Details & Registration
March 19 (Thurs) 2026 | 6:30 pm - 9:30 pm
Location: Puppet Showplace Theater
$85 Regular / plus 4% service fee
$70 Access / plus 4% service fee
$105 Supporter / plus 4% service fee
Puppets at Night members receive 15% off
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Registration Deadline: March 5
Register early — if minimum enrollment is not met by March 5 the class will be cancelled.
About the Class
Join playwright, director, and puppeteer Charlotte Lily Gaspard of Midnight Radio Show for an overview of the methods (and madness!) behind her collective's magical realist approach to live performance. In this three-hour workshop we will playfully engage our creativity, storytelling, imagination, and improvisational skills. Theater is an infinitely rich method for co-creating the stories we want to see in the world, and we all have tales to tell.
Working collaboratively, we will create new short pieces of theater, using the model of fairy tales as a framework to guide us. Midnight Radio Show calls this a "fairy tale experiment" and it is one of the cornerstones of the collective's creative process. The format of a fairy tale is familiar, typically using a three act structure with a beginning, middle, and end. Other familiar tropes for this type of story include: good triumphs over evil, kindness is ultimately rewarded, while unkindness is ultimately punished, and where is a fairy godmother with all the solutions when you need her?!
There is power in reclaiming the realm of mythical and magical storytelling to uplift new perspectives, giving new voices a chance to shape these narratives to reflect their values, hopes, and dreams. Further power resides in that place where different minds and ideas come together, rejecting hierarchies that falsely proclaim only the stories of dominant perspectives are worthy. Let's make new stories together!
This method of collaborative theater-making can be applied to any genre or type of story. Participants will leave this "playshop" with the tools to devise new performances with their collaborators, whether they are actors, puppeteers, musicians, dancers, or simply creative souls!
Recommended for adults 18+
About the Instructor
Charlotte Lily Gaspard has been described as “part celestial creature, part sophisticated human,” by Enchanted Living Magazine. Shadow puppet artist, storyteller, and a “multi-faceted enchantress... the fanciful mastermind behind Midnight Radio Show” (Broadway World), Charlotte’s mission is to activate imaginations and celebrate playfulness wherever she goes. Along with puppets, Charlotte also creates costumes for theater and film, and leads puppetry and theater workshops all over New York City — and beyond.
Midnight Radio Show is a multi-disciplinary collective based in Brooklyn. Using handmade shadow puppets, live performance, video content, and an actual radio show, they broadcast real magical love to children of all ages. MRS is headed up by Charlotte Lily Gaspard, the artistic director, singer, narrator, and bona fide fairy princess. Resident composers Ezra Bloom, Sabrina Chap, Jessie Davis, and Doc Frost craft original scores and songs for the shadow puppet stories, live cabarets, and recordings.
