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| Dan Froot & Dan Hurlin (Los Angeles, CA)
Who’s Hungry – Santa Monica
An evening of experimental tabletop puppet plays that give a voice and face to hunger. The plays tell the stories of five very different homeless and hungry Santa Monicans. Incorporating Bunraku, object manipulation, shadow play and rod puppetry, the work is presented on a specially built 24-foot dinner table. Photo: Rose Eichenbaum |
| Lindsay Abromaitis-Smith (Bronx, NY)
Epyllion
Carnal and spiritual collide in this search for what nourishes the infinite possibilities of our hearts’ desires. In the world of Epyllion, the story we are becoming unfolds through puppetry, movement and song, developing new rituals that tap into the innate intelligence of the body and reawaken this understanding in those who bear witness to it. Photo: Benjamin Heller |
| Animal Cracker Conspiracy (San Diego, CA)
The Collector
A contemporary puppet theatre hybrid manifesting a constructed reality, encapsulating viewers in an environment of animated objects, film, and surround sound. As a lowly debt collector travels through the urban leviathan, he undergoes a radical transformation of spiritas the boundaries between object and self collide. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Robin Frohardt (Brooklyn, NY)
The Pigeoning
Set in New York City, 1981, The Pigeoning follows the story of Frank, an obsessive compulsive. When a series of random events cause the order in his life to fall apart, Frank begins to looses touch with reality and is gradually consumed by the mysterious behavior of the pigeons and their possible role in a larger plot. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| James Godwin (Brooklyn, NY)
Lunatic Cunning
Lunatic Cunning is a solo performance exploring the occult and transpersonal aspects of puppetry. Stories both visual and verbal combine in a semi-autobiographical journey of theatrical intrigue and low-tech analog illusion. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| LOCO7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company (New York, NY)
Urban Odyssey
An epic journey of the immigrant told with puppets, movement, live music text and video. Urban Odyssey is a compilation of three works by Federico Restrepo – 9 Windows, Open Door and Room To Panic. Urban Odyssey will merge all these productions, creating an epic journey that acknowledges the inevitability of a new American culture. Photo: Lee Wexler |
| Open Eye Figure Theatre (Minneapolis, MN)
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Originally written in 1797 as a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe called Der Zauberlehrling, the tale’s themes of power, control, and notions of responsibility have made it a timeless piece of literature for all ages. Photo: Larry Lamb
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| Open Ink Productions (Brooklyn, NY)
Triangle
Fabric, shadow, text, and live music combine to tell the story of Joan, a forewoman in a shirtwaist factory, and Blanck, the Triangle factory owner–two very different survivors of the fire that occurred seven years before at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Roman Paska (New York, NY)
The Sweeney Lessons
The Sweeney Lessons (working title) — a mixed-media performance freely inspired by the Middle Irish narrative poem Buile Suibhne, in which a legendary warrior, Suibhne (Sweeney), cursed by a quick-tempered saint, goes mad and wanders the desolate countryside, living in trees like a bird and feeding on watercress. Naked except for freakish growths of feathers and mistrustful of human society, he flies from one barren refuge to another, his adventures interspersed with outpourings of poetry in the language of the birds. |
| Sandglass Theater (Putney, VT)
D-Generation: An Exaltation of Larks
D-Generation: An Exaltation of Larks is a piece about dementia. It is also a piece about play, joy and communication. The title reflects both the stigma and the emergence, the despair and the joy, that is equally present and possible in both the person with dementia and in their caregivers and family members. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Lake Simons (Brooklyn, NY)
Wind Set-Up
In this surreal view of the everyday seasonal winds carry more than the morning paper. Wind Set-Up, a composition for materials and elements is a movement theatre piece utilizing object puppetry directed and designed by Lake Simons with live music composed by John Dyer. Photo: Oliver Dalzell |
| Hanne Tierney (New York, NY)
Strange Tales of Liaozhai
Two unrelated stories from a 17th century collection of Chinese folk tales are interspersed with each other. The first story is performed by Chinese silks & bamboo sticks. A landscape of fabrics is strewn on the stage, and through a counterweight stringing system the unconstructed fabrics become the characters in the play. Photo: Richard Termine |
| Amanda Villalobos (Brooklyn, NY)
Light Keepers
A fading lighthouse, a tiny model town, and books with waterlogged spines come together to tell the story of an androgynous orphan taken in by a mysterious and ancient lighthouse keeper. This is a story of searching for an identity, a place to belong and be useful, in a world where you may soon find yourself to be no longer needed. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Paul Zaloom (West Hollywood, CA)
WHITE LIKE ME: A Honky Dory Puppet Show
In his latest puppet extravaganza, WHITE LIKE ME: A Honky Dory Puppet Show, Paul Zaloom employs various action figures, tchotchkes, weird junk, and a ventriloquist dummy to satirize Caucasian anxiety about becoming a minority in the U.S. in 2040. A comedy. Photo: Leigh Ann Hahn |
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| Bluebird Theater / Julia Zanes (Saxton’s River, VT)
The Green Gold Tree
The Bluebird Theatre is creating a new show based on Goethe’s Faust called The Green Gold Tree. Working with the assumption that everyone knows the story they will select moments to portray with marionette puppets, 2-D puppets, live music, and projections of hand-made magic lantern slides and film. Photo: Donald Saaf
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| Melissa Creighton (Brooklyn, NY)
Love Me Knot
Discover what is behind the veil and under the crinoline in this tragicomic one-woman show about life leading up to your wedding day. This is a story of love and truth, the story of trying to get a grip on your own sense of self, sometimes warily, amidst the conventions that surround the act of getting hitched. Photo: Jeffery Price |
| Double Image Theater Lab (Brooklyn, NY)
A Chance Shadow
A shadow play inspired by the Chinese poet Xu Zhimo and the Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca. With their passion for literature, social reform and true love, they changed society. The show brings the audience into the poets’ romantic and historical lives where they lived during the same time on opposite sides of the world. Photo: Jeffery Price |
| Little Shadow Productions / Jean Marie Keevins (New York, NY)
Zwerge
Zwerge, is a puppet theater performance piece intended for adult audiences, which will recount the lives of the real seven dwarves. This piece is based on the true-life story of the Ovitz family that narrowly survived the horrors of Dr. Mengele while imprisoned in Auschwitz. |
| Lone Wolf Tribe (Brooklyn, NY)
The God Projekt
Marking a return to his creative roots, 10.5 will be Augustine’s first solo show in over 10 years and will explore the company’s trademark themes of creation and existence. 10.5 will feature highly realistic life-size puppets inspired by 18th century anatomical wax models as well as a few sacrificial animals as referenced in the Old Testament. Photo: Nashalina Schrape |
| Christine Marie (Oakland, CA)
4TRAINS
4TRAINS pioneers the use of cinematic 3D/ stereoscopic shadow theater in an immersive production set in the 19th century American wilderness as the threat of industrialization looms. Photo: Rachel Agana |
| Leila Ghaznavi / Pantea Productions (Los Angeles, CA)
Soldier Bear – Love and Strife: Untold Tales of WWII
Soldier Bear – Love and Strife: Untold Tales of WWII is a touching interpretation of the true story of Wojtek, a bear that fought along side a polish troop in WWII. As terror looms over the civilized world and disaster seems inevitable two creatures, one human, one not, create a bond of trust and camaraderie that surmounts all obstacles. Photo: Rebecca Gudelunas |
| Toni Schlesinger (New York, NY)
Five Flights Up
This large-scale, puppet work for the stage is a fictional adaptation of Five Flights Up, the collection of Toni’s award-winning, Village Voice columns about New York. The piece is in five acts: The Woman Who Lives By The Sea, The Richest Man In The World, The Many, Mr. and Mrs. Kalabash, and The Man With The Knife In The Wall. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| ShadowLight Productions (San Francisco, CA)
The Rebirth of Apsara
A dance/shadow theatre work choreographed by classic Cambodian dancer/choreographer Charya Burt and directed by Larry Reed. From Burt’s personal perspective, Rebirth explores the history of classical Khmer dance using Cambodian classic dance vocabulary and shadow theatre as a foundation while re-envisioning classical gestures, imagery and movements. |
| Spybird Theater (Brattleboro, VT)
Eye of the Storm
Eye of the Storm is a piece about a woman who waits by the sea side for the return of her sailor son. Making herself a home in a pile of discarded cargo, she is haunted by shadows of memories and dreams of her son. Photo: Finn Campman |
| Luis Tentindo (New York, NY)
Kori & Alo
Kori & Alo utilizes skillful bunraku and shadow puppetry as well as dance. The piece unfolds as a suite of three 20-minute works and includes a live actor, musician and three puppet artists. It is a theatrical meditation on how we respond when objects, which we hold dear, are taken away and transformed. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Wakka Wakka Productions (Brooklyn, NY)
SAGA
Inspired by a 1240AD Icelandic tale, over 30 puppets ranging from 6 inches to 10 feet tell the story of Egil Skallagrimsson, one of the most famous anti-heroes in Viking history: an unstoppable warrior and Skald (poet) unmatched in physical strength, combat skill and eloquence of verse. SAGA will investigate the troubled state of modern Iceland and how it exemplifies the financial crisis that continues to deeply affect the world. |
| Kevin White (Brooklyn, NY)
The Wayfaring Zombie
The Wayfaring Zombie, is a story of humanity and redemption. Using hand-carved wooden marionettes and graphic novel style artwork, The Wayfaring Zombie tells the story of a man soon to return from the grave. Told episodically it draws heavily from comic book imagery to propel the action from the page to the stage. Photo: Richard Termine |
| Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (Astoria, NY)
Are They Edible?
Are They Edible? is a multi-sensory puppetry performance inspired by Homer’s epics: the Iliad and the Odyssey. It takes place in an interactive setting in which food consumption is used as a way to engage the audience in a tactile discourse on the relationship between war, heroes, diverging values and moralities, and hunger (or the urge to consume). Photo: Noe Kidder |
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| Center for Puppetry Arts (Atlanta, GA)
Peter Pan
Peter Pan is a new work of puppet theater for family audiences being adapted and directed by Michael Haverty, the Center for Puppetry Arts’ Artistic Associate under the mentorship of Artistic Director Jon Ludwig. Photo: Clay Walker |
| Glass Half Full Theatre (Austin, TX)
FupDuck
FupDuck is based on Fup, by Jim Dodge, a bitingly funny and achingly sad novela that reads like a field guide for recognizing the humor in life’s troubles. The story follows a non-traditional family’s ongoing feud with the wild boar, Lockjaw, who leads them to a wry examination of what it means to live and how it is to die. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Anne Sawyer-Aitch (Minneapolis, MN)
Nalah and the Pink Tiger
Nalah and the Pink Tiger is a color shadow and hand-puppet piece based on puppeteer Anne Sawyer-Aitch’s first children’s picture book. Nalah lives so intensely in her imagination that grown-ups around her view her as a troublemaker. Things come to a head when – in addition to all the exotic animals that Nalah has “placed” in the house – a pink tiger “follows” her home from the zoo and creates havoc. Photo: Karen Haselmann |
| Strings & Things Puppet Theatre (San Pedro, CA)
Songbirds
Songbirds explores the complex relationships of song birds as a metaphor for a young Chinese/American couple’s struggle for love and immigration during the early 20th century, a time of discrimination and unfair immigration practices in the United States. Photo: Robert Fu |
| Thistle Theatre (Seattle, WA)
The King of Dinosauria
A cautionary tale about politics revealing the subterfuge, absurdity and pitfalls of running for office, while presenting an argument for honesty and truth. The production will emulate the comedy of the Marx Brothers, who challenged the establishment by poking fun at authority through comedy and music. Photo: Diane Pavelin |
| Fergus Walsh (Astoria, NY)
Hippo
Hippo is a hippopotamus. Actually, Hippo is a small hippopotamus. But he is a small hippopotamus who dreams big. One day Hippo wants to become the President of the United States. But first he must learn all he can about this country. Hippo is an educational show for children and adults exploring the history, geography and people of the United States. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
