DAY TIME PROGRAM
MORNING 10 a.m. to 12.15 p.m. Tickets are available here
10:15 Staging Illuminations: Puppet-Theatre Methodologies and Shadow Dramaturgies. Gabe Levine, Annie Katsura Rollins and Jordan Tzouhas. Two puppeteers spent the winter of 2018 holed up with a group of undergrad drama students, creating an original show inspired by Arthur Rimbaud’s poems. How did they do it? What did the students take away from their introduction to puppetry? The directors will let you in on their secrets. Gabriel Levine is a writer, theatre artist and musician, currently serving as Assistant Professor and Coordinator of the Drama Studies Program at Glendon College, York University. www.gabriellevine.net. Annie Katsura Rollins is a puppet and performing objects creator, researcher, educator and PhD Candidate at Concordia University, Montreal. www.anniekatsurarollins.com.
11:00 Suitcase Theatre for Refugee Children and Youth. Nadya Weber. In this workshop suitcase puppet theatre is looked at as a medium for refugee children to tell their stories. Two short puppet shows, demonstrating different suitcase theatre models, will be followed by a discussion of the rationale, materials, and methodology for developing puppet shows with newly-arrived refugee children. Nadya Weber learned about puppetry creation and performance from Ronnie Burkett and the Old Trout Puppet Workshop and studied mask and clowning with John Turner. She’s performed in educational settings and at festivals as part of the Odd Puppet Collective, www.oddpuppet.com.
11:45 Puppeteering Death. Robin Polfuss. Puppeteers work very hard to create life from the inanimate – the puppeteer can be interpreted as the soul, the life force, the heart and mind of the puppet, but what about when the puppet must die, and become inanimate? How do you puppeteer death? Robin Polfuss is a storyteller who builds theatrical puppets for stage and film and puppeteers a small, mischievous sock puppet named What What. Robin has performed puppetry at live shows, festivals and events, on television and in music videos. She also teaches puppet building & performing workshops.
AFTERNOON 1.15 p.m. to 5 p.m. Tickets are available here
1:15 Tales from the Trenches – or, How to Survive as a Freelance Artist in Canada. Frank Meschkuleit. Join former “Jim Henson’s Muppets” puppeteer Frank Meschkuleit for an informal evening of fun, facts and a bit of fiction as he discusses what it takes to survive as a Freelance Artist/Puppeteer in Canada. Featuring rare behind the scenes footage from television, stage and feature film work, such as “Fraggle Rock”, “Toopy and Binoo”, “Harold and Kumar”, “Bride of Chucky” and more. In his 37 years of puppeteering in Canada, Frank Meschkuleit has had the good fortune to work with some wonderfully talented folks on feature films, tv series and commercials, create and executive produce a nationally broadcast television series, and participate as an award winning hosting team as a puppeteer for CBC.
2:15 Text and devising in Caliban. Jeremiah Bartram. In this re-write of The Tempest, Prospero seduces Caliban, enslaves him, steals his island and then rejects him, calling him a Monster. Caliban revolts, not only against Prospero but against their mutual creator, Shakespeare—and ultimately against God. Jeremiah Bartram is an author and playwright who is currently writing a book called These Necessary Angels: How Puppets Saved My Life. He’s also a disciple of Shakespeare. This Play explores the bisexual reality of the Master’s life and work.
3:00 Zero Hours: the Precarity Show. Puppetry eXploratory Laboratory 2018. Precarious is a word that we are hearing more often: precarious work, precarious housing, precarious relationships, precarious everything. How can we plan for anything when nothing seems certain? What is the distance between abandoning dreams and giving up? Can we live without dreams? Can we live with them? Jamie Ashby, PhD, is a puppet artist, union activist, and sometime sessional lecturer. Jeffrey O’Hara is a Maritime-born actor, puppeteer, and teacher, and currently resides in Toronto. Rosalyn is a Scottish Director, performer and East 15 acting school graduate who recently moved to Toronto. Emilia Svetlana Nechita, M.A, PhD, is a newcomer in Canada, from Eastern Europe. She is a writer, performer and director, co-founder and artistic director of Dragonfly Puppetry.
3:45 Using Digital Illustration and Computer Controlled Cutting in Shadow Puppetry. Sequoia Erickson, Hans Krause and Lochlan Cox. A step-by-step demonstration of the process used in the show SUM: taking hand drawn illustrations, creating digital versions, and cutting them out using a consumer-grade die cutter. Addresses challenges and advantages of this process for shadow puppetry, plus provides tips and resources for making your own highly detailed, easily reproducible puppets. Sticks and Strings Theatre is a collective striving to merge digital and traditional techniques in all aspects of shadow puppetry, including design, construction, projection, and new mediums. Established in 2017, it includes illustrators, puppet makers, choreographers, video designers, and sound artists. Learn more about us at www.shadowsum.com
4:30 Le Théâtre de la Pire Espèce and its ‘Studies’. Le Théâtre de la Pire Espèce (Montréal). The company is developing a cross-Canada project, in which a series of experimental workshops on object/visual theatre will take place in different cities over the next years. The objective is to meet, work and share ideas and skills with local artists and to develop a national network of object theatre practitioners throughout the country. Quebec’s foremost object theatre company, TPE has toured extensively with plays for adult and youth audiences. Since 1999, the company works with techniques from object theatre, puppetry, cabaret and street theatre. It aims to explore and question stage conventions and dramatic narration, and seeks to establish complicity with the audience.
EVENING PROGRAM
Frank Meschkuleit will be the MC
Theatre de la Pire Espece The Continuing Story of Jimmy Jones and his Heavenly Truck
Ingrid Hansen Volvo Areolus part 1
Brad Brackenridge Komachi on the Shrine
Mike Petersen The Conductor
Humber Second Year Theatre Students Willow
Annie Katsura Rollins HANDS
Ingrid Hansen Volvo Areolus part 2