By Steve Abrams W
Hundreds of Online Shows SCENEEAST
ith everyone staying at home, and so much online, the puppetry “scene” is local, national, and international. There is way too much for Puppetry Journal to review, but we can try providing a partial record of more than 200 puppetry art- ists presenting online work during the
pandemic. Lists of internet performances are helpful, but they are doomed to be incomplete. Puppeteers might choose to present on Vimeo, YouTube, Facebook or their own websites. Some puppeteers dig into their archives for previously record- ed shows and workshops, while others present all new work, made at home during the pandemic. On the Puppeteers of America website “Internet Puppetry Events” are sorted into One-Time Events and Repeating Events with over 50 listed companies and events. One-Time Events include Nasty Brutish & Short, In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, I Gusti Putu from Bali, Black Cherry Puppet Theater, Sandglass Theater, Abby Bosley, Sarah Frechette, Cozy Arts Productions, IBEX Puppetry/ Handmade Puppet Dreams, WP Puppet Theatre, and LA Guild of Puppetry. Repeating Events include Paper Pup- pet Opera, Saturday Morning Media, Pa- cific Puppetry, Lee Bryan, WonderSpark Puppets, the Gottabees, ShakesBEARS, Puppet Kitchen, 4PuppetPeople, Adven- ture Sandwich, Adelka Polak, Emily But- terfly, Center for Puppetry Arts, MicheLee Puppets, Dusty and Dot, Puppet Master, Scrapbag Puppets, Kevin Kammeraad, Great Small Works, Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, Goat on a Boat Puppet Theatre, Open Eye Theatre, Johno and Friends, Rogue Artists En- semble, Noah Ginex Puppet Company, and Ragdale Foundation. The PofA site also lists “Puppet Artist Shops.” There are more than a dozen sources for merch, including WonderSpark Puppets, Keith Shubert, All Hands Productions, Deb Lawrenz, Mary Nagler, Rose Friedman, Jack Fields, Gordon Smuder, Puppet Me This, NL Now Productions, Marsian De Lellis, All Stitched Up Puppets, Ayhan Hulagu, Joanne Schroeder, and Laurie Nickerson.
Joshua Holden. Every puppet theater and puppet company is challenged.
For news about these theaters, check their websites: Ma- rie Hitchcock Puppet Theatre, Simpich Showcase, Opera in Focus, Peewinkle’s Puppet Studio, The Puppet Co. Playhouse, Kramer Marionette Theatre, Mesner Puppet Theater, Puppetry Arts Institute, Puppetworks, Shadow Box Theatre, Lancaster
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Marionette Theatre, Wonderment Puppet Theater, and Hazel Green Opera House.
I sampled some of the online work by Monica Leo, Cheryl Capezzuti, Kevin Frisch (on TikTok), Hobey Ford, and Don- ald Devet. The National Puppetry Conference of the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center celebrated it 30th season with online classes. Under the Puppet #46 featured an interview with Ronnie Burkett speaking about the O’Neill:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bm9hLAREBU8. The Jim Henson Foundation’s “Puppet Happenings” listed
about 18 online performances for adults, including Museum of the Moving Image, Puppet Playlist #30, BoxCutter Collective, Puppet Mind–Animal Cracker Conspiracy, Rogue Artists Ensemble, Puppet Kitchen, Mabou Mines, HERE Arts Center, Tom Lee, Puppets in Place (Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival), Paul Zaloom & Lynn Jeffriess at Dixon Place, Frank Maugeri, Teatro SEA, ShadowLight Pro- ductions (Larry Reed), Kyle Loven, Double Image Theater Lab, Nekaa Lab, and Julian Crouch.
Emergency Funding for Puppet Theaters 2020
Lyon Hill, Columbia Marionette Theatre.
Cheryl Henson announced that The Jim Henson Foundation made 20 grants to the- aters to help them through the COVID-19 crisis. There were 10 grants for theaters in New York City and 10 theaters across the country, each receiving $5,000. In New York City, the recipients were HERE Arts Center, La MaMa, Dixon Place, New Victory Theater, St. Ann’s Warehouse, The Tank, Flushing Town Hall, Symphony Space, Teatro SEA, and Swedish Cottage Marionette Theatre. Theaters around country included Cen- ter for Puppetry Arts, Puppet Showplace Theater, Sandglass Theater, Automata, Black Cherry Puppet Theater, Bob Baker Mario-
nette Theater, Columbia Marionette Theatre, Great Arizona Pup- pet Theater, Open Eye Theatre, and Northwest Puppet Center.
IBEX Puppetry presented the first-ever National Puppet Slamdemic, featuring 9 short works. The contributors were Tim Lagasse, Eric Wright, Gwen Bonar, Vanessa Valliere, Sarah Nolen, Myra Su, Lyon Hill, Alex and Olmsted, and Joshua Holden. During the real-time streaming, Myra Su’s work combining shadows, painting, and projection received lots of great comments for her astonishing innovations. All the short works were excellent. I especially enjoyed the pieces by Gwen Bonar and Lyon Hill, and I was very moved by Joshua Holden’s presentation.
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