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| Blair Thomas & Company (Chicago, IL)
With Love from Edgar Allen Poe
Three chamber musicians and five actor/puppeteers appeared in this new interpretation of one of Edgar Allan Poe’s most famous short stories, a psychological portrait of a mad murderer who is tormented by the sound of his victim’s relentless heartbeat. Photo: Saverio Truglia |
| Chicago Children's Theatre (Chicago, IL)
The Elephant and the Whale
The Elephant and The Whale features hand-painted images, shadow puppetry, transforming mechanical objects and innovative sound design. A sophisticated team of collaborators from Redmoon will work together to tell this romantic and humorously surreal story of an unlikely friendship between a blue whale and a gray elephant. Photo: Charles Osgood |
| Concrete Temple Theatre (New York, NY)
Extraordinary Extremities (formerly Geppetto)
Geppetto meshes two of our favorite stories, Pinocchio and The Old Man and The Sea, to tell a tale of prosthetics and aging. It contemplates the inevitability of change and coming to terms with loss. Geppetto, aka “G”, and his companions Omino and Donina (his puppets) are the main characters of our tale. Photo: Stefan Hagen |
| Melissa Creighton (Brooklyn, NY)
Love Me Knot
Discover what is behind the veil and under the crinoline in this tragicomic musical puppet show about love and truth. The story of an engaged woman trying to get a grip on her own sense of self (sometimes warily) amidst the conventions that surround the act of getting hitched. Photo: Jeffrey Price |
| Double Image Theater Lab (Brooklyn, NY)
A Chance Shadow
A Chance Shadow is inspired by the Chinese poet Xu Zhimo (1897~1931) and the Spanish poet and playwright Federico Garcia Lorca (1898~1936). Xu was one of the first Chinese writers to successfully naturalize Western romantic forms into modern Chinese poetry and Lorca was a social activist who changed the world around him though his unique style of surrealism and theatricality. With their passion for literature, social reform and true love, they changed society. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist
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| Lone Wolf Tribe (Brooklyn, NY)
The God Projekt
Inspired by Lone Wolf Tribe's award-winning opus, BRIDE and Samuel Becket's Krapp's Last Tape, The God Projekt is a raucous, darkly humorous investigation into the mysteries of the universe. Uncovering ancient history while dissecting contemporary events, LWT's latest trailblazer is a minimalist extravaganza, daringly taking on the two subjects we’re not supposed to talk about in polite company: Religion and Politics. Photo: Nashalina Schrape |
| Mabou Mines (New York, NY)
La Divina Caricatura/Part II Ecco Porco
La Divina Caricatura is a trilogy of plays in free verse with musical and video accompaniment throughout, written for rod puppets in the style of the Japanese Bunraku. The story follows a “love affair” through two generations of reincarnations. At the onset, the heroine, Rose, is a dog. At close, she is a Warrior Ant. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Christine Marie (San Francisco, CA)
4TRAINS
Set in the American wilderness as 19th century industrialization looms, this expressionist story explores the theme of the railroad as it relates to the destruction of the environment and the imagination. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Zvi Sahar (South Orange, NJ)
Salt of the Earth
960 pounds of salt, 113 black chalk sketches, and one 1967 combat bag bring the newest PuppetCinema alive, telling the story of a novelist fleeing a military coup in his country, and his escape to the last free place standing. Based on The Road to Ein Harod, a novel by Amos Kenan. Photo: Jim Moore |
| Spybird Theater (Brattleboro, VT)
Eye of the Storm
Eye of the Storm takes place on a small island inhabited by an elegant woman and an grotesque couple with a baby. The two parties do not get along but their relations change when they all face the impact of a big storm. As our characters struggle to cling to their dreams on a disintegrating island, we begin to wonder what is actually eroding out from underneath them. Photo: Jeffrey Price |
| Luis Tentindo (Los Angeles, CA)
Kori & Alo
Kori and Alo is a one-hour puppet theater piece that tells the story of a brother and sister and a young girl who possesses the ability to heal a community which has experienced a natural disaster. Photo: Bob Morrison |
| terraNOVA Theatre Collective, Inc. (New York, NY)
P.S. Jones and the Frozen City
P.S. Jones & The Frozen City is an epic comic book style adventure that follows our hero, Pig Shit, and his two companions, the ghost of a Gunslinger and a giant Green Hand, as they travel across the Burning Waste in search of revenge and the promise that awaits them just beyond the glass of The Frozen City. Photo: Jill Steinberg |
| Basil Twist (New York, NY)
Rite of Spring
This production is a full-length orchestral program to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of the premiere of the Ballet Russes of Rite of Spring. The evening will be an exploration of abstract puppetry and music transforming kinetic fabric and smoke sculptures into what Twist calls "a ballet without dancers." Photo: Richard Termine |
| Wakka Wakka Productions, Inc. (Brooklyn, NY)
SAGA
SAGA investigates the troubled state of modern Iceland and how it exemplifies the financial crisis that continues to deeply affect the world. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
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| Torry Bend (Durham, NC)
If My Feet Have Left the Ground am I Closer to Heaven?
A toy theater play about reaching for the unknown, reflection and loss. The story follows a couple struggling to come together while living an ocean and continent apart. The play dissects their moments of flight: suspended anticipation, areal perspective, and time for limitless reflection in confined physical space. Photo: Nick Graetz |
| Aaron Cromie & Mary Tuomanen (Philadelphia, PA)
The Body Lautrec The Body Lautrecis a meditation on the life, work and maladies of French painter, Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. The iconic artist suffered from from the rare genetic disease of pycnodysostosis, discovered in his youth as well as syphilis, contracted later in his life, forever influencing his unique perspective on the world. Photo: Mary Tuomanen |
| Julian Crouch & Saskia Lane (Brooklyn, NY)
Bird Heart
Theatre maker Julian Crouch and composer/musician Saskia Lane join forces to unfold a story provoked by the startling images that Chris Jordan captured on the Midway Atoll of young albatross bodies filled with the throwaway detritus of mass human consumption. Together they will capture both the beauty and the tragedy of how one thing leads to another, and how the smallest thing can have the greatest of impact. Photo: Jill Steinberg |
| Dead Puppet Society (Long Island City, NY)
Argus
Making use of nothing but household objects and the performers’ hands, Argus transcends from the simple to the sublime by exploring the fragile attempts of these objects to engage in a world that views them as nothing more than things. Photo: Dylan Evans |
| Emily DeCola (New York, NY)
Mapping Up
A major US satellite intelligence program, codenamed Hexagon, was declassified in 2011 after 35 years of total secrecy. More than a thousand scientists went home for dinner, ready to talk about their work, and found that their children had long since grown up. The family meals, games and bedtime stories had unfolded over the decades, entirely outside the fathers’ Cold War Neverland. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Andy Gaukel (Louisville, KY)
Schweinehund
Schweinehund, named after a German insult that literally translates to “pig-dog,” combines live puppetry and projected animations to explore the persecution, torture and murder of persons suspected of homosexuality by the Nazis during World War II. The central story of Schweinehund is a meditation on Holocaust survivor Pierre Seel’s true story of love found and lost during this dark time. Photo: Michael-Collin |
| Kyle Loven (Seattle, WA)
Moon Show 143
Moon Show 143 combines cultural moon myths from around the world to tell a story of inevitability. Following the moon on his cyclical journey with Earth, the piece portrays four fateful encounters between children and the moon, and the moon’s subsequent unraveling. This show blends puppetry, recorded sound, and dance. Photo: Tim Summers |
| Jeanine Padgett and James Sheehan (Baltimore, MD)
Soul of Wood
Soul of Wood, based on the Jakov Lind novella, is a beautiful, dark tale about two individuals surviving madness and miracle in WWII-era Austria, retold through marionettes, rod puppets, and shadow puppets. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Theordora Skipitares / Skysaver Produtions (New York, NY)
The Chairs
The Chairs is a radical re-imagining of the classic 1952 absurdist play The Chairs by Ionesco. In our version (a rewritten text), each chair is a uniquely designed performing object, operated either by a performer inside the chair or by a puppeteer outside the chair. 35 chairs come to life and speak or sing. A live music score is composed and performed by Sxip Shirey. Photo: Richard Termine |
| Trouble Puppet Theater Company (Austin, TX)
The Head
The stage, a giant human head, cracks open to reveal the interior: where the Mechanic and the Personal Demons do battle. Through the eyeholes, the audience can see a point-of-view film of a day in the life of the human being within whom the Mechanic works. An epic struggle ensues: the struggle that takes place inside each of us every day. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Christopher Williams (Brooklyn, NY)
Wolf-in-Skins
Inspired by ancient themes of the “mythic hero’s journey” found in medieval Welsh literature, Wolf-in-Skins is an evening-length “dance-opera” choreographed and directed by Christopher Williams and composed by Gregory Spears. Driven by choreographed operatic sequences supported by supertitles, the work combines live music, dance, puppetry, and visual design to re-imagine lost mythology as a staged ritual. Photo: Andrew Jordan |
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| Max R. Daily (San Diego, CA)
Peter and the Wolf (revisited)
This retelling of Peter and the Wolf takes place in an old run down workshop where Peter a now young man rediscovers the day he as a young boy captured a wolf. The story will come to life on stage as the puppeteer discovers items in the shop which become the characters from his past. A variety of puppet styles including table top and shadows along with live narration and reworking musical score of the traditional composition. Photo: Jackie H. Daily |
| Cindy Derby (Los Angeles, CA)
Mr. Kyoto’s Aquarium Shop
An original story that follows the journey of an orphan girl, Maddy, who comes across a strange aquarium shop and its shop owner beneath the streets of an ominous city. Photo: Travis Eller |
| Dramatic Adventure Theatre / Puppet Kitchen (New York, NY)
A Girl Without Wings
Born out of Dramatic Adventure Theatre’s ongoing service work in Ecuador, Jason Williamson’s A Girl without Wings tells the story of a lonely Condor who falls in love with a free-spirited shepherd girl named Chaska. Photo: Isaac Danna |
| Bonnie Duncan (Boston, MA)
Squirrel Stole My Underpants
Sylvie is sent to the backyard to hang up the laundry. The moment her back is turned, a mischievous, bow-tied squirrel steals her favorite piece of clothing and runs off. In this poignantly silly adventure tale, told through a blend of puppetry, dance and physical theater, Bonnie Duncan brings the unordinary world of one lonely girl to life from a laundry basket. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Liz Joyce & a Couple of Puppets (Sag Harbor, NY)
The Doubtful Sprout and the Secret World of Soil
An underground odyssey that takes young audiences into the microscopic environment of soil and its tiny inhabitants. We meet the Doubtful Seed who is impatient and unsure about her future. Once tucked into the ground, she meets a crew of subterranean creatures who conspire to make a rich, fertile world perfect for growing. Photo: Courtesy of the Artist |
| Madcap Puppet Theatre (Cincinnati, OH)
Amahl and the Night Visitors
Amahl and the Night Visitors is a heartwarming chamber opera by Gian Carlo Menotti which tells the tale of the crippled Amahl and his life-changing encounter with Three Wise Men seeking the Christ Child. Amahl and his widowed mother are poor, without a home or any hope: puppets, dancers and song bring this tale to life with amazing results. Photo: Philip Goshen |
| Mettawee River Theater Company (New York, NY)
Taliesin
The story of Taliesin comes from the medieval Welsh epic, The Mabinogion, in which the power of inspiration is accidentally bestowed on an unlikely kid, who can suddenly see beyond everyday reality, becoming the guiding light for all poets in the Welsh bardic tradition. Photo: Sasha Arutyunova |
| Spellbound Theatre (Brooklyn, NY)
Wink
Wink is Spellbound Theatre’s premier original production for young audiences. Loosely based on the classic Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, this captivating performance blends shadow puppetry, projection, and physical theatre to entrance very young audiences (ages 0-5) and adults alike. Photo: Alexis Buatti Ramos |
