The Curators:
Jane Catherine Shaw Festival Co-Founder and Co-Curator
Sarah Provost Festival Co-Founder and Producing Consultant
Karen Oughtred Festival Co-Curator
JANE CATHERINE SHAW began working with puppetry in Atlanta, Georgia at the Center for Puppetry Arts over twenty years ago. As a puppeteer there she estimates that she gave over 2000 performances. She curated the Center's XPT and FTW workshops for two years, co-authored the original main stage production Dinosaurs, and created three Family shows for the Center's museum theatre. One of these shows, a one woman show using found object puppetry--Folktales of Asia and Africa-- was seen at BAM following its appearance at the V4V 2009 Festival, and seen again at La MaMa's 2010 Puppetry FestivalIn New York, Ms. Shaw created The Lone Runner, a work that premiered at La Mama in 1999, by invitation of Ellen Stewart, its founder. Also premiered at La Mama are: Bed of Light - developed through the Arts at St. Ann’s Puppet Lab and through a grant from HERE's Dream Music Program. And, Universe Expanding -developed through Mabou Mines RAP program and with a grant from the Jim Henson Foundation. In 2011 Ms Shaw presented Thirst: Memory of Water, a self produced work that explored the world's water crisis, paying particular attention to women's roles and relationships to water around the world.As part of La Mama E.T.C., Ms. Shaw traveled to Turkey to create Youth Without Age, Life Without Death which featured various puppet styles and scales. She has also accompanied Ms Stewart and Theodora Skipitares to India to participate in the Ishara Puppet Festival in New Delhi. In 2007 she collaborated with a fellow artist in Albania on the development of a new work, The Magic Pitcher. In November 2009 she joined Inkfish Art Productions in London where they premiered their work The Brain at The Little Angel Theater during its Suspense Festival.Ms. Shaw began working with Lee Breuer of Mabou Mines, during his production of Epidog, and has continued with Peter and Wendy, for which Mr. Breuer asked her to participate as co-puppetry director as well as Master Puppeteer of Hook and Jane, Ecco Porco for which she choreographed a final "Monkey King puppetry/dance extravaganza" using silk shirts, and Dollhouse. For Dollhouse, Ms Shaw built and directed a sequence involving 36 marionettes manipulated in tandem controls of 6. She also collaborated in an early workshop version of Red Beads for which she developed many striking images, including a dog puppet whose skin was ripped away by wind to reveal its skeletal body, and a shadow "floor". Ms. Shaw works frequently with Theodora Skipitares on her many productions, from puppet construction to performance, including her recent production of Lysistrata. Ms. Shaw has studied Bunraku sculpting and Kuruma Ningyo manipulation in Charleville-Mezierre with Designated Living National Treasure Nishikawa Koryu IV, at the Institut International de la Marionette, through a grant from the Institut and UNIMA USA. She recently graduated on the Deans list earning an MFA in Directing from Brooklyn College. While there she directed an experimental version of The House of Bernarda Alba which combined live actresses, graphic and giant shadow images as well as life-size puppets.
SARAH PROVOST has been creating and performing in works for puppetry for over 15 years. Her original work includes The Adventures of Charcoal Boy performed at Here Arts Center (2006) and National Puppet Festival, St. Paul, MN (2007). The work was developed in the Mabou Mines Resident Artist Program, the Arts at St. Anns Puppet Lab (2003/2004), and at the MacDowell Colony. Project B, a collaborative group of three women artists (including Jane Stein and Nancy Salomon Miranda) produced three works, Eh Joe and Come and Go by Samuel Beckett and Still Sounds developed at the Arts at St. Anns Puppet Lab. All three works were presented at Theatre for the New City as part of the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival (2004).Sarah created two original solo works, combining monologue, puppetry and object theatre. Antarctica Hangs Up performed at Todo Con Nada (1995), and A Pipe Dream, performed at the New York Fringe Festival (1996) and at the Painted Bride in Philadelphia.Other notable credits include performances with Mabou Mines: the Obie-award-winning Peter And Wendy at the New Victory Theater and various tours, Epidog at Here, and Ecco Porco at PS 122. Numerous works with Theodora Skipitares include Optic Fever, A Harlots Progress, Body Of Crime, Under The Knife and Underground, at La Mama and various tours. Other performances include: The Hiroshima Maiden by Dan Hurlin, The Long Christmas Ride Home by Paula Vogel at the Vineyard Theatre, Maya The Bee at the Culture Project. Voice-over work includes: USA Networks Seeing Ear Theatre and WBAIs monthly radio play Automatic Vaudeville.She has received grants from the New York State Council on the Arts and the Jim Henson Foundation and is a MacDowell Colony Fellow. Sarah is Co-Founder and Co-Curator of the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival.Sarah works as a Teaching Artist in the New York City Public Schools teaching puppetry, masks, and drama. She received a B.A. in Theatre from Temple University in Philadelphia (1991). Sarah is happily raising her two children in Brooklyn with her husband Eric.
Karen Oughtred is an educator and theater artist who has introduced, taught and developed Process Drama programs, mask and puppetry workshops for a wide variety of populations including museum visitors, disadvantaged youth, the disabled, seniors, gifted and talented and indigenous peoples. She also works in interactive museum theatre, writing, creating, directing and performing. In 2004, Karen founded the New York based Australian Aboriginal Theatre Initiative (AATI) presenting the work of established and emerging national and international indigenous artists. Karen also works as Production Stage Manager for a variety of theatre, dance and puppetry companies in New York City, including the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI). She is a graduate of New Actors Workshop (Mike Nichols, Paul Sills, George Morrison) and gained her MA in Theater from Antioch University. Puppetry credits include: The Dream Community: teaching artists, (Taipei, Taiwan), IsleWilde: teaching artist, (Vashon Island, WA), Bread and Puppet Theater: performer (NY, Glover, VT, Canada) and Chinese Theatre Works: performer (Virginia, NY), Mary Seidman & Dancers: puppetry construction (NY). Most recently Karen has collaborated with independent puppetry artist, Spica Wobbe (9th International Toy Theater Festival, St. Ann's Warehouse, and Puppet Playlist, Tank)Directorial credits include: Yanagai! Yanagai!: co-director, producer, (AATI, La MaMa Etc., 2009), Fare For All (Mt. Vernon Hotel Museum), Striving For Freedom (Jay Heritage Center), New Indigenous Voices: director, producer (AATI), Harvest Ceremony: assistant director (NMAI).
Claudia Orenstein Co-Curator Panel On Puppetry
Spica Wobbe Co-Curator Puppet Gallery
Honey Goodenough Co-Curator HellzaPoppinPuppets-Puppet Art Attacks Slam
Claudia Orenstein is Associate Professor of Theatre at Hunter College and the CUNY Graduate Center and works as an actor, director, dramaturg, and scholar, primarily in the areas of puppetry and Asian theatre. She holds a PhD in directing and criticism from Stanford University, and her scholarly work includes the book Festive Revolutions: The Politics of Popular Theatre and the Sand Francisco Mime Troupe, co-authorship of The World of Theatre: Tradition and Innovation, and articles on intercultural Asian theatre, puppetry, and political theatre in Asian Theatre Journal, Theatre Journal, Theatre Symposium, Animations Online, Puck, Puppetry International, Indian Horizons, Theatre and elsewhere. She is currently co-editing a volume of essays on new puppetry scholarship with John Bell and Dassia Posner. Orenstein has trained in puppetry with Dan Hurlin, Paul Meizner, and Gretchen Van Lente. She serves as a Board Member of UNIMA-USA and has organized its annual puppetry symposium, worked on its publications committee, helped in translating UNIMAs World Encyclopedia of Puppetry, and been a peer reviewer for Puppetry International. She was a co-organizer of Puppetry and Post-Dramatic Performance: An International Conference on Puppetry in the 21st Century, at the University of Connecticut in 2011. Orenstein was dramaturg for Stephen Earnharts multi-media, bilingual production of Haruki Murakamis Wind Up Bird Chronicle, which premiered at the Edinburgh International Theatre Festival in August 2011, and which included projections, live actors, and puppets. Orenstein is also heavily involved in Asian theatre and, among other activities, takes students to train in kathakali dance-drama in India. She is happy to be back at the Theatre for the New City, where she got her start in theatre as a child performing under Crystal Fields direction in summer street theatre and plays by Arthur Sainer and Barbara Garson.
Spica Wobbe (Shu-yun Cheng) is an independent puppetry artist from Taiwan. She has worked with the Shiny Shoes Children's Theater in Taiwan since 1991 as a producer, writer, designer and puppeteer. Her work has been seen in Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Germany, Holland and the U.S. She has worked and studied with master puppeteers Damiet van Dalsum(Holland), Albrecht Roser (Germany), Peter Schumann and Ralph Lee (U.S.).Now based in NYC, she has worked as a puppet/ mask designer and puppeteer with Chinese Theatre Works, Creative Arts Team, Theater for the New City, Great Small Works, and Australian Aboriginal Theatre Initiative since she received her M.A. in Educational Theater from New York University in 2003.
Honey Goodenough is a puppeteer, producer, costume designer, educator, clown and magician. She earned her Master's in Educational Theater from NYU, and a BA in costume design and technology from the University of Texas at Austin. She has produced many events, including the premiere of Puppet Rampage (Puppeteers of America Festival Documentary film) at the Zipper Factory in 2008, and PUPPET PANDEMIC, the second annual showcase of puppetry works developed at the Eugene O'Neill National Puppetry Conference- an event which was also a fundraiser to support a new Alumni Scholarship to attend the O'Neill Puppetry conference. Honey has also co-curated Emerging Artist Theater's Laugh Out Loud: Clown and Puppetry Festival in 2009. Honey first learned puppetry by performing with marionettes at Paper Moon Marionette Theater in NJ, and has since worked with Puppetworks at Macy's and The Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater in Central Park. She has also studied with Phillip Huber, Paul Zaloom, and Berndt Ogrodnik at the O'Neill National Puppetry Conference. Recent puppetry credits include Phantom Limb's The Fortune Teller at HERE, Theodora Skipatares' Lysistrata at La Mama, and Alissa Hunnicutt's The Kid Inside. Active as a teaching artist in the educational community, Honey has been developing literacy based Puppetry Programs for Shadow Box Theater for the past five years in public schools, as well as private specialized learning facilities for children with developmental delays. Prior to that experience, she developed many storytelling and puppetry lessons based on folk tales for Puppetry in Practice at Brooklyn College. She has also been a regular guest lecturer to discuss the topic of "Puppetry Across the Curriculum and in Praxis" for the Educational Theater Program at City College, CUNY. In addition to her puppetry experience, she has been a clown and magician for 14 years. She developed and teaches "The Mysteries of Magic" as a Circus Art to 5th and 6th Graders for The Brooklyn College Summer Youth Academy, and "Intro to Theater" for six to eight year olds through the Brooklyn College Preparatory Center. When not teaching, Honey can be found clowning around New York City hospitals performing on behalf of the Starlight Children's Foundation.
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