Tragedy: A Tragedy
Will Eno’s absurd, surreal, strange adventure into a news broadcast as night falls on America.
Presented by the Upper Jay Art Center
Directed by Gabrielle Schutz
Designed by Andrew Murdoch
The Green Bird
Puppet design and director
Directed by Clista Townsend
Presented by the Manhattanville College Dance and Theater Department
MASK
A creative provocation, the work explores the politics embedded in face-covering in the time of Covid. Although seemingly straightforward medical devices, masks nonetheless have become entangled in media ecosystems, police brutality, race relations, belief in science, the 2020 elections and increasing tribalism.
This is a work-in-progress that explores the ways in which masks have changed the way we relate to one another.
Mask was created with help from the students of Manhattanville College’s Department of Dance and Theater.
Directed by professors Jeff Kaplan and Vinny Mraz
Social Mirror
A low-tech puppet show in a high-tech puppet world exploring how we create our identities through social media and how our screens can be both a window and a mirror. This the latest installation blending the cardboard puppet worlds and the flesh and bone and foliage real world.
Social Mirror was originally presented by Andy’s Summer Playhouse as part of their Digital Renaissance Project, a virtual season created in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This 5-minute work-in-progress sample was presented in the Object Movement Puppet Shorts through the Center at West Park in August 2020.
Land Line
Inspired by the Telephone of the Wind in Otsuchi, Japan, “Land Line” uses puppetry and object movement to explore themes of grief and the disconnect that comes with loss. We used to leave our voices and imprints on wires and electromagnetic tape, one answering machines or home videos. Now most of our selves exist in the digital world. “Land Line” explores how the residue of our lives on physical objects can bring us closer to those who have gone too far beyond the here and now.
Presented at the 2019 La Mama Puppet Slam Festival and Dixon Place Puppet Blok
Photo credit Erik McGregor
YOU CAN SEE NOTHING FROM HERE
Billions of years ago, the universe was a tiny speck. From that speck came everything that exists today. Inspired by the work of Annie Jump Cannon and her fellow “computers” at Harvard in the early 1900s, You Can See Nothing from Here examines our relationship to time, space, and the universe around and within us. Using a mix of digital technology and analog arts and crafts, You Can See Nothing from Here explores our desire to explain the universe’s mysteries, and the universe’s indifference to our quest for understanding.
Part of the Object Movement Festival at the Center at West Park 2018-2019 season
Curators Justin Perkins, Rowan Magee, and Maiko Kikuchi
Photo credit Jody Christopherson
This is Not a Monologue (About Spalding Gray)
An exploration of the afterlife told through the perspective of the captain of the Staten Island Ferry combining mythology of the Ancient Egyptians and the theoretical science behind black holes and astronomy.
The Escape Plan
A mix of story-telling and day dreaming, "The Escape Plan" is a monologue that travels from the Green Mountains of Vermont to a penthouse on Park Avenue in New York, from rows of apple trees to hoards of businessmen on Lexington Avenue, from an average childhood in Connecticut to the all-consuming Koch Industries.
SHORTER WORKS
Nuclear Seagulls
A short piece of trash puppetry inspired by real life events and some made up ones.