Great Small Works, a New York-based performance collective, recently organized the first virtual Toy Theatre Festival, providing an online platform for international artists who responded to an open call.
And boy, did they respond! In a matter of just days - sometimes hours - performers from around the world stepped up to volunteer performances in the time of our mutual pandemic quarantines.
John Bell (Great Small Works) hosts the festival with two alternating puppets designed by Isaac Bell.
The result has been magical! The first two evenings were last month, and the next two are later this week and early next week. I invite you to come watch, to join in, LIVE, as amazing small stage productions are streamed out to the world...
Benjamin Pollock's Toyshop will be hosting an Easter Instagram Exhibition, posted over the weekend starting at 3:00pm (GMT) Friday 10th April on Instagram @benjamin_pollocks_toyshop
The full exhibition will be posted on Facebook on Easter Monday 13th April
Facebook.com/BenjaminPollocksToyshop
And will also be posted to the Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop website.
Day 1: Thursday, April 2, 2020 @ 7:30 - 9:00pm EDT Day 2: Friday, April 3, 2020 @ 7:30 - 9:00pm EDT
Toy Theater practitioners from around the world will offer original (very) short shows. From the intimacy of the Victorian parlor to the intimacy of your personal viewing device, puppeteers transform the traditional form to reach out during these days of separation. Some of the lineup of performers: Dirk and Barbara Reimers, Papiertheater Polidor (Germany)
Modern Times Theater (East Hardwick, VT)
Great Small Works/Stephen Kaplin (Jackson Heights, NY)
Dan Van Allen (Baltimore, MD)
Dan Hurlin (NYC and Hawley, PA)
Ira Karp and Peter Schumann (Glover, VT)
Katherine Fahey (Baltimore, MD)
Katya Popova (Boston, MA)
Eli Nixon and Ida Marcus (Providence, RI)
Lindsay McCaw (Detroit, MI)
Tianding He, Yiru Chen, Ge Gao, An Hua (NY, NJ and Shanghai)
Laurie McCants (Bloomsburg, PA)
Amelia Castillo (Santiago, Chile, via Glover, VT)
Isabel Bazan and Mauricio Martinez (Mexico City)
Joshua Krugman (Glover, VT)
Kate Brehm (Brooklyn, NY)
Birthe Thiel, Theatre Mont d'Hiver (Germany)
Miss Pussycat and Quintron (New Orleans, LA)
Alissa Hunnicutt (North Hollywood, CA)
Michael and Valerie Nelson (Vallejo, CA)......and many, many more!
“Exquisitely rendered….beautifully constructed.”
– Los Angeles Times
"A remarkable achievement of multimedia artistry, the spellbinding 69ºS. is like nothing you've ever seen before.”
– Backstage
“Imagine the laboratory of a Victorian-age mad genius, and you’d probably come up with something like the Tribeca apartment of…Erik Sanko.”
– Village Voice
Phantom Limb Company’s 69 Degrees South may be first production staged at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival to require a sojourn in Antarctica to make aural recordings. The company’s principals, set designer Jessica Grindstaff and puppeteer Erik Sanko, received a National Science Foundation Artists and Writers grant to capture the sounds of ice cracking, wind shearing, and feet trudging through the snow—all part of their layered spectacle opening April 28 2020, running through May 3rd.
But 69 Degrees South—which chronicles Ernest Shackleton’s almost doomed 1914 Antarctic expedition—is no National Geographic special: It includes puppets and live dancers, 28-foot-tall moving iceberg sculptures, NASA satellite imagery, and a minimalist score by the Kronos Quartet, along with Sanko’s legendary downtown noise-rock band Skeleton Key creating its own rather maximalist cacophony. “We’re big fans of letting images evoke meaning,” says Grindstaff, who, along with Sanko, hopes to make one of history’s greatest adventures resonate deeply—and wordlessly—for a contemporary audience.
Take a peek into Blair's bizarre and beautiful world. In a remote corner of New Zealand's South Island, tucked away among the last remaining tracts of native forest, lies a little-known place of wonder. It is the life's work and extraordinary creation of inventor, artist and self-confessed tinkerer, Blair Somerville.
For over twenty years Blair has single-handedly owned, operated and ceaselessly expanded the Lost Gypsy Gallery, his wonderland of homegrown wizardry and a playground for kids and adults alike. Using only recycled materials, Blair takes DIY to artistic extremes. His creations are ingenious, interactive, and often hilariously impractical. They take many shapes and forms and share an uncanny ability to amaze, entertain and inspire.
Art and entertainment don't need to be expensive. Sometimes the most fascinating and wonderful things come from the most peculiar places.
Blair Somerville lives in the remote town of Papatowai, on the South Island of New Zealand. He uses found materials and other curious objects which he re-purposes into magical moving artworks.
Blair realized early on that he didn't need a lot to live, and that money and material possessions were not important. Instead he has chosen to value happiness, creativity, and well-being.
__________
If you'd like to visit Blair, please note that he is open summers only, November - April, 10am to 5pm. Closed Wednesdays
A listing of 16 different late 19th-century "Boy's Own Panoramas" for home entertainment, from H. G. Clarke and Co. in London. These 19th-century crankies include moving panoramas about John Gilpin, Dick Turpin, Punchinello, Punch and Judy, and views of the Thames embankment, the Oxford and Cambridge boat race, and a state procession with Queen Victoria. From the back of a racist galanty (shadow figure) show script inspired by Christy's Minstrels (an American blackface minstrel group which toured in England from 1857 to the turn of the century). Thanks Matthew Isaac Cohen for sharing this source.
Pontine Theatre’s “A New England Christmas” is a brimming cup of holiday magic and cheer. Two people on a largely blank stage act out two intriguing short stories with minimal props in an easy, designed manner that transfixes their listeners. It’s rare so little offers so much. This year, co-Artistic Directors and the company’s sole actors Marguerite Mathews and Greg Gathers adapted two short stories for their holiday fare: “A Neighbor’s Landmark,” by Sarah Orne Jewett, and “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” by Dylan Thomas. The most outstanding aspect of Mathews and Gathers work is its deliberateness. Every move is designed for effect, every gesticulation is poignant and graceful. Every prop, toy element and sound used is calculated for effect. They are masters of their art. They begin each piece with an informal setup that contains a bit of information about the author, their style, and the origin of the selection. The stage backdrop is a black curtain. The props are a small table, set a few feet before another, where the story’s backdrops are placed. Beneath both, hidden away, is a collection of small toy theater pieces and a handful of props. That’s it, a few visuals, two people and a lot of talent that bring a pair of entirely different stories to life. “Landmark,” set in Maine, is about a struggle to preserve two majestic, old pine trees. The trees’ owner is offered a tempting price for their lumber and leans toward felling them. His decision divides his family and sets his neighbors against him. In the synopsis, not so interesting, in the hands of Pontine, the tale very much is.
The piece is blissfully colored by the rich language and dialogue of Orne Jewett, who had an astute ear for Down Maine dialect. The performers’ delivery demonstrates an equally canny ear. The sound alone is captivating. Coupled with Mathews and Gathers usual flawless performance, it’s simply mesmerizing. The structure of the piece is like a well-arranged musician’s set. Alone on stage with few props, they keep it interesting with their usual use of toy theater characters, mixed with performances by the actors without their aid, and the marriage of action between both. One of the funniest moments is when the two “row the boat.” It’s most poignant - at a suspenseful juncture - has the pair turning pages of an over-sized book, advancing the story in silence through its illustrations. “Child in Wales” is equally captivating. It’s a sweet, humorous story, told with fewer props still, but is no less fascinating for it. This one offers even more of the picturesque movement of the two performers, who take you back to childhood and Christmas through the eyes of a child. Pontine’s “A New England Christmas” is storytelling at its best. It’s a gentle, bewitching hour and a half, offering something different for the holiday. This is definitely worth your precious, discretionary time. ___________
WHERE & WHEN: Pontine Theatre November 29 - December 8, 2019 Fridays 7pm, Saturdays 3pm, Sundays 2pm
a confused jumble or medley of things.
"a glorious gallimaufry of childhood perceptions"
The 14 artists participating in A Pollock’s Gallimaufry have been offered unprecedented access to the Museum’s international array of toys, dolls, puppets, games, gadgets, and the paper theatres for which it is best known, as well as its archive of original engraved copper plates used in the production of those theatres. The resulting pieces, installed as stand-alone displays and interventions across the Museum, span a variety of approaches, processes and media.
A Pollock’s Gallimaufry will be a month long event showing works by contemporary artists working in a variety of crafts and media inspired by the unique, mostly Victorian, collection at the two historic buildings on the corner of Scala Street and Whitfield Street.
Jack Fawdry, whose great grandmother founded the museum, is curating the exhibition and has gathered the artists together to produce the works.
“It’s quite exciting because the toy theatre has had a turbulent past and it almost disappeared completely,” says Fawdry who is an accomplished artist and printmaker.
“Mr Pollock was the last great publisher of toy theatres, then he went out of business. After the Second World War Britain started to modernise and change and its Victorian past was slightly left behind.
“So that’s when Marguerite, my great grandma, comes in and starts the museum in homage to toy theatres,” he says.
The 2nd Annual Winnipeg Crankie Festival, taking place at Crescent Fort Rouge United Church, NOVEMBER 8-10th, 2019 promises to expand on the inaugural edition as a new, interactive and participatory festival, where audience members can immerse themselves in music and art; on and off stage.
We are honoured to dedicate this year's festival to Canadian Folk Music Pioneer, Mitch Podolak.
To find out more, visit the festival website here, or check out the poster, below...
