Performed my Good Old Fashioned Punch & Judy Show at this marvellous outdoor music event at Historic Fort York yesterday, for a small group of families sitting on the grass in the "kid area".
The lovely and charming Amelia Blaine worked with me as my roadie, my stage manager, and as my carnival barker -- or "Bottler" in Punch & Judy parlance -- introducing the show with a brief comedy routine between she and Mr. Punch. If you know your Punch & Judy, then you know that most of the fun comes from the audience itself. The audience IS the show! This one was no different, with one particularly vocal and rambunctious tyke sitting near the front who insisted -- over and over again -- that my crocodile ate the CN Tower. A good old fashioned good time was had by all. Thanks Amelia!
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This inspiring event will be held on Sunday, May 27th at Aki Studio! An almost-annual, totally day-long mini-conference and festival showcasing artists taking new and groundbreaking directions in the art of puppetry. Fresh Ideas is a day of presentations and demonstrations, discussions and hands-on workshops, culminating in an evening cabaret of fresh new performances. A stimulating event for everyone interested in current developments, innovations and explorations in puppetry. Featuring presentations, demonstrations and performances by: Jeremiah Bartram, Brad Brackenridge, Lochlan Cox, Sequoia Erickson, Ingrid Hansen, Humber College Second Year Theatre Students, Frank Meschkuleit, Robin Polfuss, Hans Krause, Gabe Levine, Mike Petersen, Annie Katsura Rollins, Théâtre De La Pire Espèce, Nadya Weber …and more! The Conductor
I’m fascinated by the relationship between a puppet and its audience. Why are we always so willing to believe a puppet, and get involved with its plight? How deep can this relationship go? Here, a symphony conductor must perform music, with a most unexpected group of symphony players. Come see this, and many other freshly-baked puppet pieces, and Fresh Ideas! THE MAGIC LANTERN is a Ryerson University short film project. Last fall I recorded the voice for a character called Carousel Man. All these months later the animators are still hard at work, moving their sculpted figures one frame at a time to bring their characters to life.
Release date May 2018 Genre Short, Coming-of-Age, Stop-Motion About Hand-crafted landscapes and 3D printed puppets come to life in this surreal/dreamlike world built upon a kid’s fear of losing his freedom and imagination. Directed By Youp Zondag Written By Youp Zondag & Mariana Ospina-Arteaga Screenplay By Youp Zondag Produced By Mariana Ospina-Arteaga Today at The Toronto School of Puppetry I taught stuffed animal animation, where students used ordinary, friendly, good old fashioned stuffies to practice some of the many aspects of live, hands-on puppetry.
Store bought stuffed toys are actually perfect for this type of learning. They're already made, they're inexpensive and easy to find, and most of them tend to have "personalities" already built right into them. For pure puppet performance techniques, we learned how to reduce the expressions in our own faces and bodies so we could begin to speak and think and emote through our hands. We learned breath, language of the head, focus, gravity, team puppetry, voice, the importance of the stop, and the time-tested "take" that really connects a puppet to its audience and creates the empathy that we so desperately crave. Special shout out to my trusted colleagues Ingrid Hansen and Adam Proulx for their input and support all day. I do believe that a fun time was had by all! I spent all day on the set of a 30-second commercial for GRAVOL - as the puppeteer.
GRAVOL is launching a new campaign, one that features a green, sickly looking Emoji-type character who pops up and interacts with people. For this first commercial, we were on an airplane (an airplane interior set, that is, housed is a warehouse in Scarborough). One passenger begins to feel uneasy, clearly about to be ill. That's when our Emoji friend appears and reminds her take a GRAVOL to calm her stomach. This green Emoji was appropriately named "Ralph" and he'll be mostly replaced in post production with computer animated facial features. But the director felt strongly that the cast -- the people sitting on the plane, and the one key passenger who interacts with Ralph -- should be able to see and react to something real. That's where I came in! The prop guys built a green sphere about the size of a bowling ball (and almost as heavy!) and had me tucked and crouched out of sight -- sometimes literally flat on the floor under the seats -- so Ralph could pop up, turn his face, pop down again, and so forth. It was a long, cold, tiring day - but a good reminder of just what a puppeteer can bring to a production, and why I do what I do. Animators develop a vocabulary of movement to bring their characters to life, and puppeteers are no different. That’s why we sometimes call puppetry “live animation.”
DATE: Sunday, March 18, 2018 TIME: 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. COST (INCLUDES HST) $125 Regular, or $100 Equity or UNIMA Member/Artist discount. LOCATION: Puppetmongers Studio. Unit W-23, 388 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto. REGISTRATION: Contact Puppetmongers: Tel: 416-469-3555, Email: school@puppetmongers.com Puppeteers can lay their hands on almost anything — or inside of almost anything — and give that thing the illusion of life, of breath, of feelings, and of course the illusion of thought. Learn some of the basics of live animation using the friendliest and most easily found puppets of all time – the good old fashioned stuffed animal. Bring your own teddy bears — or teddy rabbits, teddy dragons, teddy whateveryouwants — and puppeteer Mike Petersen will help you hone your tabletop puppetry chops. Now your stuffies will walk, talk, think, act and react, create stories, and perform poetry by practicing the essential elements of puppetry – with precision, simplicity, clarity, and fun! 2018 marks the return of the puppetry curriculum at Humber College, in Toronto.
Ingrid Hansen of Snafu Dance and Shawna Reiter of Clunk Puppet Lab are both teaming up with me to teach eager 2nd Year Acting Students in the Humber Theatre Program all about live animation - from design and construction, to manipulation and performance. Topics include: "The Illusion of Thought" "A Mask on Your Hand" "The Puppet and Its Audience" and "The Art of the Stop." Performed Old Man and the River today at Fraser Mustard Early Learning Academy - a radically open-minded school offering advanced early learning for kinders and pre-kinders.
This reminded me of my past, where, throughout most of the 1980s I plied my trade doing good old fashioned puppet shows in gymnasiums across the land. I've always found that one can detect the "flavour" of a school - is it kind? are they smart? do the kids exhibit basic politeness? - the very second one walks through the front doors. Fraser Mustard is, then, a very special school indeed! Very happy to be remounting Theatre Direct's tabletop puppet show for the very young, Old Man and the River. Here's a schedule of upcoming performances. Showtimes are constantly in flux, so contact me directly if you'd like to come. Hope to see you there! Artscape Wychwood Barns, 601 Christie Street, Toronto: November 14 - 17 FirstOntario Performing Arts Centre, 250 St. Paul Street, St. Catherines: November 19 - 12 Fraser Mustard School, 82 Thorncliffe Park Drive, Toronto: November 21 - 23 Crow’s Theatre, 345 Carlaw Avenue, Toronto: November 25 & 26 Harbourfront Studio, 235 Queen’s Quay, Toronto … November 28, 29, 30 Persephone Theatre, 100 Spadina Crescent East, Saskatoon ... December 6 - 9 Old Man and the River Created by Lynda Hill and Thomas Morgan Jones Concept, Dramaturgy and Direction by Lynda Hill |Inspired by the story by Thomas Morgan Jones Original Production Design by Kelly Wolf Original Music by Nicky Phillips Original Lighting Design by Jennifer Lennon Puppetry by Mike Petersen and Eric Woolfe Performed by Andrew Young, Ingrid Hansen, Alexandra Montagnese, and Mike Petersen Stage Management by Sandi Becker The Story In a forest where rivers sing, trees giggle, and curious dragonflies come to visit, a grumpy Old Man lives in his little house. Every day is exactly the same and he likes it that way, until one day…a magical creature leaps into his life and everything changes! The production has received unanimous praise from children, parents, grandparents, and teachers for its artistry and its story of newfound friendship. Old Man and the River is the perfect introduction to theatre for the very young and their grownups. This performance features interactive pre-show and post-show audience engagement created especially for this age group as well as classroom extensions for teachers. RP (Relaxed Performance) | Autism Friendly: The gentle, welcoming atmosphere, the interactive pre-show and post-show audience engagement, as well as the on-line Social Story makes Old Man and the River accessible for children of all needs and abilities. |
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