The latest female icon to get the Phillips treatment is Joan of Arc. La Pucelle, in this version of her story, is a puppet. The troupe of travelling players that Phillips has invented to tell her story will perform Joan outdoors, on the cobblestone pavement of the Distillery Historic District, from next Wednesday.

European history has few characters with more power to stir our imaginations than Joan of Arc. She was born in 1412, the third of five children in a farming family in Domremy. At the age of 12, Joan began having visions and receiving messages from saints who told her she had a divine mission to lead an army against the English occupiers of France and restore the power of the French dauphin. She managed to persuade the leader of the dauphin's forces to give her troops and make her their captain. In May 1429, Joan, dressed in armour, led the French forces to a miraculous victory over the English at the Battle of Orleans. When the dauphin was crowned King Charles VII on July 14, 1429 in Reims cathedral, Joan was at his side. But the next year she was captured by Charles' opposing faction, the Burgundians, and sold to the English, who tried her for heresy and witchcraft. Joan was convicted and burned at the stake in Rouen on May 30, 1431. She was 19 years old.

Joan remains a powerful figure, and Phillips wrote the script using material from popular accounts of the Maid of Orleans.

Right from the start, she saw Joan as a puppet. She's a crude little figure, pieced together like all the puppets designed by Sherri Hay, from found materials. Joan's armour is made from little chrome-plated cookie cutters. Actor and singer Karin Randoja plays Joan, manipulating the puppet and sometimes entering the area in front of the puppet stage to become a human Joan.

Her story is related by Wolfe, played by John Cleland, who is the person trying to figure out Joan. Christine Brubaker, who was Phillips' Antigone, is Hoviette, Joan's childhood friend. Patrick McManus plays several roles, including that of Bluebeard, a puppet created from a blue-bristled broom. The players are accompanied by the live music of John Millard.

Phillips was interested in a new way of telling the story, making her actors both participants and narrators. Setting the play outdoors, she says, adds to the feeling of a 15th-century presentation of the story.