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PRODUCTION GRANTS ($7,000) |
| Cabinet of Curiosity (Oak Park, IL)
Sea Change: the history of water
An outdoor puppet extravaganza, featuring giant puppets, live music, enormous shadows, and songs, songs and more songs, written and created by a team of women dedicated to telling stories about the strength of the female spirit and the power of the sea. Photo: Chris Andrews |
| Carrie Morris Arts Production (Detroit, MI)
The Weight of Air on a Body, Act 1: The Story of Wood
A new puppet performance illuminating the effects that invisible processes like redlining and disinvestment have had on physical, personal, and topographical bodies across Detroit’s landscape through centuries of history. Photo: David Brooks
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| In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre (Minneapolis, MN)
The Impact Theory of Mass Extinction: a New Work by Junauda Petrus-Nasah & Steve Ackerman
Set in 1980's South Minneapolis along the Greenway, Impact Theory of Mass Extinction explores the relationship between two young black, queer, teenage protagonists, their connection to the natural world, the science-based study of dinosaurs, and pop culture depictions of dinosaurs. Photo: Zephyr Sheedy
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| Tom Lee & Koryu Nishikawa V (Chicago, IL)
Akutagawa
Akutagawa is a stage portrait of Ryūnoske Akutagawa, father of the modern Japanese short story and author of In a Grove and Rashōmon, the basis of Akira Kurosawa's landmark 1950 film. Told through stunning kuruma ningyō style puppetry and an amalgam of seven of his short stories, Akutagawa is a lush, visual exploration of the process of artistic creation. |
| Matt-a-Magical (Takoma Park, MD)
Under the Sea with Dredgie McGee
A legless pirate with a mortality-preserving amulet is stuck at the bottom of the ocean with a deep-sea diver as his personal valet. To distract himself from his depressing predicament, he hosts an underwater variety show, full of mythical characters of lore and their unique acts, hoping that someday he might find his sea legs and be whole once more. Photo: Stephanie Richardson |
| the mudlark puppeteers (New Orleans, LA)
Bloodborne: the Red Death, an Unmasking
Bloodborne is an examination of the life and work of Edgar Allan Poe. Told through various forms of puppetry and music, this piece expresses our cultural complexity with regard to the issues of race and servitude. Photo: Tricia Towey |
| Justin Perkins (Brooklyn, NY)
Unicorn Afterlife
A Unicorn, that beast of pure goodness and light, wakes in a black void and discovers, horrified, that it's dead; but in the hands of a team of puppeteers, it lives again and searches for a way to escape its past, and maybe escape its future too. Unicorn Afterlife is a dream ballet for bunraku-style and other direct-manipulated puppets, designed and directed by Justin Perkins. Photo: Gabriel Aronson |
| Hamid Rahmanian (Brooklyn, NY)
Song of the North
Song of the North, a family-friendly shadow puppet production, is the second installment of Rahmanian's shadow play trilogy and a timely tale of love and adventure. Using puppets, shadow casters, and digital animation, this show tells the story of ancient Persia's Princess Manijeh, a hero who rescues her beloved from a perilous predicament of her own making. |
| Rootstock Puppet Co. (Chicago, IL)
Peckish
Peckish is about a forest: its wildlife inhabitants, its enemies, and the artist who defends it. This touring production features hand-carved marionettes and original music. |
| Watoku Ueno (The Bronx, NY)
The Tall Keyaki Tree
A thousand year old tree, when cut down, will live for another 1000 years. The Tall Keyaki (Zelkova)Tree, is a poetic shadow puppet show with live music, actors and dancers. It is the story of a peculiar carpenter who, motivated by the spirit of the Keyaki tree, undertakes the profound task of building a five-storied pagoda. Inspired by the novella The Five -Storied Pagoda written by Koda Rohan. |
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| A Kate Brehm imnotlost Production (Brooklyn, NY)
The Eye Which We Do Not Have
The Eye Which We Do Not Have is an eerie, yet powerful psychological tale about suppressed female desire told with puppetry and performing scenery. With a nod to Hitchcock, its cinematic style points to a constantly shifting perspective. Photo: Enki Sumer |
| Center for Puppetry Arts (Atlanta, GA)
Tesla vs. Edison
Tesla vs Edison is an original puppetry production based on the life and work of two men with very different visions of the future. Somehow, despite the apparent incompatibility of their dreams we are living in the future that they both envisioned and created. Photo: Jason Hines |
| Julian Crouch & Paola Prestini (Claverack, NY)
Seven Dolls
Composed by Paola Prestini, with libretto & puppetry by Julian Crouch. A young woman befriends a troupe of puppets, while the man who controls the puppets remains a volatile and dangerous mystery. The puppets, part slapstick clown, part religious icon, piece together a fractured mystical and sometimes violent interpretation of what happened back then, how we came to this place, and what happens next... |
| Victor Escobedo / Ojos en la Selva (Denver, CO)
Processions
Processions is an ephemeral and ethereal experience. It is a live, multi-media puppet show that takes place in the magical plane where universal consciousness and inspiration are originated; it is the story of how humankind disconnects from this realm and the veneration that must be performed by its deities for each human expression of consciousness to manifest. |
| Anna Fitzgerald / Red Ball Theater (Baltimore, MD)
Everything is Included
Everything is Included will use shadow puppetry and poetry to connect my small specific trauma to the larger human one, exploring the beauty of living in light of the terrible things that can happen. As Rilke wrote, "Are there relations of the heart that embrace what is most cruel for the sake of wholeness? For the world is only world when everything is included." |
| Free Rein Projects Inc. / Jaime Sunwoo (Brooklyn, NY)
Specially Processed American Me
A surreal autobiographical performance using SPAM, the canned meat, as a portal into Jaime Sunwoo's Asian American upbringing and her family's experiences of the Korean War. The work investigates SPAM's legacy in the military, its significance in the Asia-Pacific, and its influence on Asian cuisine through music, shadowplay, and cooking. Oscillating wildly between absurd humor and sober tragedy, Specially Processed American Me is a thought-provoking exploration of one of America's most misunderstood foods. |
| Amanda Maddock (Los Angeles, CA)
*Operator(s)
*Operator(s), a communication between worlds, seeks out how to send subtle messages, and how to discover if a reply has been returned. |
| Monkeybear's Harmolodic Workshop (Minneapolis, MN)
Crucial Excursions
The piece explores experiences through the themes of searching and loss/reclaiming of language, using numerous styles of puppetry including shadow, string, objects, tabletop, and mask performance. Photo: Bruce Silcox |
| Nekaa Lab / Sachiyo Takahashi & Rowan Magee (Brooklyn, NY)
One Night in Winter
One Night in Winter is the first chapter of Shinnai Meets Puppetry, a project to introduce the Japanese storytelling of Shinnai-bushi to international audiences with puppetry. Sachiyo Takahashi performs One Night in Winter by grand master OKAMOTO Bunya under her official Shinnai-bushi name OKAMOTO Miya. The story of a lonely old man who receives a surprise visit from a Tanuki (Japanese raccoon dog) on a cold winter night. Photo: Rowan Magee |
| Leah Ogawa (Jackson Heights, NY)
Growing Not Dying
Growing Not Dying is a solo puppetry show exploring the concept of time, death, and transformation in one's life through direct manipulation and string puppetry touching upon the growth and layers of molting that occur throughout life. Drawing from Buddhist belief, it illustrates death as not the end of life, but as growth - a process of continual transformation. Photo: John Chao |
| Paradox Teatro (Mound, MN)
SPEECHLESS
SPEECHLESS illuminates the extremes of both isolation and proximity between feuding neighbors who learn to overcome their conflicts and communicate across their divided community. The unique multimedia puppetry is performed without words to connect with audiences across language barriers and cultures. |
| Trouble Puppet Theater Company (Austin, TX)
Undark: A Radioactive Puppet Play
Young women workers were poisoned by radium while working as dial-painters in the war effort circa 1920. Their tragic suffering was overshadowed only by the cruelty of their fight for justice against the indifference of industry and government. A puppet play using shadow, 2-D paper dolls, and tabletop puppetry. Photo: Andrew Stalick |
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| Nehprii Amenii of Khunum Productions in collaboration with Asheville Creative Arts (Brooklyn, NY)
HUMAN
"At the bottom of the ocean...where the darkness meets the stars... an Octopus tells the story of a thing once called the Human Being!" In a world increasingly permeated by technology, and distance, HUMAN is an all ages hybrid puppetry production that explores human-ness, its extinction, and how we can stay connected to our own hearts. |
| Faye Dupras / Cozy Arts (Somerville, MA)
Cozy Corner: Dragon Next Door
When a rumor spreads that the mysterious new neighbor in Cozy Corner is a dragon, Trudy is over the moon with excitement, Rory is afraid to lose a friend, and Squirrel is worried that there may not be enough acorns for everyone. An interactive family show about building welcoming communities. Photo: Chris McIntosh |
| Seth Eberle (Minneapolis, MN)
The Box King
The Box King follows the story of a King who decides to box the people of his kingdom up with labels after losing his wife to illness. In this world of wooden marionettes and cardboard boxes, a new child enters the kingdom and does not understand why everyone and everything needs to be boxed. |
| Grey Seal Puppets (Charlotte, NC)
The Nightingale
This adaptation of Andersen’s The Nightingale explores themes of materialism versus mindfulness as well as our obsession with devices. Photo: Simon Hare |
| Joshua Holden (New York, NY)
The Joyfully Jolly Jamboree
Starring The Ambassador of Joy, Joshua Holden, this can’t-help-but-feel-good holiday concert oozes vintage nostalgia as 11 original tunes get your toes tappin’ with choreography by Broadway's Danny Gardner, and a cast of lovably zany puppets. This show will tour North America to intimate theaters and venues up to 1,000 seats. |
| Z Puppets Rosenschnoz (Minneapolis, MN)
Through the Narrows
An intimate puppetry theater experience intertwining the story of a 3500-year old Jewish woman crossing the Red Sea with a 6-year old Cherokee boy bearing witness to the Trail of Tears. Narrows brings the audience on a journey from struggle to triumph. Photo: Bruce Silcox |
