Sarah Provost and Eric Novak
Karen Kandel
Inkfish Arts
Amanda Maddock Photo by Adam Pagdon
Archives:
VOICE 4 VISION 2005
THE ADVENTURES OF CHARCOAL BOY
by Sarah Provost (creator, puppetry director), Eric Novak (creator, design director) and Elyas Khan (composer, musical director, narrator). 12/1 -12/3 at 9:30; 12/4 at 4:30.
The Adventures of Charcoal Boy is a fantastical musical theater piece in which organic and industrial objects are brought to life as puppets. The story follows a tree branch, struck by lightning, who wakes to an unfamiliar world. This charred stick begins his journey, yearning to be a tree again. When he learns to draw with his charred feet, his seeming predicament proves to be a useful talent. Sarah Provost directs the puppetry, Eric Novak is design director and Elyas Khan composes the music featuring Khans band The Nervous Cabaret.
The Adventures of Charcoal Boy was developed at The Arts at St. Anns Puppet Lab and the Mabou Mines Resident Artists Program in 2003 and 2004. The collaborators will be resident artists at the MacDowell Colony for the Arts in September 2005 to finish the development process. The work has received financial support from The Jim Henson Foundation and The New York State Council on the Arts.
Bios of collaborators:
Sarah Provost (creator/puppetry director) has been creating and performing in works for puppetry for 15 years. In addition to The Adventures of Charcoal Boy, original work includes Project B at the first Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival at Theater for the New City, A Pipe Dream at the NY Fringe Festival and The Painted Bride in Philadelphia. Other performance credits include Mabou Mines' Obie-Award winning Peter and Wendy at the New Victory Theatre, Ecco Porco with Mabou Mines at PS 122, Paula Vogels The Long Christmas Ride Home at the Vineyard Theatre, and numerous works by Theodora Skipitares at La MaMa. Sarah is a recipient of a Jim Henson Foundation Grant and NY State Council on the Arts Grant.
Eric Novak (creator/design director) Original work includes The Bacon/Mingus Triptych performed at the first Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival at Theater for the New City, E-volution at the Henson Festival Cabaret, Rex Rocket in Outer Space at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, a 25-foot praying mantis for the Village Halloween Parade. He has built puppets for The Long Christmas Ride Home at The Vineyard Theatre, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg at the Roundabout Theatre, and Basil Twists La Bella Dormente, and Symphony Fantastique. Eric is a recipient of a Jim Henson Foundation Grant.
Elyas H. Khan (composer/musical director) His career in the U.S. began with dance in the Minneapolis based Ballet of the Dolls. While in Minneapolis he co-founded The Famine Chorus Gallery House, a gallery/performance space. After moving to NYC he co-founded, performed, directed and scored music for the Dean Street Field of Operation (FOO). At Exit Art he curated a weekly music series Nightwalks which aired on PBS City Arts. As a musician, under the stage name KiD (SiC) Elyas writes and plays music with his band the Nervous Cabaret. Nervous Cabaret is currently performing throughout NYC. (www.nervouscabaret.com)
PORTRAITS - NIGHT & DAY
by Karen Kandel. 12/1 - 12/3 at 8:00 pm; 12/4 at 3:00.
Portraits Night & Day is the first in a series of intimate journeys into the lives of a family of women. Embracing unconscious connections to ancestor spirits where time has no meaning. Portraits... is a multi-scale installation/performance piece with masks, objects, lots of fabric, text, movement and music ranging in style from the literal to the abstract.
Karen Kandel is an Artistic Associate with Mabou Mines. She believes in magic and loves small things. Creating work remains a mysterious and challenging love affair. She presented a 15 minute segment of Portraits... , a work-in-progress entitled A Woman of a Certain Age Remembers (Toy Theatre Festival at H.E.R.E., 2000). Residencies include Mabou Mines Resident Artist Suite, Arts at St Anns. As a performer she is the recipient of three Obies Awards, a Dramalogue, Drama League, Connecticut Critics Circle and San Diegos Craig Noel and Billie Awards. Karen has received generous developmental support for Portraits... from: the Spencer Cherashore Fund, Jim Henson Foundation and Peter S. Reed Foundation. This presentation is made possible by the Audrey Skirball-Kenis A.S.K., T.I.M.E. Grant.
MRS. WRIGHTS ESCAPE
by Amanda Maddock. 12/8 & 12/10 at 9:30; 12/9 & 12/11 at 8:00.
Mrs. Wrights Escape is a full-length puppet show regaling some of the history of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, his wife Olgivanna, his family, and his architecture school known as the Taliesin Fellowship. The show features tabletop puppetry, a few shadows, object manipulation, and live music all presented from the perspective of the Taliesin apprentices.
Multiple playing spaces are created during the show using saw horses, wooden planks, wood cubes and rectangles, and fabric, and are constantly rearranged throughout performance by the puppeteers playing apprentices.
At the crux of the show is the conflict between what an artist must do to realize a dream and the sacrifices that those around him must make for that realization. Within the show is a struggle for domination between husband and wife, teacher and student, parent and child. The creation of the Fellowship was a struggle itself, created at the height of the great depression, and the resulting dynamic was certainly a boundless source of creativity, but also one of power struggles, jealousies, and personal loss.
The show features 4 puppeteers and 3 musicians.
Amanda Maddock is a puppet artist for theater and television, creating, building and performing her own work as well as being a commercial puppeteer. Her original works include Build A Better Bower, Lady Greys Escape, Thursdays Child, Birthday Slumber Party, and XXIV and have been seen at the National Puppetry Conference, St. Anns Labapalooza, the Henson International Puppetry Festival, and the Henson PatCH series. She has studied at Sandglass Theaters puppetry institute, and frequently collaborates with Ron Binion as well as the artists of Company of Strangers, and is a longtime member of Fovea Floods Theater in New York. TV credits include: Eminems Ass Like That music video, Lazytown, the Book of Pooh, and Bear in the Big Blue House. Her puppet building has been spotted on Crank Yankers, SNL, and Broadway productions of Wicked and Avenue Q. She currently works with Puppet Heap, one of the top puppet design companies in New York City.
NIKOLAI GOGOL'S THE NOSE
By Inkfish Art Productions
12/8 & 12/10 at 8:00; 12/9 at 9:30; 12/11 at 4:30.
In a society built on lechery and deceit where love is rewarded with lies, and corruption rules the day one nose has the courage to cut itself off from its face to spite its man and strike out on its own.
The Nose is conceived and directed by Alissa Mello, with puppet design by Michael Kelly, and story adaptation by Andy Roth. This project is made possible in part through sponsorship of The Field, with funding provided by a grant from the Jim Henson Foundation, contributions from individual donors and additional support from Materials for the Arts, NYC Department of Cultural Affairs/NYC Department of Sanitation/NYC Department of Education.
Bios of Collaborators:
Michael Kelly (Designer) has been designing and performing puppet productions for over 15 years. He co-founded the Columbia Marionette Theatre and has designed and performed for a number of puppet companies including The National Marionette Theatre, the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre, Theodora Skipitares, The Cry-Pitch Carols with Tiny Mythic, Maya The Bee at The Culture Project and Time Flies, an original piece for Arts at St. Annes Puppet Lab.
Alissa Mello (Director) wrote and directed Time Flies for the 2002 2003 Arts at St. Anns Puppet Lab, is a puppeteer and choreographer appearing in productions created by Theodora Skipitares, and has appeared in productions by Jane Catherine Shaw, Ishara Puppet Theater, and the Czechoslovak-American Marionette Theatre. Prior to her work in puppetry, she was a principle member of Naomi Goldbergs company We Dance/Los Angeles Modern Dance & Ballet in California.
Andy Roth (playwright) graduated SUNY Buffalo and has written scripts for film, television and stage. The musical comedy Playing The Palace for which he wrote the book is currently enjoying a successful regional life. Hypnotic is distributing his comedic film, The Lovers. For television he has written scripts for various sitcoms, dramas and children's programs as well as authoring and co-authoring three comedy pilots. His most recent being The Meckystecky Show, currently in postproduction which he co-authored with Mandy Steckelberg (The Rosie O'Donnell Show).
Puppet Art Attacks 12/11 at 8:00 (special price: $5)
A puppetry slam of 3-5 minute short works of genius by a variety of puppet artists.
TNC PASSPORT TO PUPPET THEATER
Tickets for each play are $15.00 ( Puppet Art Attacks $5). In your program, you will receive a TNC PASSPORT TO PUPPET THEATER. With one Visa stamped in your passport, you will receive a discount of $2 on your next ticket to this festival, or to another other puppet theater production at Theater for the New City this season. With three Visas, you will be eligible to receive a complimentary Linux operating system (value $59) for your computer, courtesy of The Linux Loft (www.linuxloft.com/upload/puppetfest.htm).
Post Card Design by Janie Geiser
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