Little Mermaid ala Rube Goldberg

"The Little Mermaid" - Great Small Works 9th International Toy Theatre Festivalfrom btay on Vimeo.
The toy theatre production featured in the video above is presented in a very novel (and charming) fashion...

Pollocks on iPad is Here!

Christmas Production

The Neffs, about to perform...

George and Ann Neff have been sharing the Christmas spirit in a very unique way over the past day or so on Facebook.  I still can't believe I didn't figure it out right away!  Ann was hinting a couple of times...

"They are almost to Bethlehem now, to be counted. May YOUR travels in preparation for the holiday be safe and blessed.", and

"They made it to the manger. The Babe is born! Hope you all are having a most Merry and Blessed Christmas. Ann (and George ) Neff"

As Ann posted the updates, I wasn't noticing at the time, but I'm thinking now that her Facebook profile icon was changing to different scenes from their "Nativity" toy theatre play.  They were once again putting it on this Christmas season, and from the series of photos from it that Ann posted today, it looks like an amazing production. 

The first angel tells the shepherds, "Be not afraid!"
[Click to enlarge]

I asked Ann if I could share about it here, and she kindly said yes.  In Ann's words, she describes it as "...The Neff's toy theatre production of The Nativity, as conceived and drawn by Stephen Langdale for A Service of Lessons and Carols. Watercolour, stage and lighting by the Neffs." (All Photos used here are from a 2008 production of this play...)

Shepherds come to the manger to adore the Baby Jesus...
[Click to enlarge]

Library Display

Earlier this year I changed my whole life.  Part of that change involved resigning my job of 23 years, moving to another state, and getting another job in an entirely new field - as a librarian.

Reddington proscenium at left,
some character sheets at right,
& a Dover "Peter Rabbit" below

At the small-town library I work at, they have a glass display case.  For the holiday season, I decided to put up a modest display of toy theatre and puppet-related items from my personal collection.  While I would have loved to put up my entire Reddington toy theatre, the display case isn't deep enough to accommodate it.  What to do?  I removed the proscenium from the front of the theatre to bring it alone, along with a schematic of what a wooden toy theatre looks like to hang behind it, for context.

I also brought along both plain and colored character sheets, as well as a few exhibition catalogues, and books about toy theatre history.

It's been fun answering questions about toy theatre, from library patrons!

Exhibitions & Workshops

Cotsen Children's Library exhibition
focuses on Aladdin (Webb & Skelt)

Over the weekend, I became aware of another ongoing exhibition featuring toy theatre, and some workshops for another I wrote about before...

The Cotsen Children's Library's exhibit (through March 15, 2011), "Making the Toy Theatre", concentrates on one production ("Aladdin") from start to finish.  Besides examples of scenes, characters and even scripts, on view will also be "...copper and stereotype printing plates, lithographic stones, metal dyes, and other tools of the toy theatre trade."

Publisher: J.S. Schreiber
Proscenium, Prozenium mit
Musikkapelle, sheet number 300
Scenery for Kriegerzelt (War Tent)
Figures for Siegfried
Germany, ca. 1901
Facsimile/ original lithograph
Collection of Eric G. Bernard

Ongoing is "A Child's View:  19th-Century Paper Theatrers" at the Bruce Museum (through January 30, 2011), showcasing approximately 35 colorful, antique paper theaters plus related materials from the personal collection of Eric G. Bernard of New York City.

Coming up as part of this exhibition is “Paper Theaters School Vacation Workshops,” December 28 through 30, 2010, from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., suitable for students in grades 1-3 of all abilities.

Memoirs of a Muse

The Muse discovers her powerful relationship with mankind...

I received a wonderful surprise in the mail the other day.  I opened our rural delivery mailbox to find a fat envelope addressed to me.  I looked at the return address and was delighted to see it was from my old friend Gail.  I thought to myself, "Hmmm, I wonder what Gail has sent me?!"  I was excited to find out...

The contents of the envelope turned out to be two volumes of a planned trilogy, a 'graphic novel' of sorts entitled "Memoirs of a Muse".  I sat down later and devoured them both, then of course started to wonder where the inspiration for the books (ironically about that very subject of inspiration, aka the 'Muse') came from.  I went to the source...

Gail shared that "...I was reading a book called The Story of Painting, where the author connected each artist to the next and I thougtht it's like the muse is a groupie that goes from one star to the next. Then I was walking around at work and thought what would be the beginning of the muse's story?"

The first volume follows the beginnings of the Muse's relationship with mankind through several characters including Enoch and Moombi.

In the second volume, the Muse meets up with General Lakhdunlim, King of Mari, and thus later his bride - Ariadne, a "Minoan princess from the Knossos palace on the Island of Crete." Theirs was an unhappy marriage, but lucky for her, she had an opportunity to start a new life.  It came with a price, out of which she created a memorial in a form of a statue.  In turn, the statue came to represent a legend of the real woman it was once inspired by, and thus a cult was born.  Eventually the Muse moved on to a young potter Nashuja.

Nashuja and the Muse end up on a journey to Egypt, and we are left with a cliffhanger - the Muse thinks she might be able to get back in touch with her first artist, Enoch, because she has heard the Egyptians had special knowledge of the afterlife.  But that will be another story, in Volume III.  I look forward to it!

Toy Theatre Influence: Nutcracker

The Harlequin, from the NYBT's Nutcracker

Productions of the Nutcracker abound during the Christmas season. One particular annual production in New York caught my eye because of the heavy influence of toy theatre in its conception and design over 25 years ago that stays with it to this day.

I contacted the man behind the design, Keith Michael, and he was kind enough to share this article he wrote about it...

Choreographer and Scenic Designer Keith Michael created the Toy Theater-inspired production of The Nutcracker for New York Theatre Ballet in 1985. Led by serendipitous practical and aesthetic considerations, Toy Theater was the perfect metaphor for this re-imagining of the classic holiday ballet fantasy tale. New York Theatre Ballet, founded by Artistic Director Diana Byer, is an acclaimed chamber ballet company which maintains its prominence through meticulously detailed dance creations on a personal scale. The Nutcracker ballet is traditionally a grandiose endeavor often deliciously festooned with spectacular scenic effects and sometimes literally hundreds of performers onstage. NYTB and Keith Michael’s vision for a more intimate tale focuses attention on the story of the heroine Clara’s wonderful adventure within an equally delectable visual environment.

The Company’s frequent performances in smaller theaters, without the luxury of fly-space for multiple drops or generous offstage space for rolling scenery, made the logic of Toy Theater with the potential for grand opera house-scale production values “on a tabletop” was ideal!

Mr. Michael’s background as a teenage puppeteer, touring all through high school with his own 35-marionette version of The Nutcracker, made the leap to envisioning a candy box ballet version completely a natural.

The primary Toy Theater scenic element of the NYTB design is a back-of-the-stage Victorian-detailed proscenium arch within which backdrops are hung and revealed with the high “technology” equivalent of pulling a living room drape! Four stages of Clara’s journey - A “Nutcracker” act curtain, The Stahlbaum Drawing Room, The Snow Forest, and The Land of Sweets - are each evoked with a separate painted drop. Additional rolling scenic elements are a Doll House, a Window Unit, a Sleigh, decorative Land of Sweets Heraldry Banners and, of course, (what could be better?) an Ice Cream Throne.

In particular, Uncle Drosselmeyer’s Doll House, which is also the magical revelatory cabinet/stage for the Nutcracker doll, further enhances the playfulness of scale, by containing a miniaturization of the Drawing Room Scene complete with a miniature proscenium arch frame (more in the scale of a true Toy Theater) mimicking the “large” proscenium arch onstage immediately behind it.

Further Toy Theater references include Clara’s “real world” with her parents illustrated, a la the MGM The Wizard of Oz, in penny-plain black-and-white, and as Clara is transported to her own “Oz”, the stage is transformed to vibrant tupence-coloured. The rolling scenic units are relatively small and self-contained, and travel onstage primarily only right and left like Toy Theater props or characters manipulated through slots in the floor. And, indeed, all smaller hand props are likewise created with a “flat” design, even the Nutcracker doll, to emphasize the paper cut-out aesthetic of Toy Theater. The dancing, however, is fully three-dimensional, often bursting from the stage space.

The elaborate yet cozy stage pictures would not be complete without the masterful costume designs of Sylvia Taalsohn Nolan, who uses color and line as a story-telling sixth sense, and the recent re-imaginings of the backdrop paintings by Gillian Bradshaw-Smith add lusciousness to all of the visual sweetmeats.

Finally, it is the exuberance, insight and humor of the dancing in The Nutcracker which brings Victorian-inspired tableaus and grandeur to this magnified miniature Toy Theater world – still a delight to audiences after 26 years!

Clara & Prince, from the NYBT's Nutcracker

Toy Theatre in Reverse

Toy Theatre grew out of live theatre. But several productions of live theatre in recent years - including a new one now in production, seen in the video above - have been influenced by toy theatre.

Toy Theatre-inspired sets surround the play's live actors and puppets...

The production design has used toy theatre as the main inspiration for the play's sets. "I love the simplicity," says Jessica [Grindstaff] (of Phantom Limb, the set designer). "In a way, the set is a puppet too, a giant puppet."

To read more about the people behind this production, go here...

Seen behind the performers is another Toy Theatre-inspired backdrop...

Technology Provides Toy Theatre Innovation

Exciting news - An entrepreneurial spirit [who I have since found out is none other than Benjamin Pollock's Toyshop] has developed an iPad app with which you can create - and perform - a toy theatre production.  I'm excited because I was thinking even I could maybe pull off a production using this...!  The release date is December 26th which makes it unfortunately NOT available in time for Christmas, but that's OK.

The application was recently mentioned on the toy theatre group, and I asked the person [the developer of the program itself] who posted if it would also be available to people who don't own an iPad or other such small device, but would like to use the application on a desktop or laptop.  The developer's response was...

...there is a good chance that app would be available for download on a computer but the software we use only puts out iPhone, iPad and mac version (in saying that, there is a way we can put it on the web as well, which we are investigating more...)

I sincerely hope they will find a way to bring it to a wider audience.  For various reasons, there are many of us who cannot use iPad or iPhone devices.

In the meantime, I can hardly wait to see more - it looks like a LOT of fun to play with - it could be used for brainstorming, education/learning, practicing - who knows what else?!

A Very Special Toy Theatre Performance...

It was recently announced on the Toy Theatre group's mailing list about an upcoming performance that I felt sounded very exciting.  I emailed the person listed as contact, and she was kind enough to share the graphic (shown below) used on a poster promoting the December 6th show.

Royal Holloway's

Department of Drama and Theatre Presents:

Toy Theatre Transformed!

Courtesy:  Samantha Turner [Click to see larger version...]

What I found exciting about it was, a university was actively promoting and TEACHING a course on toy theatre, and this show is the culmination of that course, with the students putting on the performance.

Samantha Turner (contact for RHUL) shared:

A celebration of the heritage of paper theatre in England and world-wide in anticipation of toy theatre's 200th anniversary in 2011.  Student performances of a new version of  A Christmas Carol, based on the Charles Dickens story and incorporating nineteenth-century toy theatre figures and sets from the Museum of London's collection; Jack B. Yeats' miniature circus Onct More's First Circus (1901); and The Red Tree, based on the story book by Shaun Tan.  The celebration will also include a small exhibition.  The event is the culmination of an intensive one-term course on Toy Theatre, which took students to toy theatre archives and institutions around the country, and involved the participation of acclaimed New Model Theatre artist Robert Poulter.

Performance will be held at Royal Holloway, in the Handa Noh Theatre.Doors will open at 6pm on December 6th, with performances beginning promptly at 6:30pm.  No latecomers admitted.

For instructions on how to get to Royal Holloway, see here. The Handa Noh Theatre is number 25 on the campus map.

The event is free, but reservations are required.  Please contact Samantha Turner at telephone: 07766258571 or contact Samantha via email...

I applaud their choice of subject matter - fascinating!  I envy those of you who can attend.  If you go, I'd love to hear from you.

Bravo, Royal Holloway, for doing your part to keep this very special form of performance art alive.  All over the world, more and more people continue to discover the relevance, magic, and joy of toy theatre.  May it continue to be discovered for many years to come...

Toy Theatre/Puppet Political Satire

New Toy Shop Opens!

Peter Baldwin shares his passion for toy theatre [Photo Credit:  BBC]

Benjamin Pollock's Toyshop has opened a new branch.

You read right.  The well-known toy shop, particularly known for toy theatres, is branching out.

Read more about it here...

Playette Theatre

I ran across the above video of an old toy theatre on YouTube recently. Not a classic toy theatre, it is a type nonetheless. The person who posted it had this to day about it...

In 1942, my father, Larry Wise, and my uncle, Dick Briefer, collaborated on the invention and design of a "toy theatre," called the Playette Theatre, and this video is a kind of nostalgic homage to that formative period in my childhood, and to the two men whose wild creativity were such inspirational models to me as I grew up in the thrall of their energetic imaginations.


The theatre itself was a knock-down cardboard item packed in a colorful, flat box, with instructions for folding and inserting tabs into slots to create the theatre structure in all its Dick Briefer-illustrated glory, as shown in the first slides of the video.

EXHIBITION: A Child's View

The above image is one of several you can see online, just some of an exhibit about to premiere entitled, "A Child’s View: 19th-Century Paper Theaters,” at the Bruce Museum in Bridgeport, Connecticut. 

The exhibit is part of a private collection.  It is ongoing through January 30, 2011...

5th Toy Theatre After Dark - Festival Solicitation!

Exciting news!  Right here in my home state of Minnesota will be a major toy theatre festival this coming March, and it's soliciting performers right now - I hope many reading this will consider performing in this festival - they sound open-minded so the sky is the limit...
____________________

In March 2011, Open Eye will present the 5th Toy Theatre After Dark, and for the first time, will partner with the Walker Art Center for the festival. This partnership allows Toy Theatre After Dark to expand into a two-week festival complete with duo programs, workshops, artist discussions, and social gatherings. Selected work will be divided into: Program 1, appropriate for all ages, and Program 2, potentially not recommended for children under age 12. Both programs will have evening and matinee performances. Covering two weekends, the festival will give local and national audiences two opportunities to see the whole program in a single weekend.

Open Eye is soliciting proposals for image/object/puppet driven small-scaled performances that resonate with the traditional form and contemporary approach to toy theatre. Up to 10 artists will be selected. Works that will be considered may be 5 to 20 minutes in duration, must be self-contained and portable for quick changeover, intimate in scale (though large enough for a 90-seat theater-work will not be projected), and finished to the point of being ready for a first public presentation. Projects chosen will represent a broad spectrum of form and content and show a professional stance. Artists may propose single or multiple short pieces or one longer piece

Exhibit: Worlds in Miniature - EPHEMERA



Sean Sharp shared this post card with me today of the ongoing exhibition
(through the end of the year) in San Francisco, featuring toy theatre!



Toy Theatre at Fishmarket News

The website for Toy Theatre at Fishmarket has been updated. The current newsletter has been published, and I highly recommend you check it out.

If you are not familiar with Toy Theatre at Fishmarket, it is a site run by Harry Oudekerk from the Netherlands.

Harry sponsors a wonderful bi-annual toy theatre festival.  The last one was in 2009.  The next one is scheduled for June 2011, and the newsletter tells you all you need to know.  I wish I could attend, because the last one sounded amazing (and it was dedicated to one of my toy theatre mentors, Gigi Sandberg, who I was privileged to know for only too short a time. I am hoping there are many photos and writings from people who attend.

NOTE:  If you're reading this and thinking you'll be there, I'd love to hear from you.  I'm looking for a 'reporter-at-large' for the fishmarket festival similar to the wonderful Tess who helped cover the 9th International Great Small Works Toy Theatre Festival...

2010 Maker Faire: Report II

Tess in her Toy Theatre booth this past weekend...

Here's the scoop from Tess on this year's Maker Faire in New York City:

The World Maker Faire here in New York City was just terrific and happily overwhelming. We had good crowds, and a lot of families lamented not getting the weekend pass to take advantage of all the teaching booths—this was all so new to locals. Maker Faires usually have pricey entrance fees (ours was $25 at the door and a weekend pass $35 with much lower rates for kids). But once you go in, there are many many booths where you can get free lessons and I made sure to show anyone who would stop long enough how I make my rod puppets. I did not go as a seller, but to simply show what I do and demonstrate what I make and how I do it. My booth was covered with balloons so I was a kid magnet. We had a little over 500 exhibitors from all over the Eastern seaboard, and many came pretty late in the game as I did because the word got around so slowly.

The important thing about Maker Faire is that it is the vision of a man named Dale Dougherty. He looks like a low key professor with a pleasant demeanor and amused smile. But he is a true believer, mover & shaker of DIY, i.e., it helps the Earth with recycling and repairing objects, and it helps the individual save money and maybe even build a business. In this economy, we can't have enough people who see the world this way. Maker Faire encourages Makers to talk to each other and be supportive. It is so refreshing to encounter business people who are opposite the corporate model of ruthless Capitalism. The Makers believe in what I think should be called Capitalism with a beating heart. Many of the makers I met referred other makers to booths for supplies or to share technical problems (I brought flyers for two of my suppliers, also). I had a tricky moment right up front when I discovered my gridwall required an Allen wrench which the seller did not inform me about. A local maker helper passing through brought me an Allen wrench in five minutes and helped to put it up.

Tess' Italian Toy Theatre

Tess' Medieval Toy Theatre - I LOVE the draw bridge stage!

Favorite Childhood Toy

Actor Ralph Fiennes shares about his favorite childhood toy - a toy theatre (at about 3:30 into the clip...)

2010 Maker Faire: Report I

Tess checked in late Friday night, and then again yesterday, to share her progress setting up for yesterday, the first day of the Maker Faire.  She explained it was a VERY busy day, and apologized there weren't more photos.  She hopes to share more images from today.  In the meantime, she had this to share about the experience so far...

FRIDAY NIGHT:  I am a zombie! Here is my basic booth, and I will be bringing the toy theaters in early tomorrow thanks to a kindly cab driver who took me home and said he was still working and could come pick me up. SOLD! Oh my. I have had five hours of sleep in the last 48 but I will write again very early tomorrow morning. I just have to conk! You should see the looks I get - kids go crazy. I have a super spot on a landing  right by the major attraction: a lightining show by a guy in a metal suit! It's WICKED! I am making signs in the morning!

SATURDAY MORNING:  I fell asleep at 9PM and woke up at 5am. Drinking coffee, gathering together Rod puppets, and clamps to hold my velvet in place. Am making three signs and OH how I wish I could print 11 by 17! That's the next upgrade: both printer and scanner have to be larger format. I will be taking lots of pictures today. Am so psyched! Don't have to iron because I am wearing my crinkly gold shirt which was knotted up under my pillow--sounds weird but it's very pretty. It's humid so I have wild hair--fits with the strange woman inside the balloon house! Very many of the Makers are quite young Gizmodo types but they get a kick out of me as I am a sort of anomaly to them being a parental generation but not like a parent. Am gonna have fun. Keep your fingers crossed! Tess the balloon lady

SATURDAY NIGHT:  I have no pictures to show. I am getting there very early tomorrow to shoot my booth and the environs, and later that morning when my brother gets there will get to wander FINALLY to the outside booths. I have to come and go fast because today we got hammered with wall to wall people and my booth covered with balloons is a kid magnet...Tomorrow I will set up ALL of the toy theaters farther away from the front with signs asking not to touch anything. I may actually laminate a few of the characters but the kids really can't handle them because a child has a sense of ownership the minute they have something in their hands.  But they do love how the toy theaters look, and I have had maybe 100 of my business cards taken. Tomorrow, with temperatures down into the low 70's, I expect a massive crush! My coloring pages were also a big hit. I hung a lot of my drawings around on clothespins thanks to the gridwall panels I bought.

The staff there is mostly volunteer and extremely helpful. Make Magazine has organized many of these massive affairs, and while they started out expecting 300 exhibitors we reached 500 booths by the time we opened today! When you see the map I will get tomorrow, you won't believe how massive it is. And my booth is totally unique in that it is really about kids, and is a really old fashioned sort of style. But some of the more tech types have loved looking at the miniatures and how I created an atmosphere with my little LED lights. Am still tired and will hit the sack soon. I was up at 5 am and printed solid until I left to get up there at 8:30. It's a 45 minute cab ride, and even longer on the subway.

Sounds like Tess is having an amazing experience - lots of hard work, but lots of great exposure for toy theatre in a major venue, and that's a GOOD thing! I look forward to seeing more later today...