Pam Arciero, Artistic Director
PERFORMANCE DATES
JUNE 10 & 11 | 7:00PM (EST)
The Conference concludes in the beautiful Dina Merrill Theater with two public performances of an extraordinary mix of devised work from throughout the Conference, featuring guest artists, artists-in-residence, and a vast array of performance styles.
VIRTUAL MASTER CLASSES
MONDAY, JUNE 6 | 1:30PM (EST)
Tom Lee
Puppet maker & performer
Born in Seoul, Korea and raised in Mililani, Hawai’i, Tom Lee is a director, designer and puppet artist based in New York & Chicago. Mr. Lee began his career at La MaMa Experimental Theater in New York with the encouragement of Ellen Stewart and, later, the St. Ann’s Warehouse Puppet Lab. His original puppet theater work includes Shank's Mare (La MaMa, Japan Tour), Hoplite Diary (St. Ann’s, La MaMa), Punch of the Dead (St. Ann’s Puppet Lab), Odysseus and Ajax (La MaMa) and Ko'olau (La MaMa/Hawai’i tour). Mr. Lee has directed & designed puppetry for Giants Are Small with the New York Philharmonic, the Prototype Festival production of The Scarlet Ibis by Stefan Weisman and David Cote and for the National Asian American Theatre Company, among others.
Mr. Lee collaborated with director Stephen Earnhart on a multimedia staging of Haruki Murakami’s The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, for which he designed the scenery, puppetry and projected puppet miniatures. This production was featured at the Edinburgh International Festival in 2011 and the Singapore Arts Festival in 2012.
Mr. Lee has performed extensively with other companies in New York, including War Horse at Lincoln Center Theater with puppetry by the Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa. He is a principal puppeteer of Cio-Cio-san’s child in the late Anthony Minghella’s production of Madonna Butterfly at the Metropolitan Opera with puppetry by Blind Summit Theatre. Tom directed the puppetry for the Giants Are Small production of Pertrushka with the New York Philharmonic on tour at London’s Barbican Centre and was a puppeteer in Le Grand Macabre with the NY Philharmonic at Avery Fisher Hall directed by Doug Fitch and conducted by Alan Gilbert. He has performed in Dan Hurlin’s Obie-award winning puppet work Hiroshima Maiden and Disfarmer, on tour and at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. Tom recently performed in Lee Breuer’s epic puppet opera La Divina Caricatura at La MaMa.
Tom’s theater design work includes puppets, projections and sets for Yoshiko Chuma, Bora Yoon, Tom O’Horgan, Czechoslovak American Marionette Theatre, Paper Canoe Company, The Georgia Shakespeare Festival, Christopher Williams, The Swedish Marionette Cottage, The Stonington Opera House, Lone Wolf Tribe and Ellen Stewart, among others. In 2013, he designed the Korean pop musical The Lost Garden, directed by June-Young Soh and premiered at the Shanghai Mercedes Benz Arena in China.
TUESDAY, JUNE 7 | 1:30PM (EST)
Andrew Kim
Puppet maker & performer
Andrew Kim is a puppet maker and performer based in West Yorkshire, England. He is a co-director of Thingumajig Theatre and the founder and former director of Handmade Parade. Andrew started in puppetry with Minneapolis’ in the Heart of the Beast Theatre and worked with Bread & Puppet and the Fremont Summer Solstice (Seattle) before moving to England. Andrew has developed a specialty in giant puppets, lantern giant puppets, street theatre and community participatory spectacles. He is a recipient of a UNIMA-USA Citation of Excellence and his puppet have been seen in 18 countries, and several television programs and a Disney film.
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8 | 1:30PM (EST)
Les Sages Fous
South Miller
Artistic director, creator of puppets, masks and set, co-author
Co-founder of Les Sages Fous, South from graduated the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre in New York City in 1992, a well reputed professional theater school, run by Sanford Meisner, who was a founding member of the Group Theatre. South discovered puppetry by working with Bread and Puppet and Dorset Theater in Vermont in 1994, and working afterwards with several companies in Canada and the United States before founding her company in 1999.
South was the recipient of the prestigious “Award for Artistic Creation” from the Quebec Arts Council in Quebec. South and her colleague Sylvain have received several awards for their co-set design: Jury Prize at the 39th International Puppet Theatre Festival in Zagreb, Croatia, for the scenography Bizzarium: Aquarium and the Prize for the best scenography and puppets for The Orphan Circus at Spotkania festival in Torun, Poland.
South has participated as creator for all the shows of the company as well as making all of the puppets and sets collaboratively with Sylvain. She has toured as an actor-puppeteer with Parade Issimo and Bizzarium. She directed The Orphan Circus and is currently the director of Trickycle. South has toured all over the world with the Sages Fous productions.
Jacob Brindamour
Actor-puppeteer, puppet movement training, co-author
Jacob grew up in a theatre family, where puppets adorned the walls. By co-founding Les Sages Fous, Jacob became, despite himself, a fourth-generation actor. Aside from this fallback, his company allows him to follow his wildest dreams and to sail the seven seas. Jacob was formed in mask theater and puppetry by Paul-André Sagel (Centre national des arts du cirque, France), Carina Bonan (Espace Catastrophe, Brussels), Eric Bass (Sandglass Theater, Vermont), Nina Dimitrova (Credo Theatre, Bulgaria), Claire Dancoisne (Théâtre de la Licorne, Lille), and Nicole Mossoux (Mossoux-Bonté, Brussels).
Jacob focuses on puppet movement and exploration. He is a puppet tamer. Our puppets are not complete until they have passed through his hands, he has discovered their limits, has found all the weak spots and broken them many times. Jacob has participated as creator and performer in all the shows of the company, and has toured all over the world with Les Sages Fous productions.