1990

PROJECT GRANTS

Whosis
by Figures of Speech Theatre
Photo by James Farrell

Carter Family Marionettes – Untitled
A subsidy for the creation and presentation of an experimental adult puppetry concert. ($2,000)

Center for Puppetry Arts – Adult Audience Series
A season of puppetry for adult audiences, featuring a wide range of work by both U.S. and international companies. ($5,000)

Garland Farwell – Frillhead Run ($2,500)

Figures of Speech Theatre – Whosis
A piece examining the functions of memory and personal myth in dealing with an alcoholic parent ($3,500)

Knoxville World Festival – KnoxvilleWorld Festival Puppetry Center
A series of performances including a collaboration between the Center for Puppetry Arts and Diablomundo. ($2,500)

Magical Moonshine Theatre – Orpheeus Descending, a Musical Masque
A retelling of the Greek myth of Orpheus using masked actors, large-scale puppets, shadow puppetry and light sequences. ($2,000)

Soup Talks #1:
The Voice of the Turtledove
by Puppetsoup Theater of Objects
Photo by Thomas Schworer

Mum Puppettheatre – The Fall of Icarus ($3,000)

Ninth Street Theater – Home Family God Country Flag
An American Shadow puppet epic created in collaboration with Stephen Kaplin. ($2,000)

Roman Paska – The End of the World
A work examing the future for life on earth, which will be the third & final part of the Theatre For The Birds trilogy.($4,000)

Perry Alley Theater – Tom Thumb
A work based on the life of Tom Thumb using puppets, masked actors, a larger-than-life giant and live music. ($1,500)

Puppetsoup – Soup Talks #1: The Voice of the Turtledove
A creation story tracing civilization from the mating turtles who give it birth up to the time when Napoleon was 16. That future age is represented by patrols of armed footsoldiers who are in charge of metaphor security and by the garish orange flight recorder box salvaged from the Turtledove – a supersonic jet plane lost at the bottom of the Beaufort Sea, whose passengers were members of the last symphony orchestra left on the planet. ($1,500)

Sandglass Theater – The Village Child
A new stage of development for Eric Bass’s piece about a puppeteer’s relentless quest to build a puppet that can fly. ($4,000)

Skysaver Productions – Untitled
A multi-media theater production based on the life of Robert Moses. ($3,000)

Tears of Joy Theatre – The Language of the Puppet
A professional conference on The Language of the Puppet, including artist and performance subsidies. ($5,000)

The Paul Mesner Puppets – Sidewalk Poems
A piece depicting the spirit of the folklore of modern American children. ($2,500)

Washington Park Theatre – Untitled
A work by Larry Stallman about the building of the Mohawk & Hudson railroad, the first in New York State. ($1,500)

Paul Zaloom – My Civilization
A solo piece with three acts, each using a different medium: slide projection, hand & rod puppetry, & overhead projection. ($3,000)

“Trained as an altar boy to respond in Latin, I was attracted to the theater a long time ago. After some twenty years working and teaching as a scenic designer, I began making street theater — using puppets. Performing on the street has its drawbacks, however, and I began thinking of a show that I could do on a large table; after which, I would serve the audience soup! So began the Souptalks Trilogy, a project that continues with its adaptation into a motion picture with the new title, Memory of the Whispered Word.”

– Warner Blake, Puppetsoup Theater of Objects