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Back Issues
September
2004
November
2004
May
2005
October
2005
June
2006
November
2006
December
2006
March
2007
November
2007
Puppet
Showplace Theatre News
From Our Executive Director
Puppet People News
Kym Williams retires
from Board
Caleb Fullam dies at 53
Jovonna van Pelt marries
New in the Theatre...
Adult Season News
Emerson Puppetry Finals
Holiday Grandparent Discount
Upcoming Weekend Shows
Community Notes
Bread & Puppet Comes
to Boston
Brookline Celebrates 300th Anniversary
Corporate Fundraiser
Brookline Village News
Thanks from PST
Message from the Director
As I head into my eighth month as Executive Director, I am growing accustomed to certain patterns of life at Puppet Showplace Theatre. I can generally count on Heather's good cheer, Karen will bring us in food that is better than anything I cook at home, and that running this theatre will be a study in contrasts.
On the one hand, there is the ever present challenge of finances and fundraising in a difficult climate for many non-profit organizations. As many of you know, we continue to face an ongoing tightrope act to keep the lights on, the shows on stage and the staff from becoming like characters in a Dickens novel. Foundation funding has proven to be more elusive than it was in past years and our donor base is not as large as one might hope.
Contrasting with that somewhat grim picture, the theatre continues to grow and progress in some exciting ways. We invite you to take a look at out new web site which has emerged in final form and we think gives a great introduction to the artistry and history of PST, as well as a lot of useful information. It has also been gratifying to see that ticket sales actually rose slightly in the past few months compared to the same period for last year. We like to take that as a sign that our efforts to let people know about the value of this theatre and the artform it supports is bearing some fruit. Also, we are heading into our adult season and are very pleased to have the chance to introduce our patrons to some outstanding, cutting edge productions.
As we draw closer to the holiday months, we will no doubt continue to face many challenges but we also look forward to some great shows and a chance to share them with you, our friends and supporters. We thank you for your continued good will and patronage.
Joe Callahan
New web site finally up and running.
It would seem that in our enthusiasm we were a bit too optimistic when we announced in September that our newly designed and improved website would be up "any day now". We won't go into the litany of glitches and naiveté that led to the delay, but the important news is that now it really is up and running (else you could not be reading this month's news online).
Over the summer we examined other successful web sites, studied the questions that patrons often pose, discussed what information we'd like to present to both loyal patrons and first-time visitors, and pondered how to make the "look" of the site reflect the extraordinary quality of the shows we present at the theatre. While we still have some fine tuning to do, and will be adding a few more pages (one will honor our founder Mary Churchill who was a wonderful puppeteer herself), we think you'll see a significant improvement over our old site. We hope you find it useful and easy to navigate, and that you'll let us know if you find any mistakes or places we can make improvements.
The lion's share of the credit for the site must go to our intrepid Web site Diva Amy Lindsay who took our (sometimes chaotic) vision and turned it into the reality you see here. Envisioning something is easy but accomplishing it is hard work and Amy was unfailingly cheerful and helpful throughout the long process. Amy is also the goddess who makes sure the show descriptions are up every month and who maintains the site for us. We couldn't do without her. Thanks Amy!!!
Kym Williams completes her term as Board Chair
Anyone who comes to the theatre more than once has likely encountered most of our small but enthusiastic staff. The folks that patrons rarely get to meet, though, are our Board members... those who toil behind the scenes to make sure that the theatre not only survives these trying times for arts organizations, but thrives to serve generations to come.
Kym Williams is one of those unseen and unsung figures who's made a very significant contribution to the continuity and vitality of the theatre. She took on responsibility for the theatre in the bleakest of its times, and was the one who, in the benign chaos that ensued after founder Mary Churchill's untimely death, worked diligently to find a team who could carry on Mary's mission. She's also been very persuasive in ensuring certain monetary gifts to the theatre at crucial moments.
Kym leaves us to devote more time to her lovely family and to pursue a graduate degree in the health care field (to add to her degree in non-profit administration). We thank her most heartily for her help and guidance over many years, and wish her much luck in her exciting new endeavors.
Noted
Puppeteer Caleb Fullam dies at 53.
The puppetry community and Puppet Showplace family are most saddened to report the death of our friend puppeteer Caleb Fullam from cancer on October 20th. Caleb died peacefully in his elegant home in Hudson New York where he had resided the past four years. Prior to that Caleb had lived in Allston for most of his adult life.
As Tatterdemalion Puppets Caleb began his puppetry career creating memorable, fanciful productions for children, but it was for his adult-oriented puppetry that Caleb was most well known. His unique and sophisticated sculpting style lent itself beautifully to the unusual and very original stories he created. Powder, Paint and Poison, a puppet rock operetta likened to "dark Gilbert and Sullivan", An Evening with Other Glove Theatre which included several vignettes with gay themes, and his ongoing work based on the artist Aubrey Beardsley was a stunning mixture of art, sculpture, shadow puppetry, toy theatre and acting were among the most outstanding in an illustrious career. Caleb specialized in drama where the outrageous met the exquisite. Puppet Showplace Theatre was privileged to have presented almost all of his productions.
In addition to his creating his own stunning productions, Caleb was in great demand to work as a designer or performer with many prominent puppetry artists, including Kermit Love on the television show Whirligig, Paul Mesner Puppets on several productions, Underground Railway Theatre in their work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and our own Paul Vincent Davis on several productions. With Paul and Nikki Tilroe, Caleb created an evening of theatre, puppetry and poetry called The Poet's Eye.
Puppet Showplace Theatre will be hosting two special events to honor Caleb. On Sunday January and we will host a Celebration of Caleb's Life at 2:00 PM. Friends, colleagues and admirers are invited to attend and share memories and stories of Caleb. Performances are most welcome too. We'll have a display of photographs and some of Caleb's puppets, and refreshments will follow with time for old and new friends to visit. Those who would like to perform (or send video) should contact Karen at the theatre so she'll be prepared for your technical needs.
On Saturday February 12th a portion of our regularly scheduled PuppetSLAM at 8 PM will be devoted to invitational pieces in honor of Caleb. These mini-performances will be part of a "challenge"to create a piece based on a chapter title from one of Caleb's favorite books—Edith Sitwell's English Eccentrics. These titles are quite evocative and lend themselves beautifully to puppetry. Those interested in taking part in the challenge should contact Karen for the list of chapter titles.
Caleb's family has very generously suggested that memorial donations be directed to the Puppet Showplace Theatre, which was always very close to Caleb's heart. We're most grateful for this "living legacy" from Caleb.
On Saturday November 6th our much beloved and just past executive director Jovonna Van Pelt will wed the dashing Robert Humphreys in their new hometown of Holyoke, MA. After a stylish evening wedding and desert reception they'll be travelling to England for their honeymoon. Sometime after the turn of the new year we'll be having an "after" shower for Jovonna's friends in the area (in typical fashion she was too busy planning the wedding for us to plan one beforehand) where she'll share tales of the honeymoon trip. Let the PST staff know if you'd like to be included on the guest list.
Adult
Season
Many of you have patiently been awaiting news of our 2004/2005 Puppets at Night Season. We were not meaning to keep you in suspense, but in these difficult times for non-profit theatres like ours we could not advertise the season until we were more sure of our funding. While all the funding necessary for the season has not yet been procured, we feel confident that we may at least let you know what is in store. We re still finalizing the location for two of the shows, so watch our "Puppets at Night" page on this site for an update in the next couple of weeks, along with the show descriptions and photographs. Meanwhile, please mark your calendars with the following dates.
PuppetSLAM
Various Artists
December 4—8 PM
at Puppet Showplace Theatre
Seance
MUM Puppet Theatre
from Philadelphia
January 6-8—8PM
Location TBA
At the turn of the 19th century, millions of people found themselves at the crossroads of science and faith. They embraced the hope that science would prove the existence of spirits and ghosts. Seance brings memories and imagination to life in this spellbinding story of a young woman struggling to understand a past she doesn't remember.
Mum Puppettheatre has won three Citations for Excellence from the North American chapter of Union Internationale de la Marionnette and thirteen Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theatre. Founding Artistic Director Robert Smythe is the winner of a prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship and was one of the last Solo Performer Fellows of the National Endowment for the Arts.
PuppetSLAM
Various Artists
February 12—8 PM
at Puppet Showplace Theatre
Translations:
An Evening of Eastern European Tales
Luna Theatre &
Yasna Voices
March 17-19—8 PM
at Puppet Showplace Theatre
Boston's cutting-edge Luna Theatre teams up with New York's acclaimed Bulgarian women's choir to present a program which includes: The Nose, an absurd shadow play, based on the surreals Gogol story featuring a man who wakes up one morning to find his nose missing, and Rocks, Flames, and Other Misfortunes, a series of short puppetry and live music pieces inspired by Russian Futurist poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.
Luna Theatre has presented at diverse locations such as the Puppeteers of America Regional Puppetry Festival, Art Beat, Lincoln Center Out-of-Doors, First Night, Boston University, plus international appearances in Dneperopetrovsk, Ukraine, and in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
Yasna Voices is a Brooklyn-based, all female vocal group, specializing in village style and arranged Bulgarian Folk music. Our mission is to introduce audiences to this rich vocal tradition and, through the power of vocal harmony, to inspire, heal and unite.
No Exit (Hamlet)
Figurentheatre
Wilde & Vogel from Germany
April 8-10—8 PM
Location TBA
No Exit ... And under every dancer / A dead man in his grave.
The phenomenon of "Hamlet" and Shakespeare's text form the basis of this theatre collage for a puppeteer and a musician.
Puppetry between Punk and Poetry!
Figurentheater Wilde & Vogel (creators of last season's Toccata) was founded in 1991 by Michael Vogel and Charlotte Wilde as a freelance touring company. With productions for children and adults, the theatre has performed at numerous festivals in more than 20 different countries in Europe, America and Asia. In addition the company has worked for other theatres as well held workshops in Germany and abroad.
PuppetSLAM
Various Artists
May 14—8 PM
at The Puppet Showplace Theatre
Emerson College Puppetry Finals
We are thrilled that the Emerson College Puppetry Class, under the creative and knowledgeable hand of Professor John Bell, will present their final semester's projects for the public at PST on Thursday-Saturday evenings December 16-18 at 8 PM.
Tickets for these performances are FREE and may be reserved by calling the theatre at 617.731.6400.
There is a lot of great puppetry coming out of the university programs at Emerson and UConn, not to mention the drama classes at Tufts and Brandeis, and PST is very proud to be sharing these future (and sometimes present) puppetry stars with our appreciative audience at our PuppetSLAMS and in evenings like these. Please join us.
Thanksgiving Weekend / December Holidays
Every year we look forward to the November and December Holidays when often grandparents bring to the theatre not only their children—who came to the theatre as children—but also their grandchildren.
In honor of those grandparents, and all the new ones who are just discovering us, we continue our tradition of offering all grandparents $1 off their ticket between November 24-28 and December 22-30.
These dates include our annual Thanksgiving Eve presentation of Paul Vincent Davis; Native American Raccoon Tales, his Rumplestiltskin on Nov. 26, Pat Boylan's Gingerbread Boy and Other Tales on Dec. 22-23, and Paul's luscious and elaborate production of Beauty and the Beast Dec. 24-30. We only offer this beautiful production (which is decidedly not the Disney version) every two years, so please don't miss it.
Please note that there is only one show on December 24th at 1 PM, and there are no shows on December 31st-January 2nd. To get the grandparent discount, please mention it when you make reservations. We cannot tell who is a grandparent when we take a reservation over the phone, adn so many grandparents look so young to be such that we can't always tell when you buy tickets at our window either. Help us out!
Aesop's Fables—November
20 & 21
We don't get our friend Lenny Gerwick to perform anywhere near often enough
and this is just a delightful version of three of these popular fables.
Lenny is half of The Gerwick Puppets, one of the most respected companies
in New England. We often have his partner Debbie Costine here too performing
her beautifully designed shows for young children. Come remind yourself
how much fun these classic fables are, and what important lessons they
have to teach.
The Magic Trunk—December
4 & 5
We'd like to suggest that those of you who've not seen ventriloquist Sylvia
Markson already make your reservations soon for her remarkable and very
fun show. Sylvia performs simply the very best family ventriloquist show
we've seen in our 30 years of puppetry, and her characters and skits are
unusual and highly entertaining. We've never seen anyone who wasn't smiling
when they walked out of one of her shows, and often patrons are pulling
out their cell phones to call friends to urge them to make reservations
between the 1 PM and 3PM shows. Spend a chilly early winter afternoon
with this charming entertainer.
Beauty and the Beast—December
24 and 26-30
We're bringing back this timeless tale of hopeful love created by our
artist in residence Paul Vincent Davis. Paul has won the coveted UNIMA
Citation (the highest award given in this country to a puppet show) for
a most lush and elaborate version of the story. A "romance for actor
and puppets" this production includes beautiful scenery, evocative
music, and elaborate special effects (like a storm at sea). We ask that
parents share with children who are familiar with the Disney version that
this is a different version (which actually pre-dates the film) so the
children are not confused when Belle does not appear (the heroine's name
in our production is Beauty). You won't want to miss this truly beautiful
production which we only present every two years.
Looking ahead!
Peter and the Wolf—January
22 & 23
We are THRILLED that our friend Christopher Piper from Maryland will be
coming north for a rare visit to perform his impressive solo marionette
production of Peter and the Wolf. Though it has a lively score and has
been a much beloved story for generations, there are very few puppet productions
of this musical story by Sergei Prokofiev, and fewer still that will fit
on our intimate stage. This is a production that has been performed at
National Puppetry Festivals to great acclaim adn we're most lucky to have
the opportunity to share it with our audiences. Christopher, who is second
generation puppeteer, along with his talented wife Mayfield and their
highly skilled partner Allan Stevens, run the Puppet Company Playhouse
in Glen Echo, Maryland. One of the other great year-round puppet theatres
in the US, The Puppet Company Playhouse features the company's own lavish
and masterful productions as well as occasional guest artists. We're very
lucky Christopher is making time in his own hectic schedule to visit and
hope our audience will give him a warm New England welcome. For more information
on The Puppet Company, check out
their web site.
The venerable Bread & Puppet Theatre, spiritual and/or actual godfather
of most of the political puppet theatre companies in America, is in town
for their annual visit November 4-21 at Durrell Hall at the YMCA in Central
Square Cambridge. While in town they're performing both family-friendly
shows (The Upside Down World Circus) and two adult shows (both World
on Fire and How to turn Distress into Success: a Parable of War
and its Making ) and at each performance they will be selling their
wonderful Cheap Art. For more information check out the B&P
web site 2005 is the Tercentennial year of our hometown of Brookline and there
are many festivities planned for the year-long celebration, culminating
in a large outdoor extravaganza at beautiful Larz Anderson Park on Sunday
November 13th 2005, the anniversary of the day the town was incorporated.
PST is very proud to have received a substantial grant from the Brookline
300 Commission to create a giant puppet pageant and numerous ancillary
"puppet happenings" as part of that important day.
One of the things we'll be working toward is the presence of at least
300 puppets carried by puppeteers and friends as well as the children
and families of Brookline. We're really looking forward to this festive,
old-fashioned community event and hope many of our friends and patrons
will want to participate as puppet carriers and helpers.
There will also be a big outdoor Brookline Festival in Coolidge Corner
on Sunday September 18th and PST will have a table at that event also.
Help Us With Our Corporate Fundraiser—December
1st / Matt Murphy's Pub
We are looking for Corporate Sponsors. Do you know of a corporation that would like to support one of the oldest
and most respected puppet theatres in the country? Perhaps the one you
work for? If so, please let us know about the company. PST is about to
embark on a campaign to identify organizations that would like to lend
their support to our important programs.
Current programs in need of funding are our year-round Weekend Programming
(ticket sales only cover half of the cost of presenting these shows),
our important and groundbreaking Puppets in Dorchester program which has
sadly been suspended this year for lack of funding, and a new project
we hope to initiate in the Arlington/Lexington area which would allow
us to bring in shows too large for our own small stage. We love this intimate
space where children (and adults) are never very far from the performance,
but there are extraordinary puppet shows being created by masterful companies
across the country and around the world that we would like to be able
to share on a regular basis with our audiences.
Corporate sponsors will be prominently featured in all our advertising,
program books, on our web site, and possibly on our ticket envelopes,
and there are other reciprocal opportunities available in exchange for
a corporation's support.
If you know of a good corporate match-up for PST please contact our executive
director Joe Callahan at 617.731.6400.
As always, there's much happening in Brookline Village as the leaves
begin to fall.
Thanks, as always, to Chobee Hoy, the fairy godmother of Brookline
Village (and much of Brookline) who featured PST recently in her monthly
radio spots on WCRB. We can tell how many people hear those spots because
dozens of them tell us when they call to make reservations. Bless Chobee
for her support of all the major arts organizations in town!
We're all in great anticipation of the opening quite soon of the Italian
bistro Pomodoro which is taking over half of the space occupied
by The Village Fish. The new owners are being advised by Siobhan Carew
from Matt Murphy's Pub, one of the truly great neighborhood eateries adn
gathering places, so we know it will be friendly and fun with great food.
The restaurant will be a smaller version of Siobhan's own Pomodoro in
Boston's North End. By the way, congratulations to Siobhan and crews of
both Pomodoro and Matt Murphy's Pub on recently being named
by The Boston Globe two of THE 60 best places to eat in the Boston area!
Welcome to Bambini around the corner on Route 9. Bambini is a
store specializing in children's furniture, decor, and other assorted
stylish accessories for kids, and everything for sale there is lusciously
beautiful.
Bambini joined PST, The Children's Bookshop, Village Baby, ISIS Maternity
(at Brookline Place) and Henry Bear's Park in organizing a Brookline
Village Family Fun Day on September 19th. There were riddles, prizes,
antique cars and city fire engines to visit, and activities at each of
the child-oriented businesses in The Village. We wanted to remind families
how many unique child-oriented businesses we have in our friendly little
village, and since everyone had a great time we're thinking of making
this an annual event. Look for it to happen again early next fall.
We could not continue our important work without the help of friends
and supporters like these :
Anonymous And these generous friends of Caleb Fullam and his family have donated
to the theatre in his memory:
Barb & Tom Knoff
Chobee Hoy
Joyce Wiese
Sarah Lamstein
Alice Schaefer
Bryan Papciak & Jeff Sias
Marc & Adelaide Evans
Lin Sassman
and the Churchill Family Trust... as always
Robert & Deborah Knetzger
Jovonna Van Pelt
Barbara Wiese
Judith Harris
32 Station Street
Brookline MA 02445
617.731.6400 | 617.731.0526 Fax
info@puppetshowplace.org