Inside the dome in Calgary, a post-apocalyptic world made of snow

A play created for a set of snow and ice by innovative Vancouver playwright Kendra Fanconi is among four works being staged in Calgary's annual festival of new Canadian plays.

Crews are working this week to build a surreal set of ice, snow and blown glass that is meant to be a post-apocalyptic world for the play Nix.It's all going up inside a geodesic dome over the skating rink on Olympic Plaza in Calgary.

Nix was created by Fanconi in response to a request from ATP for a new work to be staged on a public site.

The play follows a few survivors of a sudden ice age that has wiped out most of the planet. Two women, played by Jennie Esdale and Lucia Frangione, are pitted against the Arsonist, played by Rylan Wilkie, who wants to finish the job of ending the world.

ATP is producing the play with Ghost River Theatre of Calgary and Vancouver's The Only Animal theatre troupe, which creates theatre for unique sites.

Fanconi, who created an underwater play in 2008, wrote the play and directs its Calgary debut.

The Enbridge playRites Festival, an annual presentation by Alberta Theatre Projects, runs Feb. 4 to March 8.

The other plays to be staged are:

• The Clockmaker, by Calgary playwright Stephen Massicotte.
• The Good Egg by Michael Lewis MacLennan, who divides his time between Canadian theatre and Hollywood TV production.
• Another Home Invasion, by Governor General's award-winning playwright Joan MacLeod of Vancouver.

Another Home Invasion stars Nicola Lipman, the Canadian actress who last appeared at ATP with Rabbit Hole and who starred in the highly regarded Edmonton-Toronto production of The December Man last year.

In a highly emotive role, she plays an elderly woman taking care of a bedridden husband in their home when an unwelcome visitor turns up.

McLeod's earlier play, The Shape of a Girl, dealt with issues arising from the 1997 murder of Reena Virk, a Victoria, B.C., teen. This play, which tackles political issues surrounding the fate of forgotten seniors, moves on to Tarragon Theatre in Toronto later this year.

MacLennan, who wrote for Queer as Folk and produced Godiva's and JPod, brings a funny and touching look at infertility in The Good Egg.

Local playwright Massicotte took his play The Oxford Roof Climber's Rebellion to New York for an off-Broadway run last year.

He's back with a romantic comedy about two people searching for their identities in The Clockmaker.