowns.

To take the next step to working on a show filled with songs -- and peopled with characters (James Joyce, Samuel Beckett) whose reputations usually preclude others from putting words or lyrics in their mouths -- Sugg says he needed a little push. In preparation for their residency at the Princeton Atelier, Pig Iron held a couple of workshops late last year, while searching for a composer who could mastermind the music -- potentially Stephen Trask, who wrote music and lyrics for Hedwig and the Angry Inch. By the end of the workshop, though, Sugg had written four songs, and seemed the obvious choice to "brainchild" the music. He had one stipulation: "With this project -- part of an ongoing exploration of music with the company -- I would hire good musicians. If we were going to do a rock 'n' roll show, I wanted a band."

The impetus for such a detailed musical perspective is the show's central character herself, Lucia Joyce, living with her father (played by Sugg) in 1920s Paris before being confined to an asylum for schizophrenia. "Lucia was always hip: That was her thing. I was trying to think how she'd be nowadays, and I really think she'd be a goth girl, somebody who enjoys wearing her outer rebellion on her sleeve." The show originates with company member Cassie Friend, who first learned of Lucia Joyce while traveling in Dublin, after finding a flier mentioning her status as a figurehead for the movement to recognize schizophrenia.

Sugg, together with director Dan Rothenberg, decided to bring on board certain well-known local musicians: Amy Pickard from heartbreak rockers She-Haw, Brad Trojan from Traffic Jam, Ben Edwards of the Ben Edwards Trio and Eric Bernstein (who also handled the show's sound design). Looking for a "stylistic zone" within which to experiment, the group seized on indie rock -- expressed through Lucia's asylum mates who congregate to sing about their lives and hers. Stretching the '20s setting of James Joyce Is Dead into one that accommodates bass guitar reflects Lucia's hipness, and actually achieving hipness -- or, as Sugg puts it, realizing "what the audience will enjoy hearing now."

"In truth," he adds, "I'm not an indie rock kinda guy." His next planned project, for which he won a 2002 Independence Foundation Fellowship, will take him to sea on a tall ship, as he chases his inspiration to write a song cycle about the watery deep. "In college, I remember performing a series of songs by Fauré, titled ŒL'Horizon Chimerique,' the shimmering horizon. I loved the places those lyrics and the music set me in; the idea of longing, of emptiness and all these ideas of the sea." For research purposes, he plans to spend two weeks this summer down in the Panama Canal, "meeting sailors."

Such an excursion will be a leap from the rarefied atmosphere of Princeton, where Toni Morrison, curator of the Atelier, was "usually around," sitting in on Pig Iron's rehearsal, and where Paul Muldoon, titan of modern Irish poetry, helped to write a song -- "Why Is Everything We Do in Vain?" -- for Trojan to sing in the guise of Samuel Beckett, one of Lucia's famous lovers. Sugg says he "absolutely" believes that hanging out near that literary circle helped him to capture the drama of the earlier Parisian one.

So what of the overlay of madness, of addled genius? There's a fair amount of asylum humor, admits Sugg, remembering the culture of the early 20th century, which, without drugs and proper care, tried to lock away and silence the mad. "We didn't shy away from Lucia's madness, but I don't think any of us were particularly interested in portraying the psychological drama of being inside Lucia's head and the complexities of that. It's almost as if the mental illness has remained theatrical in some way." He pauses. In between the notes, he adds, "there might be some awkward silences."

James Joyce Is Dead and So Is Paris: The Lucia Joyce Show runs April 10-26, $12-$20, Christ Church Annex, Second and Church sts., 215-627-1883.