"Poste Restante" at Charlestown Working Theater

Squirrel Stole My Underpants Creator Performs for Adults

by Guest Blogger: Bonnie Duncan, (They Gotta Be Secret Agents)

Bonnie Duncan and Tim Gallagher in "Poste Restante"

Poste Restante: A madly inventive mix of acrobatics, paper, laughter, dance, flight, puppetry, longing, and film…all stuffed neatly into a box.

Before creating "Squirrel Stole My Underpants" at Puppet Showplace, I focused my performing work on adult audiences.  "Poste Restante", a piece I made with my dance partner Tim Gallagher, is returning to Boston Feb 20-23rd at Charlestown Working Theater. 

Beyond being a lovely piece of theater, here are the...

Top 5 Reasons you should go see Poste Restante:

1.  If the child in you enjoyed Squirrel Stole My Underpants, the adult in you will be charmed, wowed, and touched by Poste Restante.  It’s the perfect date-night piece of theater.  Or, bring the kids to our Sunday, Feb 23rd show at 2:00 pm---it’s family-friendly!

2.  You can have it all:  Soulful Acrobatics!  Cheeky Theatre!  Refreshing Dance, Puppetry, & Film!  Tim Gallagher and I perform a brilliantly imaginative form of physical theater, effortlessly moving back and forth between acrobatics, puppetry and dance. Our poetically beautiful, absurdly logical show is by turns funny, dazzling, and, in the end, surprisingly poignant.

3.  Poste Restante brings communication down from a high-tech, instant, "now,now, now" process to a more tangible, visceral level where letters and boxes travel through real space and time, and survive countless potential mishaps along the way.  “The charming performance piece is a love letter to the deep human need we have to connect and the terrible trouble we have in succeeding.” – Culture Map Austin

4.  We perform under the name “They Gotta BeSecret Agents” which is apt, considering how we usually spend our daily lives:  I am the mother of 3 kids under the age of 5, living in Jamaica Plain; Tim is finishing up medical school in New York City and will begin a 4 year residency in Emergency Medicine in June.  We created and currently rehearse this show on the weekends, traveling between cities, mailing various items and ideas through the mail.

5.  This show won “Best Touring Show” (Austin Critic’s Table), “Best of the Fringe” & “Best Physical Comedy” (San Francisco Fringe).  It’s received standing ovations from audiences across the US and Europe.  The Prague Post called Poste Restante "Inspired choreography that is so stark and evocative... this crowd pleaser is not to be missed.”  It was developed with support from the Jim Henson Foundation, Puppeteers of America Endowment grant, Cambridge Arts Council, and the Mass Cultural Council. 

See you and your friends there!

- Bonnie

TICKETS:  http://www.charlestownworkingtheater.org/

MORE INFORMATION:  http://www.the-secret-agents.com

Puppets and Tap Dancing at Puppet Showplace!

Puppets At Night for Adults and Teens presents...

"The Joshua Show" by Joshua Holden
TWO NIGHTS ONLY!
Fri, Feb 28 at 8pm
Sat, Mar 1 at 8pm

BUY TICKETS

Puppets At Night, a series of provocative puppetry performances for adult and teen audiences returns this February with an award-winning production by North Shore native, Joshua Holden! Join us for the amazing vaudeville infused puppets and tap dancing extravaganza that is "The Joshua Show," winner of the 2013 National Puppetry Festival "Fan Favorite," and "Best Performance" awards.

About the show:

Mr. Nicholas, a sock puppet and Joshua’s soulmate, makes an unnerving self-discovery that causes him to spiral down a path of loneliness and hopeless despair. How do you cheer up when life gets you down? Is it possible to be so different from everyone that you are truly alone? Explore these ideas as a world full of whimsy, magic, and abundant joy unfolds before you. The Joshua Show provides audiences with a loving friend to cheer them up and an acknowledgement that when life gets tough, they are not alone.

Blending puppetry, an original score of live musical numbers, physical comedy, and a smattering of tap dancing, the show empowers people of all ages to celebrate their differences. Joshua’s beautifully hand-crafted puppets help us understand the vulnerable feelings associated with the human experience and uncover the immense joy that surrounds us every day.

Joshua Holden in "The Joshua Show"

About the performers:

Joshua Holden is an award winning puppeteer, actor, and joy-maker based in New York City.
Most notably, he was on the Broadway national tour of Avenue Q, and was the Lead Puppeteer on the national tour of Peter Pan 360. Most recently, Joshua worked with international artist Banksy on his controversial NY "Sirens of the Lambs." In August 2013, Joshua was one of 24 puppeteers representing American puppetry at The Puppeteers of America’s National Festival, with The Joshua Show. This proud Massachusetts native is an alumni of the Walnut Hill School for the Arts, and has a B.F.A. in Acting from The Chicago College of Performing Arts, Roosevelt University.

Tim Hansen, composer/musician in "The Joshua Show"

Tim Hansen (b.1978) is an Australian composer and teaching artist. He has had pieces performed in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US, Belgium, France and Mexico, and has been a composition fellow at the Bang on a Can Summer Institute and the Norfolk Contemporary Music Festival. In addition to being short listed for the APRA Professional Development award in 2010 and 2013, he has been awarded the Frank Ponton Memorial Prize, the Darwin International Guitar Festival Composition Prize and an ArtStart Grant from the Australia Council for the Arts. He is a founding director of both ExhAust New Music and the W4 New Music collective in New York.

There's a Puppet Pandemic at Puppet Showplace!

PUPPET SHOWPLACE SLAM: Featuring Puppet Pandemic

ONE NIGHT ONLY!
Sat, Jan 18 at 8pm

BUY TICKETS

The Puppet Showplace Slam returns! January's slam features "Puppet Pandemic" performers, aka alumni of the O'Neill National Puppetry Conference. Acts include "Goldilocks and the Three Kraken" by Broderick Jones, "The Bread Death" performed and created by Gavin Cummins (age 40) and narrated by Chanz Kalstrom (age 5), "Stealium" by Matt Witham and Christine Dempsey, an excerpt from Bonnie Duncan's acclaimed dance/puppetry production "Poste Restante" and many more!

RAFFLE: You'll also have a chance to win awesome puppet-themed raffle prizes. Proceeds from the raffle go to the O'Neill's Alumni Scholarship Fund.

CASH BAR: Beer and wine will be served through out the night thanks to our beer sponsor for the evening, Berkshire Brewing Company!

ABOUT THE O'NEIL NATIONAL PUPPETRY CONFERENCE

The National Puppetry Conference located at the Eugene O'Neil Theater Center in Waterford, CT creates contemporary works of theater that defy imagination and confound expectations. Over the course of just eight days, Conference participants collaborate with nationally and internationally renowned puppet artists, and each other, to produce innovative plays and productions that push the boundaries of puppetry’s definitions and dare participants to challenge themselves and their audiences. 

FEATURED PERFORMERS:

Gavin Cummins is a puppeteer and graduate student at University of Connecticut's Puppet Arts program. He first started performing with puppets in Seattle with Thistle Theater and Brain Kooser Productions before co-founding The Fussy Cloud Puppet Slam and the creating the ubiquitously named Puppet Show: The Puppet Show. Gavin has performed around the country and was honored to be selected as part of the 2013 National Puppet Slam.

"The Bread Death" by Gavin Cummins

In "The Bread Death," black light puppets help to bring to life a spooky story told by a 5 year old boy.  Narrator and storyteller Chanz is a young friend of Gavin's who in September asked him "What are you doing?" and when Gavin replied, "Trying to think of a Halloween story" he answered with "I have a Halloween story…" The recording used in "The Bread Death" is verbatim and unedited.

"Stealium" by Matt Witham and Christine Dempsey

"Stealium" by Matt Witham and Christine Dempsey is a humorous toy theater piece about helium shortage. It was developed and created at the 2013 O'Neil Pre Conference in the Toy Theater track taught by John Bell. The piece was conceived, written, and built, in three days.

"Stealium" by Matt Witham and Christine Dempsey

Matt Witham is an animator, designer, and puppet builder based out of Astoria, New York. He has animated on the hit children’s television show, Nick Jr.’s “The Wonder Pets!” and various stop motion music videos for LEGO. He is currently the lead designer and animator on the children’s app, “Addimal Adventure.” You can hear his voice in the app as the constantly annoyed character, “Junior Possum.”