PRODUCTION GRANTS ($7,000)

7 Stages Theatre (Atlanta, GA)
Inside I
Inside I explores the life and dreams of an autistic boy as he journeys from birth through high school, played by a bunraku-style puppet implanted with live-feed wireless cameras, with live footage edited/altered and projected on stage in real-time, giving voice and image to the spectrum’s unheard/unseen effects on function, psychology, and perception.  Photo: Rebecca Makus

Cave Dogs (Bloomington, NY)
Liquid States
Liquid States examines the nature of existence and its relationship to water on physical and metaphysical planes and further focuses on water in its histories and journeys thus forming a collective narrative that addresses mankind’s complicated relationship to this essential natural resource.

Great Small Works (New York, NY)
Muntergang & Other Cheerful Downfalls
Muntergang and Other Cheerful Downfalls is a bi-lingual puppet show inspired by the scripts, graphic designs and history of Modicut Yiddish Puppet Theater, and created in collaboration with the archives of YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. Yosl Cutler and Zuni Maud were two artists whose work in 1920’s New York City has many parallels to the work of socially engaged puppeteers today.  Photo: Erik McGregor

In the Heart of the Beast (Minneapolis, MN)
The Story of Crow Boy
THE STORY OF CROW BOY explores the intriguing life of artist Taro Yashima who wrestled with human brutality, racial discrimination, and the ravages of WWII to build work of social conscience, poetic visual form, and ultimately- of joy. This production draws on his autobiographical and fictional books including the Caldecott Award-winning CROW BOY (1955) about a young boy who learns to sing the “voices of crows” in defiance of his years of being bullied.  Photo: Bruce Silcox

Dan Hurlin / Red Wing Performing Group (New York, NY)
Demolishing Everything with Amazing Speed
Demolishing Everything with Amazing Speed is a collection of four plays, written specifically for the puppet stage by Italian Futurist painter Fortunato Depero in 1917. Penned by hand in Depero’s notebooks, they have been translated into English for the first time and will receive their world premiere approximately 100 years after they were written, revealing startling similarities between our world and the culture of WWI.  Photo:  Stephanie Berger

Spencer Lott (Brooklyn, NY)
Blossom
Blossom is an original play that uses puppetry to theatricalize an old man’s journey with Alzheimer’s disease. The concept is inspired by The Secret Life of Walter Mitty by James Thurber and follows the deterioration of James Blossom, a former Hollywood set painter, as he loses his place in the present and starts slipping further into his own cinematic memories.

Studio Reynard (Saugerties, NY)
Fox vs. Kingdom
Based on Reynard the Fox, Fox vs Kingdom is a puppet feast hosted by a trio of troubadours. Using shadows, puppets and live music, the tale is spun, with Reynard accused of murder, theft, adultery, sacrelege and excessive violence. Witness the court’s unraveling as lust for revenge and grisly tales of woe overwhelm the official festivities.  Photo: Richard Termine

Visual Expressions (Boothwyn, PA)
Dream of Land
Dream of Land is an innovative, interdisciplinary, cross-cultural performance piece about finding the balance between the desire for worldly achievement and the desire for inner peace Through a series of fantastical dreams, viewers are taken on an unforgettable quest for the self.  Photo: Richard Termine

Wakka Wakka Productions, Inc. (Brooklyn, NY)
MADE IN CHINA
MADE IN CHINA is a dark musical comedy about the complicated relationship between the U.S. and China, specifically related to the production and consumption of goods, examined through the lens of an unlikely relationship between an eccentric middle-aged American woman and her Chinese ex-pat neighbor.  Photo: Heidi Bohnenkamp

WORKSHOP GRANTS ($3,000)

Eye Zen Presents (Emeryville, CA)
Rainbow Logic
Rainbow Logic is a new transdisciplinary puppet theater work about the life of seminal New York and San Francisco artist, Remy Charlip (1929-2012). The production will unearth and elevate Charlip’s story as a gay Jewish artist, choreographer, and children’s book author who worked in New York’s post-war, avant-garde art scene leaving a vibrant mark on the worlds of art, dance, and Queer culture.  Photo: Robbie Sweeney

Robin Frohardt  (Brooklyn, NY)
The Plastic Bag Store
The “store” is a living environment where puppets, a highly detailed installation set and live actors converge to create a satirical performance experience, that explores the questions: How will our descendants interpret our plastic refuse left in tact thousands of years from now? Where does the human spirit exist and thrive in a world of disposability?  Photo: TS Baranova

Little Shadow Productions (Brooklyn, NY)
Elephant in the Room
Elephant in the Room follows two families whose lives lay bare the realities and efforts of the human elephant conflict. Through the eyes of a young human girl and a female elephant calf the production presents audiences with the opportunity to face the urgency of the plight of the elephant head on.  Photo: Courtesy of the Artist

Alexis Macnab (Los Angeles, CA)
The Fasting Girls
The Fasting Girls is a poetic meditation on the phenomenon of 19th century girls who starved themselves as a form of prayer, social rebellion, and personal control.  An exploration of the collision between religion and medicine, between the body and the soul, the piece uses various puppet styles including bunraku, miniatures, and shadow.  Photo: Stephen Texeira

Ken Nintzel (New York, NY)
Frances Faye’s Folk Song Fairground
Frances Faye’s Folk Song Fairground is an immersive installation that takes the form of a fairground with classic American folk songs being performed as individual works of object theater and puppetry.  Photo: Richard Termine

Ping Chong and Company & Ryan Conarro (New York, NY)
ALAXSXA / ALASKA
Using object puppets, shadow puppets, and a bunraku-style puppet from his desk onstage – a sort of Cabinet of Alaskan Curiosities – the storyteller invites audiences into the magical beauty, the harsh realties, & the complex cultural & ecological questions that proceed from the ongoing collision of cultures in Alaska.  Photo: Kristina Varshavskaya

Frank Maugeri (Chicago, IL)
The Death and Life of Billy the Kid
A densely poetic and emotional telling of the life and times of the famous outlaw.  Photo: Evan Barr

Sandglass Theater (Putney, VT)
Babylon
Babylon is a piece about migrants and refugees, who stand before us seeking shelter and asylum. We hear and see their stories. Some come from far away, children fleeing violence. Some come from surprisingly close. as rising oceans wash away their homes on nearby shores. Some come from a time long ago, to connect us to unfinished journeys. And some come like caterpillars, whose darkly ironic stories we can only imagine.  Photo: Kiqe Boch

Jessica Simon (Astoria, NY)
Ruby & Charlie
Ruby & Charlie is a work-in-progress, nonverbal, dance and movement-focused piece of puppet theater. It combines tabletop and shadow puppetry to tell the story of a couple in the 1950s, set to and inspired by the music of Ray Charles.  Photo: Richard Termine

Sinking Ship Productions (Brooklyn, NY)
A Hunger Artist
A solo clown adaptation of the classic story A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka - The once great Impresario resurrects the spectacle of the Hunger Artist, whose notorious act, now fallen out of fashion, consisted entirely of publicly starving for forty days at a time. Once world famous, we follow the Hunger Artist as he becomes so marginalized by society he is completely forgotten.

Skysaver Productions (New York, NY)
Six Characters (A Family Album)
SIX CHARACTERS (A Family Album) is a site-specific project that involves puppetry, live music, video and architecture. This project is inspired by Pirandello’s absurdist classic SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF AN AUTHOR. The puppets range in scale from 2 feet to 10 feet high and are mostly rod puppets.

Robin Walsh (Los Angeles, CA)
Forgotten Baggage, Stories from the Willard Suitcases
In 1995, hundreds of suitcases from former patients were discovered at the Willard Psychiatric Center in upstate New York, their owners buried & forgotten.  Forgotten Baggage is a series of simple, intimate stories told through object theatre, based solely on items from these suitcases.  Photo: Mary Linn Hughes

FAMILY GRANTS ($4,000)

abandoned ships (New Orleans, LA)
What Keeps Us
What Keeps Us is about a giant witch who roams around a town and the curious townspeople that try to figure her out. The show combines audience participation, giant cardboard puppets, abstract table top puppets and shadow puppets to explore ideas of home, alienation and belonging.  Photo: Nico Krebill

Paper Heart Puppets, Brad Shur (Brookline, MA)
Cardboard Explosion!
In this one-of-a-kind puppetry experience, five stories are brought to life using nothing but cardboard and the power of an audience’s imagination. Inspired by everyday details from kids’ lives, puppeteer Brad Shur transforms simple cardboard shapes into elaborate puppet characters and fantastical scenes.  Photo: Graham Gardner

CollaborationTown (Brooklyn, NY)
Riddle of the Trilobites
Riddle of the Trilobites is an epic musical adventure set underwater — 500 million years ago during the Age of Invertebrates. As the ocean begins to change around her, one young trilobite sets off on a journey to solve the ancient riddle of how her species “cannot live but will not die.” Photo: Mike Naddeo

Liz Howls (Minneapolis, MN)
Music Box
Liz Schachterle, a.k.a Liz Howls, will be developing a poetic children’s piece about searching to belong. The piece will incorporate shadow puppetry, miniature marionettes and found object puppetry. The soundtrack will be created by music producer Michael Gabrelcik (Mialga3).  Photo: Paul Eide

Red Ball Theatre / Anna Fitzgerald (Baltimore, MD)
Adventures!
A clown walks into a room and realizes she is supposed to be in the show. Using only what she has with her, she must perform a story for the audience. She will learn about storytelling, stagecraft, and how to create art from a certain special puppet! Funny and weird for all! For ages four and up, there are no knights, no princesses and no being pretty.

Wonderstruck Theatre Co. (La Crosse, WI)
The Elephanteers
The Elephanteers is about a circus family bringing a full size circus elephant to life to befriend two children who lost their pets. The elephant becomes lead trumpeter for a sad clown jazz band that underscores the show and together they all create a live jazz circus. The show will be staged outdoors in neighborhood parks in cities along the Mississippi river.