Student Production: Shakespeare Film Adaptation

Anglia Ruskin University's Film & Television program students created this toy theatre trailer recently. They shared with me that, "...We are going to release a very different version very soon!"

I look forward to it!

The Shackleford Project: Climate Change as Drama

"An entrancing production. For sheer power to haunt the imagination…it’s hard to picture anything surpassing 69°S.” - The Boston Globe

Phantom Limb: 69˚S. from EMPAC @ Rensselaer on Vimeo.

“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.

The Mushroom Hunters

Peeping Tom: Hand-built Miniature Interiors

Second Annual Winnipeg Crankie Festival

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...

Coming in July: The Smallest Show on Earth!

Coming up next month in July: The Geisel Library's annual Paper Theatre Festival, aka

..."the Smallest Show on Earth"!

Every year, the UC San Diego Library hosts a Paper Theatre Festival, celebrating an art form with roots in Victorian Era Europe. Paper theatres, also known as toy theatres, were used to promote productions. They were printed on paperboard sheets and sold as kits at the concession stand of an opera house, playhouse, or vaudeville theater. The kits were then assembled at home and plays were performed for family members and guests, sometimes with live musical accompaniment. The theaters gradually declined in popularity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but have enjoyed a resurgence in interest in recent years among many puppeteers, filmmakers, theater historians, and hobbyists. Presently, there are numerous international paper theater festivals throughout the Americas and Europe, as well as several museums.

Watch this short documentary celebrating paper theatre filmed by UCSD-TV for the Library’s Channel!

Shadow Smash Hit: Feathers of Fire

Feathers of Fire: A Persian Epic is a visually breathtaking cinematic shadow play for all ages, created and directed by Hamid Rahmanian, a 2014 Guggenheim fellowship-winning filmmaker/visual artist. The play unfolds an action-packed magical tale of star-crossed lovers from the 10th-century Persian epic Shahnameh (‘The Book of Kings’)

Maker Spotlight: Maggie Rudy & Mouseland

Recently, I discovered a wonderful article about  Maker Maggie Rudy, who invited us into her studio where all the magic happens for Mouseland...

Artist & Author, Maggie Rudy

Maggie’s fascination with mice began in the third grade, when her family moved to Lancaster, England, where her father, a biologist, had a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in physiology. She awoke from her “baby stupor” to an English aesthetic that would remain hugely influential in her life: hedgerows, gypsy carts, and a field trip to the home of Beatrix Potter. From a shop in Lancaster, the Rudy household acquired some mice made of felt. She and sisters Susy and Annie dressed them and placed them in a variety of settings. The “rapture of the tiny” that she celebrated in childhood has never left her.
- Rapture of the Tiny

The short film below is fun to watch, where Maggie lets us in to her studio, and shows us a few of her secrets on how she makes the magic happen!


Currently, Maggie has a traveling diorama touring the US, as shown below. Be sure and check it out if you can, when it comes near you!

The Chelm Legend: Fool Moon

A theatrical adaptation based on the humorous stories of Chelem and Eastern European Jewish folklore. Leimech and Laizer set out on an adventure to find a new moon for the town of Chelem to replace the one that was stolen.

The plot unfolds via a pop-up book, combined with puppets and shadows and incorporating original klezmer...



Reviews:

Galia Levy Grad has created a world of magic and beauty using the simplest, most minimalist techniques: the entire drama materializes out of a pop-up picture book. The visibility of the theatrical mechanism to the audience only serves to enhance the magic and liveliness of the two-dimensional figures. Galia has created exhilarating theatrical moments by means of inventive, aesthetic and highly imaginative elements. 

 - Comments by Judges’ Panel, 22nd Haifa International Children's Theatre Festival, 2012

A brilliant adaptation of the Chelm stories for paper theater, created jointly by Naomi Yoeli and Galia Levy Grad. (The latter is also the narrator and manipulates the characters, engaging in lively dialogue with them.) It’s impossible not to fall in love with Levy Grad, who brings to life the townspeople made of beautifully decorated papercuts; they appear, in fact, from an old book of tales, like pop-up postcards. The show reminds us of the true magic of theater and is an extraordinary glimpse at some wonderful stories from Jewish culture.

- Merav Yudilovitch, Ynet

Secret Life of Cats

On December 2nd, at the Sala CCB (Performing Arts Center) in Mexico City,  the company Huellas en Venus Teatro premiered a new toy theater show - "About the Secret Life of Cats". It will be performed there until March 2018, and after that they hope to travel it round the country.

Watch the creative process come alive, as the company brings this production to life!



A behind-the-scenes trailer for the new toy theatre production (in Spanish):



From an recent interview of the company:

The production, in paper theater format,  written by Gerardo Castillo and directed by Mauricio Martínez Martínez, tells a story that will uncover a legend about relationships between cats and humans. 

In this world full of magical and mysterious places, the audience will be able to meet characters like Lorenza, the little kitten of colossal proportions, Timotea, the colorful flying kitty and his loyal friend Rodolfo, the acrobat mouse, and, of course, the daring Sir Thomas Malory Tapioca.

The story arises from the need to explore the thousand-year-old figure of the cat, which has inspired from heroic legends to tales of terror. With a sense of humor, the project is immersed in its amazing stories and vicissitudes, the same that happens on the margin of the daily worries of the human beings. 

Miguel Ángel Morales, Mauricio Martínez Martínez and Ana Cordelia Aldama make up the cast of this work that proposes the fusion of paper theater with a contemporary expressiveness, in which the actors use the resource of oral narration, with masks and manipulation of objects.

That sounds amazing!  I hope anyone in Mexico who has the chance, definitely checks out this fantastic production...

Driveway Follies

There is a very special place in Oakland, California, where a very special program is performed every October 30th and 31st.  It all started with an idea from the mind of Larry Schmidt...



Below are some highlights from the show - excerpts that demonstrate the sharpness of wit,  skill of puppetry, and comic brilliance - that you'll be sure to enjoy.  First up, Mysterious Mose, followed by, The Skeleton and the Roundabout, and finally, Hanky Pank's T'ain't No Sin! Check them out...

Maker Spotlight: Studio Schaapman & Mouse Mansion!

Studio Schaapman is a family business, consisting of Karina Schaapman and her children, Tom, Ian, Manita, and Lili. They are the creators of the children’s book series, Mouse Mansion (translated into 25 languages).



In the books, they use detailed miniature settings they build themselves that can now be admired at their Amsterdam Muizenhuis (or Mousehouse) shop. At the back of the shop is their studio where they create their mouse worlds, and where visitors can look inside. People often ask questions about the inspiration, design, and construction of the mouse mansions.



In the Mouse Mansion shop & studio you can:

• Marvel at the Mouse Mansion sets built for the books, including the harbor, funfair, circus, and theatre
• See how they are built and ask the makers questions
• Listen to audio books and read all the Mouse Mansion books
• Browse around the shop for Mouse Mansion goodies
• Children can color while parents can take a seat to read to their child

Studio Schaapman even provides video tutorials for those who want to build their own mouse houses!

Rebel Red & The Wolf

Red encounters the Wolf

Joe Gladwin

Presents

REBEL RED & THE WOLF

Sunday, January 8, 2017
[See Details by clicking on poster on the right]

Rebel Red lives with her mum Penny and her dad Will  in the a sleepy country village. Penny runs the community shop, Will is the forest ranger. Family life is disrupted when Granny Bake-Off’s herbal medicines get mixed up, and Grandpa Jack spots a huge wolf near their home...

This is a family show adapted by Joe Gladwin from the traditional LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD story

Help arrives in the nick of time!

Toy Theatre Aficionado: Ulrich Chmel

A wonderful video of a toy theatre production by Ulrich Chmel of Vienna, Austria...

Here we see Ulrich with a nifty idea - a wearable toy theatre!  He appears to be doing some audio effects with a tambourine/drum and singing.  I think he is doing a demonstration of toy theatre at a school, from the context on his blog I found this image at.  It is all in German, and not very friendly to translation programs.

We find toy theatre enthusiasts around the world.  It is fun to meet others who love the same thing we do, even if all we can do and smile and nod!

Great Small Works: NEW SHOW!

We are delighted to announce that La MaMa, in association with Great Small Works, presents our newest show,  

Muntergang and Other Cheerful Downfalls

From October 28th through November 6th, 2016.

Please come, invite your friends, and support this exciting project!

Did we say we are delighted?

Yes, indeed!

And we are also struggling to find the funds to make these performances possible. Any donation will go a long way toward paying our artists -- keeping flavorful modernist Yiddish alive! Asking useful questions in tough times! Laughing at jokes our ancestors laughed at (still funny and in translation!) 
       

WE THANK YOU!

Great Small Works revisits the work of radical 20th-century New York City puppeteers Zuni Maud and Yosl Cutler. In a bilingual Yiddish-English play that uses Maud and Cutler's satirical puppet scripts and original graphics, together with Great Small Works' own puppets and projections, and appearances by demented dybbuks and Mae West, Muntergang is a meditation on historical models for changing power relationships.

Created in collaboration with the archive of the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research by Great Small Works members John Bell, Trudi Cohen, Stephen Kaplin, Jenny Romaine and Roberto Rossi.

With puppeteers Joseph Therrien and Sam Wilson

Music by Jessica Lurie and Hannah Temple

Lights by Meredith Holch; sound by Akeyjoa Ando

Script by Jenny Romaine

Nourish your queer political desire today. Enjoy this limitless non-normalized,  very open utopian vision of what's possible...

Buy tickets here

Make a donation here

West End Live: Pollock's Life-Size Alice!

As they do every year, Pollock's Toy Shop has set up a stage right along with the big guys they were originally modeled after (pun intended) at West End Live! all this weekend.

On their Instagram, they posted that, "We'll be down at Trafalgar Square all weekend with our giant life size #AliceinWonderland extravaganza - come and be photographed down the rabbit hole..."

The Mad Hatter strikes a pose during a break in the tea party...
[Source:  Benjamin Pollock's Toyshop Instagram]

"I'll be 'mother', shall I?" asks the Mad Hatter...
[Source:  Benjamin Pollock's Toyshop Instagram]

Crankies!

What exactly is a...crankie?

It's a panoramic scene, rolled up like an open scroll on two spindles, that are hand-cranked so that it scrolls across a backlit "viewing screen".



An example of a crankie, by the talented Katherine Fahey; I can hardly wait to see her recent work for an upcoming film, coming out in 2016.  According to Katherine, It will be a film about "...a traveling story teller, who uses a crankie to tell the story of the American revolution through 6 different people who lived through it.  Among them, a housewife, a native american man, and an African american man.  These stories are taken from actual oral histories of people who lived at the time."  Sounds amazing, and it will be a GIANT crankie, the biggest she's ever made!

A still from the upcoming 2016 film (as yet unnamed), featuring a giant crankie, made by Katherine Fahey...

To see more crankies, go to the Crankie Factory!

The Ghastly Dreadfuls: Vaudeville Puppet Theatre

An amazing show called "The Ghastly Dreadfuls:  Raising Spirits" is being performed right now, through October 31st, at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia.

Reporters...recently had the pleasure of attending a performance of the award-winning The Ghastly Dreadfuls, and were astounded by the beautiful mixture of live music and dance combined with incredible elaborate puppet shorts. From the set design to the choreography, this production proved to be one of the most cleverly crafted and executed theater sets this reporter has seen in recent years. 

A well rounded production introduced the audience to the Dreadful Family of ghouls who rise from the grave during this time of year and take human form. Rising from the dead, it seems, involves a lot of wonderful showmanship and musicianship in Victorian inspired costuming. Each of the Dreadful is introduced in turn by the ring master of this frightful circus, Simply Dreadful. 

The show continues by interspersing vaudeville styles shows with a selection of puppet vignettes representing puppet stories from around the globe. Some of the vignettes include songs such as the opener, “La Petite Vampyr,” and others work through voice over or dramatization, such as the compelling “11:59″. Not one of the pieces or songs fell flat. In a very real way, this production combined the best of early 20th century live theater with the best of modern puppetry.           

- Ghastly Dreadfuls Sell Out at Center for Puppetry Arts  

Lady Dreadful (Reay Kaplan)

Dapperly Dreadful (Bryan Mercer)

Dizzily Dreadful (Scott E. DePoy)

Shockingly Dreadful (Spencer G. Stephens)

Daftly Dreadful (Kristin Haverty)

Catly Dreadful (Jason von Hinezmeyer)

Simply Dreadful (Jon Ludwig)

Above and below - Cast: Scott DePoy, Kristin Haverty, Reay Kaplan, Jon Ludwig, Spencer G. Stephens, Bryan Mercer, Jason von Hinezmeyer

All portraits by Clay Walker

Depict-O-Mat: Toy Theatre "Photo Booth"

Depict-O-Mat Kickstarter video from Depict-O-Mat on Vimeo.
A toy theatre-related fundraiser needs your help.  Yes, you!  I just got done donating $15 to them. They need about $400 more to reach their goal.  Let's help them get there!  [Read how, below...]

Created for event entertainment, Depict-O-Mat is modeled after a vintage photo booth and dispenses short, personalized stories.

Depict-O-Mat is a live machine that tells visual stories ABOUT you and STARRING you!

Combining nostalgia, improvisation and toy theater, Depict-O-Mat is a unique experience that will soon be available to rent for special events. It is modeled after the original photo booths. Imagine entering Depict-O-Mat, having a unique experience interacting with our Advanced Depict-O-Mat Technology, stepping out and getting to watch a tiny show inspired by you - starring YOU - that others get to enjoy!


You can help by providing a donation to our fundraising campaign.  Go here, and see what neat 'thank you' gifts you can receive with your gift...

Cat, Mouse with a Brick, and Cop: The Eternal Triangle

In the UK in 1996, a three-minute pilot was created in hopes of launching a new Krazy Kat cartoon series.  It was directed by Derek Mogford and produced by Spitting Image Productions.

Krazy Kat had been animated often before, and always in long-running and successful series. There were theatrical Krazy Kat cartoons in some form or another running from 1916 to the end of the thirties, and in the sixties the character was brought back for a television series.

So what makes this 1996 Krazy Kat cartoon so interesting if the strip has been animated so many times before? The difference is that, apart from being British, was that it was the first (and so far only) time the characters of Krazy Kat had been brought to life using stop-motion animation. The pilot was produced by Spitting Image Productions and directed by Derek Mogford, an animator who had previously directed several stop-motion children shows including Postman Pat and Bertha.

Sadly, the pilot was never aired and did not lead to a series.

- Credit: Smart Than the Average!