Theatre Design Invitational

Back in January, an invitational was sent out to design toy theatres. One of the many ongoing participants has shared.

Although these designers normally do more collage than theatre design, many of them are coming along quite nicely...Bravo!

Footlights Update

Last summer, Paul Weighell from Pollock's Toy Museum began machining his own toy theatre footlight shades. He eventually kindly offered to do the same for my theatre.

Here they are, in place. (I used a dollhouse lighting system for my wiring kit - no dimmer, very simple, but quite challenging enough for my first attempt; the bulbs were provided by Ann Neff when she built my theatre, which are 'grain of wheat' types...)

NOTE: I have traditional paper curtains on sheet metal backing to use, but also opted to have Ann include a roll-up curtain rod for which I made the red velvet curtain with beading you see here...

LA Toy Theatre Festival

For those of you lucky enough to be in the Los Angeles area, there is a toy theatre festival coming up in June of this year...

New Dramatis Personae Catalogue!

Dramatis Personae Booksellers have issued their newest catalogue.

Always a great treat, these "leading international dealers in antiquarian books, ephemera, and autographs specializing in 18th- and 19th-century performing arts and popular amusements" have a great variety that will appeal to toy theatre enthusiasts.

You can mail order through them directly, or you can see them at one of these fairs coming up this spring and summer in the US and UK both...

Lighting Adventures

From Ann & George Neff:

We searched all over last April to get short strings of miniature lights. Not easy. I think we ended up with 50's in red, yellow and blue. We wanted to have lights of different colors that we could dim up and down in various combinations. (George would really have loved to have his own complete theatre so he could play with lighting.)

For our big size puppets, we have lots of lights and a big programmable dimmer box. But we needed something simple and transportable. So we asked our electrician to make us up a box. You can see it in the picture with Harry's small computer speaker on top. (Back home, we discovered the charge for making that simple box was over $400! I gotta get some confidence in doing simple electrical wiring.)

But we discovered that the purchased blue lights gave off too little light. So using a larger string, we set about coloring a string of white lights blue to get a "gloomy look" inside the crypt. We located some coloring designed just for that - coloring stage light bulbs. And there sat George, dipping and hanging the bulbs up on a wooden clothes rack to dry.

Voila! We looped the blue lights over the top on a wire mesh screen. And everything was fine. We did the show several times for friends. THEN, as we were packing up on a Sunday night, for the trip the following day, the blue lights just stopped working!!!!!! No fuse blown, other lights fine, circuit was okay. PANIC. I said to George, just pack it up we'll call the company in the morning and see what they say. And then I read that little white paper that comes with most Christmas lights, and it said, "Do not mount on or near metal". Aha! Our metal grid most have shorted out the string! George plugged the blue lights directly in the wall, and they WORKED.

So now the problem was to find a non-metallic grid in only a couple of hours. One of our building contractors was driving us to the airport, so we called him, and he dropped off some rubber boat deck grid, which is what you see in the photo. Things were a bit tense until we set up in Holland, because we really had no idea if this would work, but thanks perhaps to the puppet gods, magic happened and we had "gloomy blue" lights from the top. (We used the plastic grids that the Christmas lights come in, cut up, to hold the series of red, yellow and white lights that go across the upper bars.)

Unfortunately, I did forget to turn up the footlights (white) on one scene, and one of the members of the audience (a toy theatre VIP) complained that the show was underlit. One has to be quite careful in toy theatre. Different folks hold on strongly to different standards. If you look at the Sennewald photos, you will see that Ted Hawkins, particularly, has oodles of regular lights in his set up.

How much light do you get out of your set-up? (Low but very atmospheric!)

I am anxious to see what your theatre looks like now! (I shall post new pics of it after I paint it - see next question...) Did you paint it black? (I'm about to...)

How exciting! Do the lights dim? (No) Or just go on and off? (Yes) Did you put lights anywhere else? (I intend to but was not sure which way I want to go...yet)

How is the glued-on proscenium holding up? (Very well indeed...) Which glue did you end up using? (I used PVC from Gamblin - it has worked amazingly well, no wrinkling, no cracking, no pealing - I highly recommend it...The Gamblin site has much to recommend about this PVC:

"Diluted with distilled water, PVA size is a contemporary size for fabric support. Conservation scientists recommend painters use neutral pH PVA size on linen and canvas instead of rabbit skin glue. PVA provides a good size layer that seals the fabric but does not re-absorb atmospheric moisture, swell and shrink like rabbit skin glue does. There are hundreds of different formulae of PVA. We acknowledge and appreciate the research of the Canadian Conservation Institute that helps painters and conservators identify the best PVA to use. Gamblin PVA Size is made from PVA that has a neutral pH and does not yellow. It also retains its flexibility and does not emit harmful volatiles.")

Have you performed or even practiced yet? (No) Do your grooves work? (Yes) Ours, out of foam core, do. Did you get the old fashioned sliders for the flat side? (I have copper rod from a welding store that will work great for making these slides...) George wants to try that for our next show.

Do you take your theatre up and down often? (not often, but I have several times and it works smooth as silk...) Is it really a bother? (not at all...)

Teaser

I had to smile a big one when this arrived moments ago. Such an imaginative first response from the new site's owner has definitely got me hooked!

Her followup explains a teaser of what we will eventually see...

New Toy Theatre Website

I've been watching this website for awhile now. It looks promising, and I'm currently attempting contact with the site's creator, Kate Irvine. I'll keep you posted...

"Mr. Punch, why don't you steal the sausages?"

New 'Tiny' Performances

During March, the Tiny Ninja Theatre Company present toy theatre productions including a new one for children of all ages based on Treasure Island!

Here's the scoop from TNT themselves...

Sundays, March 16, 23, and 30 at 1:30 p.m.

Tiny Ninja Theater presents Treasure Island
The Bowery Poetry Club
308 Bowery, foot of First Street, between Houston & Bleecker in Manhattan
(F train to Second Ave, or 6 train to Bleecker)
All tickets $10, available for sale at the door.

Monday, March 31 at 7:30 p.m.
Tiny Ninja Theater presents MACBETH
The D-Lounge
101 East 15th Street, just east of Union Square in Manhattan
(L, N, Q, R, W, 4, 5, 6 trains to 14th St-Union Square)
All tickets $20, available for sale at the door.

Since the dawn of time humanity has struggled with certain fundamental questions:
- What is the meaning of life?
- What is the sound of one hand clapping?
- If you're driving at the speed of light and you turn on the headlights, what happens?
And, most fundamentally of all:
- Who's the coolest: Ninjas or Pirates?
(We hope to answer at least one of these questions at the show!)

Tiny Ninja Theater, best known for its well-traveled productions of Shakespearian tragedies performed by inch-high plastic ninjas and assorted dime-store figures now gingerly wades into the muddy waters of novel adaptation to bring to the stage an original telling of the Robert Louis Stevenson classic Treasure Island.

Best for ages 6 - 106. Older audiences may also enjoy.
Adults without children welcome too.

Then, on the very last day of March, our now-classic rendition of the Scottish Play will return to downtown Manhattan for one night only. (With hopes of future shows to come.)

GWS Does it Again...

I promised more information, and here it is...

The 8th International Toy Theatre Festival will be presented by Great Small Works May 23-June 1, 2008. It will be held at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York.

It's one of the largest and most comprehensive toy theatre festivals in the world. If you have the chance to go, be sure and let us know what you think. I'd love to hear back from attendees!

"[Great Small Works has] breathed new, pointed life into the form of toy theater." - Ross Wetzsteon of The Village Voice

Little Theatre of Disease

Only a few more days until an exhibition closes (with a special event - see below).

What's so fascinating about this is where the exhibition and events are being held, and how toy theatre has been used within them.

I love seeing toy theatre used in innovative and exciting ways such as this!

From Daniel Baker comes this delightful reminder:

The Little Theatre of Disease and Desire

On Saturday the 23rd of February, between 2 and 5pm

At the Old Operating Theatre, Museum, and Herb Garret
9a St. Thomas's Street, Southwark, London, SE1 9RY

There will be a workshop for young people, screenings of The Simbysial Case-projected in the Operating Theatre, and new shorter works, that develop the 'paper theatre' construct in different directions.

About the exhibition:

The Little Theatre of Disease and Desire is a new project by artist Daniel Baker, Artist in Residence at The Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret. The project centres on a paper model theatre, a contemporary version of the toy theatres that were popular during the 18th and early 19th Century in Europe.

Daniel Baker’s theatre has been built to display a series of scenes from a play entitled The Simbysial Case. The story of the play is the story of a disease. The central character is The Patient, a character called The Doctor often accompanies him, and together they try to uncover the nature of the strange illness that The Patient is suffering. The narrative is a journey of discovery: a voyage of mystery and danger that never leaves The Patient’s room. On this journey he meets a cast of unusual characters such as The Two Headed Leech, The Examinator, The Tiny Surgeon, and The Flock of Bloodied Aprons.

Red Moon

"Once Upon a Time tells a tale of friendship, villainy, dreams, and heroism that unfolds in an elaborately crafted toy theater..."

Paper Hat Mystery - SOLVED!

I was wondering the other day why toy theatre performers sometimes wear paper hats. I assumed it was a tradition of some sort, but I didn't know the details. I had a hard time of it finding the answer, but I was persistent, and finally tracked the information below down. Now, it makes perfect sense!!


In The Tenniel Illustrations to the "Alice" Books (Ohio State UP, 1985), p. 18, Michael Hancher mentions several of Tenniel's cartoons for Punch that featured paper hats for workmen (Ref:July-Dec. 1853, p. 169; 6 April 1861; 22 June 1861; 5 Sept. 1863; 4 Aug. 1866)

In the 19th century, square or box-like paper hats were worn in a number of trades: by carpenters and stone masons in particular, but there are references to their use in other trades, as well. Tenniel's Carpenter does in fact wear a carpenter's hat (which seems to have been folded in a different way from any printers' hat I'm familiar with: note the double diagonal creases, characteristic of the former but not the latter). - Terry Belanger, University of Virginia

"...paper hats were made and worn by carpenters, printers, and other artisans to keep sawdust etc. out of their hair..." - From The Chronicle of the Early American Industries Association, Nov/Dec 2003, PAPER HATS

Even later, they were known..."Paper hats were once as common in a pressroom as ink..."

New Talent

I discovered some really FUN (not to mention incredibly talented) artists who are using the medium of paper to make some VERY fun creations, including some that include elements of toy theatre and/or puppetry...

Toy Theatre within Performance

Back in 2005, I did an interview where this guy was mentioned; now I come across a mention online that he'll be performing a rare work, and it involves toy theatre in the production...

Master puppeteer Blair Thomas performs Buster Keaton’s Stroll, a surrealistic, dark and graphic text by Lorca. Thomas creates a one-man band spectacle staged in a giant toy theater with functioning low brass instruments woven into the proscenium.

For those lucky enough to live in or near Chicago, it will be performed twice over the next week or so; see here for more information...

A Very Special Performance

...and speaking of Horatio Blood, here he is with Barry Clarke performing at full tilt during a December 14, 2006 event for the Society for Theatre Research.

From the Society's newsletter, it says this about that event:

A packed-to-capacity audience at the Art Workers Guild Hall in London's Queen Anne Square witnessed a full supporting cast of singers, led by MD., Oliver Davies, perform a reconstruction for toy theatre of one of the earliest British full-scale pantomimes, the 200 year-old Covent Garden production 'Harlequin and Mother Goose'.

This was the Society's first Maggie Collins Lecture and was dedicated to George Speaight, a Society Vice-President and toy theatre enthusiast who died earlier in the year.

Can anyone tell me why they are wearing those square paper hats?

Horatio Reflects on Pollock's 2004

Thankfully, as we know, the demise of the museum did NOT happen, but back in 2004, there were dark days...

MUSEUMS A farewell to Pollock's
By Vera Rule

Went today to say goodbye to Pollock's Toy Museum. Not that I quite believe it will close forever on the last day of March, although the lease expires then, and the trustees haven't been able to negotiate an extension to it or a price for the freehold of the wonky pair of houses at the corner of Scala Street in Fitzrovia, where it has spread up and down since 1969. (It fled Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, when developers leaned on the tenements where it was set up in 1956). But Horatio Blood, loyal servant of Pollock's, the thundering implausibility of whose name sounds like a penny-book hero - Handsome Henry of the Fighting Belvedere¹ - was down in its basement beginning the long pack; and he says that unless they can find a low-rent empty building, or an angel, they're out of here with nowhere to go. They can't believe it either, not when there are house- full notices at the Soane Museum, currently showing Pollock's first joint venture about the Regency toy theatre.

Horatio makes tea, just enough room for the mugs on the basement table between a tin tank and a toy globe. There he was in course of arrangement of the glass case in the doll room, with a big bust of the founder Marguerite Fawdry installed under a paper lace frill, and he had to start boxing- up for homelessness instead. Now they'll have to close the rooms one at a time, work their way up the walls of the stairs, disarranging the contents of the deep frames. They can wrap and reposit the exhibits somewhere safe perhaps, and leave the website up; but this unique atticked place, evolved from donations, will go. That matters to London. Pollock's is our best embassy of the country of childhood from which we are all permanently exiled, and as shabby as diplomatic premises used to be, in fact should be. It intrigues children - it's not designed but accrued, and so exudes the magic of the random, of much past time compressed into these pastimes. And adults who visit feel the melancholy of having put away childish things.

Horatio remarks that Pollock's non-decor survives unreconstructed from Swinging London - not the orange vinyl Sixties, but the Third Great, or Pop Art, Victorian Revival; then we agree that it goes back further. It's Portobellist - that Bohemian mode of collecting emotionally charged objects from the popular past and finding surreal freedom in them displayed in free, or cheap at the time, old shop fittings. It shares with Joseph Cornell and his boxes the making of resounding connections, different for each viewer (this time I looked for the pair of wooden moles on their crawl up the gangplank of a carved Noah's ark). Also it's Orwellian in a benign sense - see his definition in The Lion and the Unicorn of a now-almost-gone England as a nation of absorbed hobbyists², not just controlling model railways but improvising quiet contentment on fourpence.

The exhibits here are all likely valuable, but I've never heard anybody in Scala Street price them or use the word "important" in that auction- house sense. There's scholarship, lightly communicated - the explanations are not didactic theses, they tell good stories with jokes ("very realistic drainpipes" notes the mini estate-agent's survey of a red and cream Thirties detached doll's house with grained front door, which I hope is a listed building since no real home of the era so well preserves the Metroland dream).

Sometimes the captions break your heart, especially now. "Freda and William", reads the luggage label attached to a much played-with Edwardian doll and her teddy bear, a devoted couple since before the First World War, "never parted". On her stiff lap a tag: "Always the same".

Gulp.

Copyright 2004 Independent Newspapers UK Limited
___________________________

¹ - Handsome Harry was created by E. Harcourt Burrage and appeared in The Boys' Standard in 1876. Handsome Harry is actually Harry Marshton, an outcast and the son of Sir Henry Marshton. (Sir Henry turns out to be Captain Brockton, a pirate who was driven to a life of crime and piracy through the evil acts of a dastard) Harry is the captain of the Belvedere and sails it around the world, having adventures in Africa, Spain, Russia and England. The Belvedere is actually owned by the Spanish Don Baptista Salvo, whose daughter Juanita (Harry's future bride) is on the Belvedere with Harry and the rest of the crew: Tom True, the first mate, William Grunt, the boatswain, Samson, the stereotypical African seaman, and Eddard Cutten, the peg-legged seadog. After capturing the Rattlesnake, a pirate ship, they take on board Ching-Ching. Wackiness, as they say, ensues.

² - ...[an]English characteristic which is so much a part of us that we barely notice it, and that is the addiction to hobbies and spare-time occupations, the privateness of English life. We are a nation of flower-lovers, but also a nation of stamp-collectors, pigeon-fanciers, amateur carpenters, coupon-snippers, darts-players, crossword-puzzle fans. All the culture that is most truly native centres round things which even when they are communal are not official - the pub, the football match, the back garden, the fireside and the ‘nice cup of tea’.

New Toy Theatre Blog

An Omaha group are going to be putting on some mighty interesting modern toy theatre productions. From what it sounds like, they are still in the rehearsal stages, but you can follow along as they progress...

Toy Theatre is Hip!

Yes, Toy Theatre Shops are going high tech - take a look...

Miniature Featured on TV Program

Ilisha from Hestia House sent out an email today about an exciting project she just finished.

Ilisha had this to say:

I wanted to let you know I have a dollhouse being featured on CBS for the "As the World Turns" Christmas special. The dollhouse is a key part of the script and it weaves through the episode as characters on the show imagine themselves in the rooms. The job was to make the rooms match/allude to the Victorian sets they were creating at the same time I was working. It was a crazy couple of weeks pulling it together, but I tried to include the work of many miniaturists so it could be a sort of collective offering to the full scale viewing public. There will be an article in "Miniature Collector" about my process of creating miniature settings for TV and the show is being listed on the National Miniatures Trust website.

You can see a video of the dollhouse and how it will be featured.


Another AMAZING creation from Hestia House!

A Holiday Treat

An amazing video, recently restored by Harry Oudekerk, of Master Puppeteer Richard Teschner's Christmas...Enjoy!

A Delightful Season's Greetings

This unique and delightful animated Christmas card came my way today from Steve Arnott and his family. Please note that to see the animation, you'll need to click on the image above and open in a separate window...

History Toy Theatre DVD Released

A new DVD has been published by Pollocks Toy Theatres, Ltd in their toy theatre series...
A Small History of Toy Theatre
Producer Steve Arnott says that the DVD includes...

...the recollections of Norman Pollock, grandson of Benjamin
Pollock, Laurie Webb, great-grandson of W G Webb and grandson of H J Webb.

Introduced by Hugo Brown, great-great-great-grandson of J K Green and Eddy Fawdry, grandson of Marguerite Fawdry the founder of Pollock's Museum, also an interview with Robert Poulter of New Model Theatre fame.

As well as rare footage of Benjamin Pollock and his family and of H J Webb making tinsel pictures. The DVD runs for 63 minutes and contains a wealth of images and firsthand accounts that bring the history of Toy Theatre alive.

He says the cost of the DVD is £10 or $20 US and shipping is £2 or $4 US. It can be ordered from Pollock's Toy Theatres Ltd one of four ways - by mail at Number 1 Scala Street, London, W1T 2HL, UK; by phone at 44 20 7636 3452 from outside the UK or 020 7636 3452 from within the UK; in person, at the Scala Street shop, for the price of £10; and with PayPal (using fenmoor_uk@yahoo.com as payee). Other DVDs in the series include, Ali Baba, Cinderella and Pollock's Museum Virtual Tour, all priced at £6.

Trompe l'oeil

Being a novice in toy theatre, I was thinking in response to another missive from Tony I received yesterday, that an argument could be made that toy theatre sheets - specifically backgrounds - are, at their best, a form of this...

I thought your readers might also be interested in the following: Apart from making model theatres I'm also a working theatrical scene painter. Part of a scene painter's training is in the theatrical illusion of trompe l'oeil which for four hundred and fifty years dominated stage design and interior decoration. It isn't used much in theatre anymore but lives on mainly in mural painting. In reverence to this art I started painting illusionistic pictures to hang on walls or use as firescreens. The subject range is quite wide but also includes some theatrical pieces. They use the classic formula of light and shade and cast shadows along with perspective. They have cut profiled edges which helps the illusion. The source of the Harlequin and Columbine characters are the illustrations of William West who is credited with the invention of 'pennny plain. tuppence coloured'. Here, I've given them a Commedia del Arte spin which is , of course, their origin.

Tony also mentioned that he's working on a website of his own, and hopes to get it online soon; I shall post the news as soon as I hear...

Designer of the Small

Earlier this week I heard from a gentleman named Tony Banfield. Some of you may be familiar with Tony's work, on the large or the small stage. I was thrilled to hear from him, and deeply impressed at his meticulously detailed miniature theatres he creates. Tony had this to say...

Dear Trish,

Louise Heard from Pollocks, Covent Garden, London suggested I contact you re the Victoria Model theatre which might be of interest to your readers. I have one on show at Pollocks and I've made 21 versions so far for clients in the UK, USA, Norway, Switzerland and Portugal.

The model is based on London's Old Vic Theatre as it would have appeared in 1871 and very much how it looks now having been restored in 1982.

My first experience of theatre was aged five or so. I recall being taken to an immense building, climbing hundreds of stairs and emerging into a fantastical palace of red plush and gilt. I was hooked - a victim of the “red and gold disease”. Way below an orchestra was tuning and footlights had set the gorgeous velvet curtain aglow. When Peter Pan flew through the air it was no surprise. In such a place anything was possible.

Next day I made a theatre out of an old shoe box. In time this was replaced by a hand-me-down Pollock’s cardboard theatre where I discovered the delights of “penny plain, tuppence coloured”. Eventually I had built a rickety theatre with fly-tower, revolving stage and fan shaped auditorium. Like so many real theatres of the day I converted mine into a cinema and then I grew up....but not quite.

Years later I had become a set and costume designer and in between design jobs decided to use my set design model making skills to make the model theatre I had always dreamed of as a child. I soon found I need new skills and entered into the astonishing world of the miniaturist model maker. In nine months I had the prototype and soon found that other kindred spirits wanted it too. Since then I have made 21 versions for clients in the UK, Europe and USA. Each model is signed and dated.

Congratulations on a fascinating website. What a find !

All the best
Tony Banfield

Tony included the following details about this particular theatre he makes (he makes others):

This is a fully working scale model based on London's famous Old Vic Theatre as it would have appeared in 1871 and very similar to the present day restorations. The decorative auditorium is housed in one of three cabinet designs. The simple version has an open front and stage area with a framework grid to support scenery. The intermediate version is the same but has a semi enclosed stage with fly tower and flying system with around 18 bars from which to hang scenery and perform magical scene changes. The full cabinet version is enclosed like a dolls house with an exterior decorated with an architectural rendering of the 1871 theatre. Optional extras include a revolving stage, working stage trap, special front curtain based on that at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden and a miniature lighting rig with around 150 lamps and a lap-top control board with up to 30 dimmers. This operates house lights, footlights and overhead battens in three colours and sets of spotlights. Each model is signed and dated and there are 21 versions so far in the UK, USA & Europe.

And I thought my lighting setup was complex!

Miniature Masterpieces

Ilisha Helfman at Hestia House has done it again.

Ilisha has many talents as an artist, but the one I appreciate the most is her love of paper. She has created three miniature toy theatres that are exquisite in their detail and design. They would be an amazing addition to anyone's collection, and a delight as a gift to a little boy or girl this Christmas...

Sita Sings the Blues

An animated classic-in-the-making, Sita Sings the Blues is heading towards the finish line. I've been watching the artist create this over the past few years, and it's been an amazing story in and of itself...

New Play Adaption: House of the Baskervilles

There is now a new Sherlock Holmes play available, a new adaption for the toy theatre of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Hound of the Baskervilles"!

The author of the play, Steve Arnott, writes:

It can be purchased from both Pollock's of Scala Street and Benjamin Pollock's Toy Shop in Covent Garden or from myself at fenmoor_uk@yahoo.com; The price is £12 in person or £15 with postage, which is about $30 US...

High-End Collectors, Attend!

"Leading international dealers in
antiquarian books, ephemera, and autographs
specializing in 18th- and 19th-century
performing arts and popular amusements"
Dramatis Personae Booksellers just posted their catalogue online today. Some very nice toy theatre related items. Not cheap, but definitely for the discriminating collector.

Only my bank account prevents me from being one, alas!

Incommunicado No More

My deep apologies to readers of this blog for my long absence over the latter part of this summer and early autumn. You can blame another obsession of mine...family history. Along with that is my ongoing research into my hometown village, which I always knew had a fascinating history, but only since starting the journey of purposeful investigation have I realize just how fascinating.

But back to the juvenile stage. Earlier this summer, a friend graciously offering to machine or mill (not sure of the correct term here) some footlight fixtures for me. This is a busy person, and the task is not easy. It is more than a kind offer, of which I am a humble beneficiary of. Recently he contacted me regarding his progress; the project if about half completed. To say I am excited would be an understatement! I have all the lighting and wiring, etc. ready and awaiting the final ingredient, his hardware, the part that will be seen by the audience. Going by his example images, they will be an amazing addition to my first toy theatre...

Puppet Rampage Diaries!

For those of us who can't be there (sigh), or for those that are and just want to remember, be sure and check out the Puppet Rampage Festival video diaries and blog! Sounds like they are having a blast in Minnesota this weekend!

Automatic Organs

Remember the sawdust? The cotton candy? And remember the carousel organ?

Hear it again...

Video Highlights from Fishmarket

Digitized Magic Lantern Slideshows

Thanks to the Victorian Peeper, I learned that there has been a project to digitize some magic lantern shows put online.

Turn off your lights, and you'll almost be able to imagine what it was like to see a magic lantern show over a century ago...

Rampage Performer

Cashore Marionettes are one of the many amazing performers at Puppet Rampage this year...

Latest Toy Theatre Newsletter

Harry O. has a new toy theatre newsletter out, and a very special - and moving, might I add - section called 1963...

More Amazing Photos from Fishmarket!

More amazing photos from the recent festival (courtesy Rainer and Marliss Sennewald)

If you would like to try translating to another language, try this...

Query Request

three_musketeers
Originally uploaded by morganthemoth

Kent from San Francisco wrote to say...

I came across your site while looking for more information about Peter Baldwin. I was just recently in London where I spent a rainy afternoon in Pollock's Toy Museum, and in Dusseldorff where I saw a marionette performance of Krabat. I've learned so much on your site about Dante, The Seven Deadly Sins in marionette form...I will be returning often.

On a related note, on a recent art-scavenging mission I came across a complete punch-out set for "The Three Musketeers" drawn by an artist named Hillenbrand (no copyright date, but the sets say "Hillenbrand '43"). I'm wondering if you know anything about this artist. I had thought of using it in an art piece, but I may just create a facsimile, as I wouldn't want to alter anything of historical significance if it is historically significant. If it's a dime-a-dozen, I won't worry and I'll make art with impunity.

There is a stamp on the inside cover that says:

Diggon-Hibben Ltd.
Victoria, BC

best regards,

Kent

Fishmarket Post-Festival UPDATE

The website for the recent International Toy Theatre Festival at Fishmarket has just been updated!

Fishmarket Festival Highlights

From Harry O.: The first pictures of the International Toy Theatre Festival at Fishmarket are online.

Seven Deadly Sins, Puppet Style

Erik Sanko is a very talented artist, who happens to have a passion for puppets...well, marionettes to be exact. His latest production, The Fortune Teller, played in New York to enthusiastic audiences.

I REALLY love the video below where they show more of the 'behind the scenes'!

Robert Poulter NEW Website

Thanks to tip from Gigi Sandberg, I learned today of a new website put up by the amazing Robert Poulter. Be sure and check it out!

TT Film Well Received at Festivals

Dante's Inferno is making the rounds on the film festival circuit, and doing quite well. I can hardly wait until it is released on DVD!

When it comes to punishment, though, nothing takes the place of the classics. What served T.S. Eliot well enough also inspires director Sean Meredith in DANTE’S INFERNO (2007; Brattle March 23 at 7:30 pm, with Meredith). Updated in setting if charmingly retro in technique — a crude but effective Victorian cardboard puppet theater — Inferno remains faithful to the original while cleverly revising it for the present day. Here Dante finds himself in the middle of his life hung over and in despair, broke and with a non-functioning cellphone, passed out in an alley. Virgil emerges from the shadows with a mission to redeem him for the sake of the deceased and beloved Beatrice, and off they go into a 2-D hell of a distinctly 21st-century cast.

Dante himself had no qualms about settling political grudges in his epic, and Meredith also indulges in an agenda, though it’s not so easy to peg. Ronald Reagan and even a pre-mortem Dick Cheney figure among the damned, but so too does JFK (lust got him), and the religious right will be glad to know that there’s a special place in Hell for gays, at least in Meredith’s version. Although its slapstick sometimes overshadows its ingenuity, there’s enough of the divinely comic in this Inferno to justify a pair of sequels. - Peter Keough [Boston Phoenix]

Puppet Rampage 2007

An amazing festival and it'll be right down the road from me - I had darn well better find a way to get there!


More performances than a person could take all in.

...and there will be a strong toy theatre presence.

From Harry Oudekerk...

So I guess it is time for an update on the international Toy Theatre Festival in Harderwijk, The Netherlands.

Harderwijk is an old fishing town on the border of the former Suydersea. The town is almost 800 years old and the oldest part is the region called the "Vischmarktbuurt". Quaint old houses, a monumental gate which also "still" functions as a lighthouse, citywalls, an old, former, synagoque, and nice rstaurants in various price brackets.

This is the background for the first of, we hope, a long series of toy theatre festivals.

The festival will be held from Wednesday May 16 in the evening till Friday May 18 late in the afternoon. This is around Ascension Day.

What makes this festival special, are not only the guests, but the enormous enthusiasm with which the neighbourhood adopted the idea of the festival and gave it its support.

The old synagogue will be our "livingroom". Here tickets will be sold, and meals served for the performers. Other guests can drink coffee and such here but are adviced to have their meals at one of the 4 restaurants around the Vischmarkt square that will offer special festival arrangements. Two theatres will be performing on the first and second floor of the synagogue and Dirk Reimers will be selling stuff from his toy theatre shop. In the gate properly called the "Vischpoort" or "Fishgate" there will be an exhibition of theatres from the collection of the famous Ab Vissers a toy theatre collector and performer of long, international, standing. He will be selling too! For children there will be a toy theatre workshop. If you want to come and stay for a few days I can still offer some double bedrooms with breakfast in a nice hotel at the waterside for the duration of the festival at €180.

Advance tickets will be sold from May 1st at €4 per show, 4 tickets at once will cost you €15. Tickets for the whole festival, 12 shows, will be €37.50. During the festival single tickets will be €4 and €4.50 for respectively for children up to 12 and adults.

For more information, take a look at the English website...

Enthusiast: Ab Vissers

Thanks to Harry Oudekerk, I have found out about an amazing toy theatre enthusiast named Ab Vissers.

Anyone that puts a permanent toy theatre for performance in their home is alright with me!

Film Director & His Toy Theatre

A tiny toy theater, measuring not more than 3 feet high, 2 feet wide and 18 inches deep, has been discovered at the D. W. Griffith studios at Mamaroneck, N. Y. The Purpose of the little play house reveals the infinite care observed in the preparations of the Griffith Photoplays such as "Way Down East."

- From D. W.'s Toy Theater, The Washington Post (1877-1954), Dec 4, 1921

Update from Pollock's Toy Museum

From Paul J. Weighell at Pollock's Toy Museum comes this update...

Just a quick message to the main Pollocks addicts!

The new website is now up and running. It will no doubt change and grow! The plan is to add a shop and sell Hugo's and Steve's output if they wish, as well as Pollock's stuff and hopefully all things TT. I have already added a links page to Hugo and Trish and other good sites. If you have a TT links page then perhaps you might update it to point to the new site not the old one?

Steve has finished the Cinderella DVD and it's good and I hope Hugo won't mind me mentioning that he is working on a release of Waterloo to add to his other fine titles.

Believe it or not, 2 new cellars have been found under the building!! They go out right under the road in front of the shop and they are quite large and very very wet. But, they will make a good spot for me to set up a few fish tanks and bubbling apparatus to chemically treat the printing plates and remove the corrosion. Hugo may have offered to photograph / scan the results... Rumours that I will be making a TT Frankenstein down there are sheer nonsense (not enough electricity for one thing...)

The new TT clubroom at the top of the museum is coming on and all the sheets and so on are already up there. Non-TT stuff has been banished! Dolls and Bears have been seen escaping to good homes as more space for TT is found in other rooms as well. The aim is to have all the TT stuff on display in the general museum and then the the club room has space for fixing up theatres, sorting sheets and so on. It may even be used again for holding performances as that was what is was used for in the 60s.