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PROGRAM
ONE
Friday & Saturday, January 5 & 6, 8pm
Sunday, January 7, 7pm
$12 ($10 students and seniors)
Lolly Extract
& Amber Marsh - Myopia
Puppeteers Lolly Extract and Amber Marsh perform Myopia, an
exploration of the inner space between life and death, centering
on the dubious reality of the expensive, enigmatic world of
medicine and modern society’s relationship with it.
Extract and Marsh last collaborated for the 2006 Links Hall
Shadow Puppet Festival with The Strange and Unfortunate Dream.
Lolly Extract specializes in the movement and design of marionettes
and puppets. Her Chicago-based traveling puppet theater, JABBerwocky
Marionettes, offers original productions, combining shadow
puppets, hand puppets, rod puppets, and marionettes. Lolly,
a master puppeteer, has worked in the field for more than
twenty-five years. Her most recent projects include: King
Tut, created for the Chicago Public Library 2006 Summer Reading
Program; a 25-foot tall Komodo Dragon Parade Puppet completely
animated with a flicking tongue, a life-size animated Sea
Turtle that lays eggs, color changing Moon Jellyfish, and
a giant Parrot Fish with a special pooping animation, all
created for Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium; and puppets for
productions at Columbia College Chicago, Hell In A Hand Bag,
and Redmoon Theater. www.jabbpuppets.com
Amber Marsh is a second-generation puppeteer, living and working
in New York City. She co-founded an experimental puppetry
troupe called Imagination Explosion that performed a new abstract
piece at the Theater for the New City, NYC, in 2006. She collaborates
with many other artists and projects, including the Latin
American Community Arts Project, and teaches in puppetry at
the Montessori School, NYC. Marsh also teaches summer workshops
in El Salvador. www.imaginationexplosion.com
Laura Heit
presents Handmade Puppet Dreams: Volume One
A series of short puppet films, collected by Heather Henson
A festival of independent artists' films exploring the art
of handmade craft especially for the screen—a provocative,
challenging, and savvy collection of puppet shorts created
by the next generation of small-scale artists.
Award-winning animator Laura Heit has an MA in animation from
the Royal College of Art in London and a degree in film from
the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her most recent
film Look for Me was commissioned by Channel 4 Television
in London. She teaches experimental animation at California
Institute of the Arts and also works in Puppet Theater. The
festival’s creator, Heather Henson, is a graduate of
Rhode Island School of Design and is the daughter of the visionary
creator of the Muppets, Jim Henson. www.handmadepuppetdreams.com
The films are:
(descriptions
in right column)
SAMMY AND SOFA by Tim Lagasse
PRELUDE #2 by Hoku Uchiyama
THE RED BOOK by Janie Geiser
OLD MOTHER HUBBARD by Paul Andrejco
OLA’S BOX OF CLOVERS by Genevieve Anderson
LAST RITES by Paul Andrejco
EVERLOVING by Steve Johnson
HERD by Mike Mitchell
MARY ANNING AND HER MONSTERS by Laura Heit
GRAVEYARD JAMBOREE by Seamus Walsh & Mark Caballero
PROGRAM TWO
Friday & Saturday, January 12
& 13, 8pm
Sunday, January 14, 7pm
$12 ($10 students and seniors)
Clare Dolan - Babel
Inspired by a series of short stories by Issac Babel, this
piece combines cantastoria—an ancient form of picture-story
recitation involving lush painted backdrops and a singing
narrator wielding a very large stick—with puppet and
mask dances, battles, births and deaths. Babel’s stories
revolve around his bloody experiences serving in the Red Calvary
and the civilian life in Odessa, which during Babel's time
had a vibrant Jewish community, populated by a rich cast of
characters— gangsters, widows, lovesick young women,
soldiers, and religious scholars. Babel tells their stories
with a combination of deep sympathy for their humanity and
sharp critical wit aimed at their weaknesses and hypocrisies.
In true Babelian fashion, this puppet show careens from the
banal to the beastly, illustrating greater truths about the
generosity and avarice of human beings, and the sheer beauty
of life, despite all of its brutality and disappointments.
Clare Dolan has been creating cantastoria performances, toy
theater shows, and life-sized puppet plays since 1992. Ms.
Dolan's secret double life as a current small town librarian/struggling
artist/nursing school student and former Bread and Puppet
Theater puppeteer unmistakably influences this new piece.
This production is a creation of the Performance Department
of The Museum Of Everyday Life, a developing new museum, both
theoretical and actual, based in Glover, Vermont and Ms. Dolan's
brain.
Lolly Extract & Amber Marsh
- Myopia
(description
and bios)
Laura Heit presents Handmade
Puppet Dreams: Volume Two
A series of short puppet films, collected by Heather Henson
(description
and bios)
The films are:
(descriptions in right
column)
HARKER by Tony Giordano,
Jason Murphy, & Scott Shoemaker
FINGER PUPPETS EVERYWHERE by Laura Heit
UNICYCLE BABY GUY by Matty Sidle
A SMALL WORLD by Lyon Hill
PROJECT HUXLEY by Simon A. Brown
THE TEA PARTY by Kate Artibee
ISEMOND by Xander Marrow & Mat Brinkman
DANTE’S INFERNO by Sean Meredith
PROGRAM THREE
Friday & Saturday, January 19 & 20, 8pm
Sunday, January 21, 7pm
$12 ($10 students and seniors)
Amanda Maddock & Ensemble - Mrs.
Wright’s Escape
Mrs. Wright's Escape is a puppet piece presenting some of
the life of architect Frank Lloyd Wright from the point of
view of his third and last wife, Olgivanna. Tabletop puppetry,
shadow puppetry, object manipulation, and music recreate their
life at Taliesin, their self-created architecture fellowship
in Wisconsin and Arizona.
Amanda Maddock is a puppet artist for theater and television,
creating, building and performing her own work as well as
making a living as a commercial puppeteer. TV performance
credits include: Eminem's Ass Like That music video, Lazy
Town, The Book of Pooh, Sesame Street, and Bear in the Big
Blue House. Her puppet building has been spotted on Crank
Yankers, Saturday Night Live, and the Broadway production
of Wicked. She currently works with Puppet Heap, a design
company in New York City providing characters for every aspect
of commercial puppetry in theater, film, and television. Her
original works have been seen at the National Puppetry Conference,
St. Ann's Labapalooza in Brooklyn, the Henson International
Puppetry Festival, the Henson PatCH series in NYC, and the
Puppets in the Green Mountains festival in Vermont. She has
studied at Sandglass Theater's puppetry institute as well
as at the University of Connecticut Puppet Arts program. In
2005, Mrs. Wright's Escape was one of four shows to headline
the Voice for Vision Puppetry Festival in NYC.
Finn Campman - Alchemy
Alchemy is a trio of pieces incorporating tabletop, rod, and
shadow puppetry, film, found objects, and music. The pieces
explore a clockmaker's world, and how the slow infusion of
memory manipulates time; a grandson facing the bittersweet
memory of his grandmother and her tragic death; and the meditation
of change and transformation, inspired by Iranian poet Rumi.
Finn Campman has worked as a director, designer, and performer
with, among others, Sandglass Theater, Touchstone Theatre,
Contemporary Dance Wyoming, Roman Paska, National Puppetry
Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre Institute, Hamilton
College, and the Helsinki College of Art and Design. He is
co-artistic director of Company of Strangers, a Vermont based
multi-arts performance ensemble.
Jana Zeller & Zak Grace -
Egg Noir
Egg Noir invites you into a retro-futuristic tale of the challenges
of reproduction and genetic engineering. A scientist who breeds
egg heads, a bee smoker who produces eyes, and a desert dweller
collecting air borne objects all struggle to cling to their
routine as the world they know is invaded by the ill wishes
of the Bad Egg.
Jana Zeller is Co-Artistic Director of LuminZCircus, a Vermont-based
performance ensemble that presents vibrant and evocative performances
influenced by dance, puppetry, silent film, and circus. She
has also worked with Sandglass Theater, the San Francisco
Mime Troupe, and the San Francisco Opera as a performer, designer,
and set painter. www.luminzcircus.com
Zak Grace is a Vermont-based glass artist as well as a puppeteer
and builder. He studied with the Sandglass Summer Institute
and continues to perform in Vermont. www.graceglass.com
PROGRAM FOUR
Friday & Saturday, January 26 & 27, 8pm
Sunday, January 28, 7pm
$12 ($10 students and seniors)
Merrill Garbus - Fat Kid Opera
Fat Kid Opera is the story of Fatilda, who is born into a
world of neglectful mothers and breast milk factories. Fatilda
is scorned for her plentiful flesh, but soon comes to realize
that she is one of thousands who are being bred for exactly
that... how will Fatty escape her fate as someone’s
dinner? Inspired by Jonathan Swift's essay A Modest Proposal,
Fat Kid Opera is morbidly funny, musically haunting, and does
include farting.
Merrill Garbus learned the art of puppetry in her four years
at Sandglass Theater in Putney, VT. Fat Kid Opera was her
first solo effort after touring with Sandglass' One Way Street
and co-creating and performing in Between Sand and Stars and
The Ark and the Tree. Merrill now lives between Vermont and
Montreal, where she performs on tenor ukulele in the indie
art-rock band Sister Suvi, as well as touring a solo avant-garde
music project, tune-yards.
Barbara Whitney - Since We are Bound
Inspired by the formal study of the ancient art of mnemonic
devices, “wonder cabinets,” and memory theaters,
Since We are Bound explores the mirrors and devices of memory
and the accompanying objects of a life that summon a real
or imagined past according to the needs of the present. Memories
are not banished or annihilated; they are guided gently into
this time where they can transform into something ineffable
we can not yet know.
Barbara Whitney’s parents still bemoan her choice of
a career path, wondering why it is necessary to be both a
puppeteer and a dramaturg. “And if you have to be a
puppeteer – why always the feet?” Just kidding,
they’re good people. Whitney has worked in various capacities
as an actor, director, puppeteer, and dramaturg with, among
others, Anne Bogart, Robert Woodruff, Peter Sellars, Mac Wellman,
and Dominique Serrand, at the American Repertory Theatre,
Moscow Art Theatre, NJ Shakespeare Fest, Sandglass Theater,
and Jeune Lune. She currently works with Blair Thomas &
Company and is the Co-Artistic Director of Company of Strangers,
an UNIMA award winning, Vermont based multi-arts performance
ensemble.
Merrill Garbus, Barbara Whitney, &
Meredith Miller - Three Piggy Opera
It's a great big world out there where the big bad wolf lurks
around every corner. What's a mother to do but kick out her
ungrateful children in order to fend for herself? Stories
within stories unfurl as a mother-daughter stripper team struggle
to get the job done, some pigs wander helplessly in a dark
wood, a wolf plans for barbecue, and a couple of songs lurch
their way out of a couple of nervous broads. These broads
got quite a set of lungs on them. And quite a set of . . .
never mind.
Meredith Miller is a Chicago-based puppet artist, designer,
builder, and burlesque dancer. She has performed with Blair
Thomas & Company, the Lyric Opera, Redmoon Theater, JABBerwocky
Marionettes, and is Artistic Director of Incurable Theater.
See above for biographies for Merrill Garbus & Barbara
Whitney.
Julia Mayer
Coffee Dance
January 5, 2007
“First Friday” mornings, 9:30am
Free
BYOC (bring your own coffee)
Once a month, Julia Mayer will open her weekly
Friday morning solo movement practice to the public. This
series of engaged, informal performances will occur on the
First Friday of every month at 9:30am. Performances will last
approximately 20 minutes, with the opportunity for informal
discussion afterward. This successful series has been running
since July 2006.
As a mother and full-time worker in her forties,
Julia is seeking new paradigms for performance—places,
processes, practices—so she can stay active and challenge
herself as a dancer and activate and challenge audiences to
join her in creating and experiencing unique moments of the
body moving. Julia has been dancing in Chicago for nearly
20 years. Her current movement practice is influenced by her
studies with Deborah Hay and her years dancing with Chicago-based
improvisation collective FUSE.
“[her] movement is refreshingly off the
map” - Chicago Reader
“a delicately luminous, inquisitive stage presence”
- TimeOut Chicago
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VOLUME
ONE FILMS:
SAMMY AND SOFA
Tim Lagasse
15 min (2005)
An eight inch tall Mohawk-ed psychic and his pet sofa are the brainchild
of puppet artists Tim Lagasse and Jim “Nappy” Napolitano.
Sammy and Sofa was initially conceived for performance at late night
Puppet Slams and was developed in front of live audiences. Tim Lagasse
is a graduate of the University of Connecticut’s Puppet Arts
program and has been performing, designing puppets, and making short
films for Nickelodeon and PBS (among many others) for 14 years.
Tim has received many awards for his work, including an UNIMA Citation
and some Emmy nominations for his puppet designs and editing. www.timlagasse.com
PRELUDE #2
Hoku Uchiyama
1 min (2003)
Two teenagers leave a party drunk for a frightening ride home. A
visual collage of hand and shadow puppetry mixed with flesh and
blood actors. Hoku is a graduate of the Art Center College of Design.
He has directed 8 short films, two documentaries, and two commercials,
collectively winning over 9 film festival awards worldwide, including
2nd place at the Cannes Young Directors Awards for Prelude #2. www.rosethemovie.com
THE RED BOOK
Janie Geiser
11 min (1994)
The Red Book explores the realm of memory, language and identity
from the point of view of a woman amnesiac. The film suggests the
ways in which language defines us, and reaches into myths about
the creation of different tongues. Janie Geiser began making films
in 1990, first as an element of her puppet theater work, and then
as a separate form. Janie Geiser’s original theater works
have been recognized with numerous awards, including an Obie and
a Guggenheim Fellowship. Geiser's films have been shown at the Whitney,
the Guggenheim, the MOMA in New York and San Francisco.
OLD MOTHER
HUBBARD
Paul Andrejco
5 min (1996)
Poor Old Mother Hubbard has no food, no money and no clue how to
deal with her eccentric little dog. This is a fun play on the classic
rhyme, by Andrejco’s New Jersey-based company Puppet Heap.
Paul Andrejco is an internationally known, Emmy-nominated puppet
designer and proprietor of a little shop in Hoboken, New Jersey.
He has previously worked for such companies as Disney, the Jim Henson
Company, and Shadow Projects. www.puppetheap.com
OLA’S
BOX OF CLOVERS
Genevieve Anderson
10 min (2004)
Told with rod-manipulated puppets, this simple story takes place
in the interior world of an old woman after her death and follows
her granddaughter’s journey to understanding her unfulfilled
dreams. Anderson received a BFA from University of California at
Santa Barbara, where she minored in sociology and phenomenology.
Her films have played at over 65 festivals worldwide and have won
numerous awards. She is co-founder of Girls Reeling It Together,
an organization supporting women filmmakers. www.puppetropolis.com
LAST RITES
Paul Andrejco
2 min (1997)
It’s the grudge match of the millennium! Andrejco’s
first grade teacher and Satan duke it out for the souls of the innocent!
Paul Andrejco bio—see above. www.puppetheap.com
EVERLOVING
Steve Johnson
2 min (2003)
Shown in reverse at double speed, the characters were puppeteered
upside down. The entire piece was filmed underwater, and then the
puppets were composed into the digital environment. The piece is
inspired by the paintings of Beksinski and the music of Moby. Steve
Johnson founded Edge FX, Inc. in 1986, bringing it to the forefront
of the prosthetic and animatronic effects industry. Johnson’s
effects can be seen in The Cat in the Hat, Scooby Too, and Spiderman
2. www.edgefx.net
HERD
Mike Mitchell
18 min (1998)
An homage to the sci-fi genre, Herd is the story of a lowly fry
cook who becomes the unwitting accomplice to an alien who instructs
him to build a nefarious, mysterious black box. Mike Mitchell, originally
from Oklahoma, attended Cal Arts. His credits include story work
on Antz, James and the Giant Peach, Monkey Bone, and Shrek 2 &
3. He has written for The Ren and Stimpy Show and SpongeBob Square
Pants. He has directed many episodes of Greg the Bunny. He has numerous
commercials and music videos to his credit, many involving animation
or puppets. He recently directed Walt Disney’s Sky High, and
is currently in production on Warner Brother’s Fraud Prince.
www.edgefx.net
MARY ANNING
AND HER MONSTERS
Laura Heit
8 min (2003)
When most children were afraid of monsters, Mary sought them out.
She had an eye for the unexplainable, and in the end her discoveries
would change more than she bargained for. Laura Heit received her
MA from Royal College of Art in London. She recently completed a
new animated film, Look for Me, commissioned by Channel 4 Television
London. She has worked with Chicago’s Redmoon Theater, En
Fuego, and was seen in various puppet festivals performing her one-woman
piece The Match Box Shows. www.lauraheit.com
GRAVEYARD
JAMBOREE
Directed by Seamus Walsh &
Mark Caballero
4 min (1999)
Inspired by an old record by Harry Reser and his Radio All-Star
Novelty Orchestra, three techniques were used in this film, including
live action puppetry, silhouette animation, and stop motion animation.
Seamus Walsh and Mark Caballero have been working together since
1995 with Chris Finnegan. They formed the company Screen Novelties.
Their unique approach combines the whimsy of classic cartoons with
the texture and dimensionality of puppet animation. Currently they
are directing the animation for Cartoon Network’s Robot Chicken.
www.screen-novelties.com
VOLUME TWO FILMS:
HARKER
Tony Giordano, Jason Murphy, & Scott Shoemaker
15 min (2005)
This retelling of the story of Jonathan Harker was fashioned as
homage to German Expressionist silent films. It recreates the mood
and feel of these films by using expressionless puppets and exuding
their emotions with camera work, lighting, music, and skillful puppeteering.
Tony, a performer/writer, Jason, a photographer and cinematographer,
and Scott, an accomplished artist and puppet builder, all reside
in Orlando, FL. By taking these strengths and putting them together,
the trio has been able to form a strong team that can accomplish
something that they all have in common—the need to entertain.
www.harkermovie.com
FINGER PUPPETS EVERYWHERE
Laura Heit
10 x 10 sec (2005)
Live action spots featuring hand made finger puppets are interspersed
throughout the entirety of this program. Laura Heit bio—see
above. www.lauraheit.com
UNICYCLE BABY GUY
Matty Sidle
12 x 20 sec (1997)
Absurd, black and white mini films starring Unicycle
Baby Guy, the nicest little chap who, waist down, is a unicycle.
All he wants to do is make friends with the galaxy’s other
creatures but, problem is, all he gets is his tire flattened. His
only support comes from his best-est friend ever, a talking Shoulder.
Matty Sidle creates characters and stories for his alternate worlds
in the realm of short films, flash animation, music videos, and
advertising. He studies filmmaking at Rhode Island School of Design
and loves working in mediums that help get his humorous and absurd
sensibility across. His work has screened at Sundance, Chicago International
Film Festival, NY Underground Film Festival, and an online series
for MSN and MTV.
A SMALL WORLD
Lyon Hill
3 min (2005)
Lyon and Jenny-Mae use paper cutouts, shadow puppets, and dance
beats to celebrate their engagement—on the ride “It’s
a Small World” in Walt Disney World—and wedding—at
a puppet theatre decorated as a fairy tale forest. This video was
created in their home studio in Columbia, SC. Lyon Forrest Hill
is a visual artist and has worked with the Columbia Marionette Theatre
for nine years, the last six as puppet-maker and Co-Artistic Director.
He is married to sculpture artist Jennifer Mae Stephen-Hill. This
is their first video short. www.noyl.com
PROJECT HUXLEY
Simon A. Brown
11 min (2005)
Huxley is a monkey imprisoned in a lab, forced to take part in a
Monkey Typing Shakespeare experiment by a sadistic lab assistant.
Secretly, he harbors dreams of playing Hamlet, but can he escape
from his tormentors and embrace his theatrical dreams? Simon A.
Brown has worked in TV for a number of years as a producer, director,
and writer at Nickelodeon UK, recently dividing his time for a variety
of shows including The Basil Brush Show, BB3B, and Those Scurvy
Rascals. Project Huxley is his first short film and he is currently
working on a feature (there’s a puppet in it!). www.projecthuxley.com
THE TEA PARTY
Kate Artibee
3 min (2006)
The Tea Party is a story about jealousy and mediation. A group of
friends gather at the edge of the woods for afternoon tea. Chaos
ensues when baby-cat arrives without the cake he promised. Captured
on one roll of super 8 film and created with all in-camera editing.
Kate Artibee is dedicated to preserving the art of small format
film. Her Brooklyn-based company draws inspiration from traditional
puppetry, circus, and vaudeville. www.automagraphy.com
ISEMOND
Xander Marrow & Mat Brinkman
17 min (2005)
A puppet tale direct from Providence’s artist dwelling industrial
warehouse scene, complete with fairy dust, magic swords, and noisy
live soundtrack recordings. Isemond the tailor and her friend Goose
join forces in a peculiar way to battle a hungry developer. Xander
Marrow is a puppet maker and projectionist, steeped in the underground.
She is a member of Dirt Palace, a feminist art collective, and has
developed the very popular Movies with Live Soundtracks series.
Mat Brinkman draws comics and makes noise music. His comic serial
Multi-Force appears in Paper Rodeo. Highwater Books recently published
a compilation of his early comics, Teratoid Heights.
DANTE’S INFERNO
Sean Meredith
1 min (2006)
Performed in epic toy theater style, using paper puppets and sets,
Dante’s Inferno is a satirical update of the classic tour
of Hell. Its venue is the familiar places of modern civilization:
mini malls, airports, gated communities, used car lots, and the
US capitol. Sean Meredith recently finished directing his first
feature film after years of juggling filmmaking, editing, and moonlighting
as a vintage dishware expert. He directed and edited the 2003 film
In Smog and Thunder: The Great War of California, which screened
at the 2003 Newport Beach Film Festival. www.dantefilm.com
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