One of the best things I saw last week was on the first day of the Under the Radar festival. After an introductory interview between Anne Bogart (director of American Document) and Ping Chong (d. The Devil You Know) everyone split up into break out sessions. I went to the one called “Puppet Theater: The Graduate Course” moderated by Cheryl Henson and held in Joe’s Pub. Though it was very brief, it made a great introduction to modern American puppet theater.
Check out some of their work—from left to right: Cheryl Henson, Dan Hurlin, Roman Paska, Basil Twist, Christopher Williams, Erik Sanko and Jessica Grindstaff.
They each only had two minutes to speak about their work (Ms. Henson’s timer quacked when the time was up) which was too little time to get very in depth but I tried to keep good enough notes to refer to later. The speakers represent a spectrum of experience in puppet theatre, Hurlin and Paska have been working and studying in the field for decades. Their work uses adapted bunraku puppet making techniques to make modern theater. The others seem to be newer to puppetry, Twist (if that is his real name) is working on Broadway, Williams is a choreographer, and the couple seem to have stumbled into professionally producing modern puppet theater.
It was energizing to get a glimpse of the bredth and depth of work that is being produced. I’m looking forward to following up and researching some of the notes I was able to take on each person before their time was up. Quack quack!
