2019 Grants

PRODUCTION GRANTS ($7,000)





Flying Lessons

by Brzezinski & Schap Photo: Libby Schap PACKRAT

by Concrete Temple Theatre Photo: Stefan Hagen Chimpanzee

by Nick Lehane Photo: Marika Kent MIGRACIONES

by Paradox Teatro Photo: Max Haynes All Hallows Eve

by Martin P. Robinson Photo: Richard Termine Lecture of the Physics of Reversibility

by Eat Drink Tell Your Friends Photo: Teddy Wolfe G.G. (Girl in the Rubble)

by Andy Gaukel Photo: Courtesy of the Artist Bug Girl (working title)

by Liz Howls Photo: Mark Vancleave El Beto

by Kalob Puppet Co. Photo: Radu Corcodel Star Girl Clan

by Magdalena Kaluza & Rebekah Crisanta de Ybarra Photo: Bruce Silcox L'Etranger

by The Object Group/Michael Haverty Photo: Courtesy of the Artist Moving Pictures

by Pam Severns Photo: Ashley Steed Itty Bitty Bunny

by Liz Joyce and a Couple of Puppets Photo: Courtesy of the Artist

Brzezinski & Schap (Chelsea, MA)

Flying Lessons

When three women enter an abandoned house during a storm, they discover a strange world of memory, light, and shadow. Here the impossible can become possible: the women can transform, escape undesirable situations, and fulfill their deepest desires. Flying Lessons is a dance-like shadow show full of surprise and delight in which the familiar becomes unfamiliar.

Concrete Temple Theatre (New York, NY)

PACKRAT

PACKRAT is a new multi-media puppetry play that contemplates humanity's relationship with the natural world. Inspired by the classic survival and adventure novel, Watership Down, PACKRAT follows one peculiar rodent on his vivacious journey to discover the interconnectedness of life.

Nick Lehane (Brooklyn, NY)

Chimpanzee

"To endow animals with human emotion has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about animals and us." – Frans de Waal, primatologist and ethologist An aging, isolated chimpanzee pieces together the fragments of her childhood in a human family. Bleak reality bleeds to vivid memory in this non-verbal puppet play. Inspired by true events.

Mesner Puppet Theater (Kansas City, MO)

Bond: A Soldier and His Dog

Bond explores the age old relationship between K-9 and human in this deeply affecting true story. While serving in Iraq, Logan Black and Diego, his Specialized Search Dog, were one of the most successful K-9 bomb sniffing teams ever, working side by side, saving each other's lives, and surviving the bloodiest year of the war together. This collaboration between The Unicorn Theatre and Mesner Puppet Theater will feature a life-sized Diego puppet acting alongside actor and playwright Logan Black.

Paradox Teatro (Pittsburgh, PA)

MIGRACIONES

MIGRACIONES follows the journey of migrating refugees in a unique performance that combines life-sized puppets, sand drawings, shadow puppetry projections, live music, and poetry in English and Spanish. This culture-crossing production is created in response to the increasing barriers between the Paradox Teatro co-founders' home countries, the United States and Mexico.

Martin P. Robinson (Redding, CT)

All Hallows Eve

All Hallows Eve is a wild eclectic musical that takes place on a Halloween evening gone extremely wrong: a horror show using humans and puppetry in a cautionary tale of redemption.

Hanne Tierney (New York, NY)

17 Stanzas Sung to a Tartar Reed Whistle

This work is a dramatization of a Chinese epic, written in 200AD, by the woman poet Ts'ai Yen. She tells of her abduction by the Tartars, and her life in a desert Nomad Camp.





WORKSHOP GRANTS ($3,000)

Eat Drink Tell Your Friends (Brooklyn, NY)

Lectures of the Physics of Reversibility

These lectures, delivered by our distinguished messenger professor, will examine the fundamental laws of physics as they pertain to time, its relativity, and its potential reversibility. Woo woo woo woo - it's a show about hiding your heart.

Andy Gaukel (New York, NY)

G.G. (Girl in the Rubble)

G.G. (Girl in the Rubble) fuses table-top, shadow and object manipulation, together with projections into a wordless narrative. A clown-like character, serves as the grotesque conductor of a make-believe war conjuring up images of American life, popular culture and consumerism that morph into images of the current military actions, playing out on a large screen adorning the stage.

Chris Green (Brooklyn, NY)

The Rest of It (working title)

Created by Chris Green and multiple choreographers, The Rest of It is a series of solo dances for highly articulated half-scale human figures set to original music. Puppeteer ensemble includes Erin Orr, Rowan Magee, Katie Melby and Leah Hoffman.

Chris Heady (Ellicott City, MD)

The Custer Wolf

After nine years of carnage on the small town of Custer, a legendary Grey Wolf and a brilliant hunter will engage in a battle of wits in this unforgettable true story.

Liz Howls (Minneapolis, MN)

Bug Girl (working title)

An episodic shadow puppet horror story about a young girl who is forced to face her inner demons when she consumes a strange beetle that transforms her into a bug that eats its way through the minds of unsuspecting citizens, driving them mad. Aesthetics borrowed from classic horror films and comic book art will be combined with a variety of shadow puppetry techniques to create a skin crawling performance.

Kalob Puppet Co. (Manchester, CT)

El Beto

El Beto is a one-man hand puppet adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth molded into the world of the Mexican drug cartels and performed bilingually in Spanish and English.

Magdalena Kaluza & Rebekah Crisanta de Ybarra (Minneapolis, MN)

Star Girl Clan

In the magical realism show Star Girl Clan, an Indigenous Maya grandmother's spiritual conflict of internal racism leads her on a journey into an enchanted jungle and starworld. The Henson workshop grant will help the artists deepen and expand their work, including adaptation of the types of puppets used.

Tom Lee & Lisa Gonzales (Chicago, IL)

place (no) place

place (no) place is a dance puppetry performance that explores memory and place using the artists' family histories in Louisiana and Hawai'i as a starting point. Through vivid puppetry and sensuous movement by puppet artist Tom Lee and dancer Lisa Gonzales, this intimate and interactive performance invites the audience to consider the complex relationship between our present identity and sense of home.

Spencer Lott & Maiko Kikuchi (Brooklyn, NY)

9000 Paper Balloons

Collaborators Maiko Kikuchi and Spencer Lott use humor and puppetry to weave their own family histories into the remarkable true story of a deadly secret weapon - 9000 paper balloon bombs.

Mabou Mines (New York, NY)

Medea

A re-envisioning of the Euripides play Medea pays homage to the original myth while weaving contemporary themes such as gender, immigration, and violence at the crossroads of East and West.

Kimi Maeda (Pendleton, SC)

Surfacing

Using the ancient Japanese myth Yamata no Orochi as inspiration, Surfacing will be a meditation on aging and the uneasy relationship between humans and water.

The Object Group / Michael Haverty (Decatur, GA)

L'Etranger

A new adaptation of Albert Camus' classic cautionary tale. Told with Punch and Judy style hand puppets and noir-inspired animation and live cinema, this brutally comedic story exposes the inner vacuity and outer systems of oppression that lead a pied-noir in French-occupied Algeria to petty acts of violence, tribal privilege, and an absurdly dark fate.

Paper Heart Puppets (Poughkeepsie, NY)

Error Code 451

Error Code 451 uses a variety of puppetry styles to investigate the way we construct truth from multiple sources. It's a show about uncertainty, trust, tribalism, and murder, all wrapped up in a detective story featuring robots and aliens inspired by mid-century pulp.

Rough House Theater Company (Chicago, IL)

The Dust, The Hand, The Hammer

This devised puppet piece will draw from Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, early 20th century folk music, and curated object exploration to explore the burdensome inheritance of history and the absurd mundanity of the present. Juxtaposing the minutiae of daily life with the socio-political burden of the past, The Dust, The Hand, The Hammer examines the things we inherit, the things we try and escape from, and the things that refuse to be forgotten.

Pam Severns (Los Angeles, CA)

Moving Pictures

Moving Pictures is a collection of comedic puppetry vignettes with a vintage twist. The pieces are inspired by the films and music your grandparents were into and was developed in part at the National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center.

Visual Expressions / Hua Hua Zhang (Boothwyn, PA)

The Mystery of the Chinese Dragon

Experimental shadow puppet theater exploring the blending of modern and traditional shadow puppets telling the stories of three Chinese dragons.







FAMILY GRANTS ($4,000)

Center for Puppetry Arts (Atlanta, GA)

Harold and the Purple Crayon

The Center for Puppetry Arts is developing the world-premiere puppetry production of Harold and the Purple Crayon, based on the popular children's books by Crockett Johnson. This unique live experience will blend blacklight rod puppetry, video projection, and other special effects to create the illusion of Harold using his crayon and the magic of his imagination to create entire scenes and characters that come to life.

Drama of Works (Brooklyn, NY)

Rent Party

Rent Party is a new toy theater puppetry play intended for all ages/family audiences about the struggles people faced during the Harlem Renaissance. Collaborating once again with award-winning playwright Amina Henry; together we can tackle difficult issues through drama, fantasy and humor.

Liz Joyce and A Couple of Puppets (Sag Harbor, NY)

Itty Bitty Bunny

A fearless pastry chef rolls out a tasty tale in this partially perishable puppet show. Follow Itty Bitty, the marzipan bunny, on her journey, meeting unlikely friends and overcoming shadows in the night on her way to the most delicious raspberry patch ever!

Wee the People / Tanya Nixon-Silberg (Jamaica Plain, MA)

My Night in the Planetarium

Wee The People, a Boston-based social justice project for kids, will adapt Innosanto Nagara's autobiographical picture book My Night in the Planetarium into a touring puppetry production. In partnership with the author, Puppet Showplace Theater, and a team of New England-based puppeteers, this project will transform Nagara's story of political repression and resistance in Indonesia into a giant pop-up book performance filled with visual surprises, fascinating discoveries, and moments of profound humanity as seen through the eyes of a curious child.

PRESENTING GRANTS

BAM - $5,000

Periferia Teatro - Fly Feather



HERE - $10,000

Puppet Parlor

Plexus Polaire - Ashes

Nick Lehane - Chimpanzee

Dream Music Puppetry 2019

Japan Society - $5,000

Hachioji Kuruka Ningyo Puppet Theater

The Public, Under the Radar 2019 - $5,000

Plexus Polaire - Chambre Noire

Dixon Place - $5,000

Puppet BloK 2019

Flushing Town Hall - $5,000

Taiwanese Hand Puppet Theatre of I Wan Jan (Taiwan)

Paper Heart Puppets - Cardboard Explosion

Salzburg Marionette Theater (Austria) - The Nutcracker

Mermaid Theatre of Nova Scotia (Canada) - The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Axis Theatre (Canada) - Somebody Loves you Mr. Hatch

L'Illusion Theatre de Marionettes (Canada) - Thumbelina

La MaMa e.t.c. - $10,000

Tom Lee & Lisa Gonzales - Tomte

Theodora Skipitares/Skysaver Productions - The Life of Benjamin Banneker

Loco7 - Seucy and Boto Take on the Giants

Lincoln Center - $5,000

Sonezaki Shinju (Japan) - Sugimoto Bunraku

New Victory Theater - $10,000

TheaterWorks USA - The Pout Pout Fish

CollaborationTown - The Riddle of the Trilobites

Carlo Colla and Sons Marionette Co. - Treasure Island

St. Ann's Warehouse

Puppet Lab 2019-2020

Labapalooza 2020

Symphony Space - $5,000

WonderSpark Puppets - Fox Fables

PuppetKabob - Dirty Gerts

Karagoz Theater Co. - The Magic Tree

Stevens Puppets - Goldilocks and the Three Bears

The Gottabees - Squirrel Stole My Underpants

The Tank - $5,000

Drama of Works - Rent Party

Kimi Maeda - Surfacing

Chimpanzee

by Nick Lehane Photo: Marika Kent

THE JIM HENSON FOUNDATION PUPPETRY RESIDENCY AT THE EUGENE O'NEILL THEATER CENTER

Chimpanzee



Nick Lehane

"To endow animals with human emotion has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about animals and us." – Frans de Waal, primatologist and ethologist



An aging, isolated chimpanzee pieces together the fragments of her childhood in a human family. Bleak reality bleeds to vivid memory in this non-verbal puppet play. Inspired by true events.