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Category Archives: Performances
February Grab Bag
PUPPET STANDUP! See #3 for all info.
1. An interview with Shaun Tan that made me slightly less grumpy that I missed his Keynote Address at the SCBWI Winter Conference earlier in the month. Favorite quote: “…we have to make sense of ourselves within a world that can shift and change radically…” That’s the story of Cabinets of Kismet in a nutshell!
2. Basil Twist, who is one of the most well-known contemporary puppeteers in the US, is creating a lobby installation as part of The Rambler by the Joe Good Performance Group. At the American Dance Institute, March 2 and 3; more info here.
3. Standup is a tough business, particularly when you’re a puppet. THIS Saturday, February 23 at 8 & 10pm, come support local puppets in Puppet Standup, a showcase of the best puppet comics working today. Get tickets here and if you use the code GRABBAG, you’ll get 20% off General Admission tickets to the 10pm show! Don’t miss this unique event (no ventriloquists here!) at the Warehouse Theater, 645 New York Ave, NW.
4. If you’re searching for a fun night out this week or next week, look no further than the Mead Theater Lab at Flashpoint and the show Canterbury, produced by our friends at the Pointless Theatre Company.
5. Our friends at Puppets in Prague still have a few spaces left in their March workshops on making marionettes, for anyone lucky enough to be in Prague this spring.
Coyote at the Smithsonian
We had a blast at Shadow Family Night at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on February 1st. Thanks so much to everyone who came, watched our show and made shadow puppets with us! Here are some photos from the night:
We had so much space in the Kogod Courtyard–and look at our brand-new sign!
Our puppet-making table, all set up.
A behind the scenes view of our puppet stage.
Lots of busy hands cutting out shadow puppets.
Cecilia and Genna performing Coyote Places the Stars.
Demonstrating the lights and puppets to our audience.
Mount Pleasant Children’s Puppet Hour
If you missed the world-premiere performance of Coyote Places the Stars at the Smithsonian American Art Museum a few weeks ago, don’t worry. We will be reprising the show (without the workshop) at the semi-annual Mount Pleasant Children’s Puppet Hour, on Saturday February 16, at 4pm. There will be five different puppet shows, as well as live music, taking place at St. Stephen’s Church, 1525 Newton St. NW. The shows are appropriate for all ages and the suggested donation is $5. We hope to see you there!
Anansi Goes to Potomac
These are some photos from our performance of Anansi’s Appetite at the Potomac Library in Maryland on January 19, 2013. As you can see, we had a great time!
Anansi leaves spider webs of yarn with audience members playing the different animals.
Genna Davidson playing the hand puppet character Turtle in the story ‘Anansi Goes Fishing.’
Anansi (performed by Cecilia Cackley) tries to trick Turtle into catching fish for him.
Genna Davidson performs Granny Annika in the story ‘Anansi and the Dancing Granny.’
Granny dances away from Anansi, who is singing from up above.
Children at the show try out the puppets for themselves after the performance.
Shadow Family Night
Don’t miss our performance at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Shadow Family Night this Friday! From 5-8pm in the Kogod Courtyard, the museum will be offering free performances and activities for children and their families. Stop by our table and make a shadow puppet, then stay to see our brand-new shadow puppet show, called Coyote Places the Stars. This new tale was inspired by a story from the Wasco Indian Nation and you can see Genna drawing a few of the puppets below. We hope to see you on Friday at the museum!
Calling all Baltimore puppet fans!
Anyone looking for a fun, unique (and cheap!) night out this Saturday? Look no further than the Puppet Slamwich being presented by Black Cherry Puppet Theater in Baltimore!
For those who have never experienced this kind of event, a puppet slam is a night of short acts by various puppeteers, sometimes with music, that allows performers to experiment with new and different material. For puppeteers who primarily work in children’s theater, this is often a venue for more adult-oriented content; for others it’s an opportunity to workshop unusual ideas.
We will be presenting an excerpt from the first half of The Amazing and Marvelous Cabinets of Kismet, so if you can come, you will be able to see the FIRST EVER glimpse of this brand new show. Black Cherry is located at 1115 Hollins St. Baltimore MD and directions can be found on their website here. Tickets for the event are $7 and can be purchased at http://www.brownpapertickets.com .
We hope to see you there!
Looking Ahead at 2013
Cabinet for the KISMET set
We have so many exciting projects and events coming up that I’m not even going to try to list them in one post. Instead, I’m going to focus on the two largest: The Amazing and Marvelous Cabinets of Kismet and our upcoming workshops at several D. C. public and charter schools.
We are thrilled to be partnering with the Friends Community School in College Park for a workshop in creating puppets from recycled materials later this week. Later in the spring we will be offering the same workshop, along with the opportunity to write and perform a show with their newly-created puppets, to students at Inspired Teaching Public Charter School and School Within a School at Logan Annex. These workshops will give us the opportunity to share our love of puppetry with several different age groups and encourage students to express themselves creatively through art.
Our work on The Amazing and Marvelous Cabinets of Kismet is continuing at a break-neck pace! Each week we are creating new puppet characters, as well as meeting with designers and our production team to talk about the environment and storyboard of the show. In January, we are looking forward to holding auditions for our puppeteers–we hope to add even more people who are passionate about puppetry and storytelling to our team. Check this page often for more updates and photos of our work!
Malachite Palace in Woodbridge
We were excited to share a remount of our first show The Malachite Palace at the Chinn Regional Library in Woodbridge VA a few weeks ago. In celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month, we brought this bilingual fairy tale based on a picture book by Alma Flor Ada to a group of kids ages about 4-13. Below you can see a few pictures of the show and the kids exploring the puppets afterwards.
Genna operating the marionettes of the children and the shadows of the princess and adults inside the malachite palace.
Our audience looking more closely at the sets and puppets. Sarah is showing two kids how to hold and operate the queen shadow puppet.
FIGMENT DC 2012
We were thrilled to perform at the inaugural FIGMENT DC a few weeks ago at The Yards park in Southeast DC. Here are some pictures of our setup and audience members enjoying our show!
Wit's End Puppets 