We were proud to have La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club feature our show SECRETS HISTORY REMEMBERS as part of the La MaMa Puppet Festival, on November 1, 2 and 3, 2024. The original version of SECRETS premiered in 2007, and it returned in an up-to-the-minute, fully rewritten 2024 edition, with a completely new score by acclaimed modern composer Joel Phillip Friedman, movement by the amazing choreographer Vanessa Paige, lighting by the talented Federico Restrepo, terrific costumes by Sarah Riffle and the indispensable Berit Johnson returning as stage manager. SECRETS 2024 is a witty, high-energy vaudeville act that uses a seven-foot-tall doll as its stage, and main character. The show is a visual feast that examines our culture of fear with humor, insight and inventive puppetry, asking the question: will an obsessive need for safety and a fear of “the other” break us? (Photo by Edward Einhorn)
For tickets and further info:
La MaMa - Secrets History Remembers
We are happy to announce that we're the Puppetry Designers for New York City Children's Theater's THE POCKET PARK KIDS, an environmentally conscious children's show that brings the United Nations' Global Goals to life. The show is directed by Anika Larsen (ALMOST FAMOUS the musical, Tony nominee for the Carole King musical BEAUTIFUL) and written by Anika Larsen and Orlando Bishop. It just had a successful workshop performance (featuring our recycled-materials puppet of Honey the Parakeet, seen below in rehearsal with puppeteer Yanniv Frank), and will have a full production with many more puppets in February 2025. Stay tuned! (Photo by Tanya Khordoc)
Earlier in 2024, we designed the puppetry for EXAGOGE, an immersive opera/play/seder by Edward Einhorn and Avner Finberg, produced by UTC61, that premiered at La MaMa on April 26 and ran through May 12. We created several large puppets for the show (including the Phoenix pictured below with puppeteer Parker Sera, and also featuring a new contender for the largest puppet we've ever made -- not pictured here!) (Photo by Edward Einhorn)
For tickets and more information, please go here:
Exagoge at La MaMa
We presented the first developmental performance of our latest full-length hybrid play THEY WERE CALLED TREES as part of La MaMa's Jump Start Program on November 9-11, 2023. For more info, go here:
La MaMa Jump Start 2023
...and
In the 2023 Greenwich Village Halloween Parade, our 10-foot-tall Andy Warhol puppet walked with Grand Marshall Laurie Anderson!
Info here:
NYC Halloween Parade
We created Giant Andy (and Little Andy) for Bated Breath Theatre Company's immersive theatrical walking tour CHASING ANDY WARHOL, inspired by the life of the celebrated pop artist.
We are proud to have LIGHT AS PAPER named as an Official Selection of ANIMOVIES: LIFE IS A JOURNEY, part of Calgary, Canada's Festival of Animated Objects! LIGHT AS PAPER tells a moving story of parents, children, love and loss using simple materials and is set to a beautiful score by acclaimed modern composer Joel Phillip Friedman.
See our newest short-form show,
"GIFTS"
as part of La MaMa Kids' Winter Wonderland...
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 18 at 2:00 p.m.
at La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, NYC
GET MORE INFO HERE:
La MaMa Winter Wonderland 2021
See our version of Japan's biggest movie star and his strangest, gooiest foe (and a bunch of other amazing puppeteers interpreting the big G and his entire kaiju rogues gallery)
at Drama of Works' Punch Kamikaze
GODZILLA SLAM!!!
SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 20 at 6:00 p.m.
at Brooklyn Waterfront Artists Coalition,
481 Van Brunt St., Door 7, Brooklyn NY 11231
GET MORE INFO HERE:
Facebook Event - Punch Kamikaze: Godzilla!
We are proud to announce that our puppet film LIGHT AS PAPER has been named as an Official Selection by the 2021 Vienna International Film Awards in the category of Best Experimental. LIGHT AS PAPER is a live-action, wordless puppet film about parents and children, love and loss, set to a beautiful score by composer Joel Phillip Friedman. For more information on the Awards, click here: VIFA
See our family show EVOLUTION: A TALE OF FRIENDSHIP
live and in-person at La MaMa in NYC this weekend:
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 16 at 2:00 p.m.
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 17 at 1:00 p.m.
(please note that Sunday's show is at 1:00 p.m.
and NOT 2:00 p.m. as originally listed!)
Tickets: $10
EVOLUTION features 18 large, colorful puppets
and a funny and touching story of what it means to be friends.
GET TICKETS HERE:
La MaMa Puppet Series - Evolution: A Tale of Friendship
We're premiering our new short-form show
APERTURE
as part of the
La MaMa Puppet Slam
WED. OCT. 13 at 7:00 p.m.
THURS. & FRI. OCT. 14-15 at 8:30 p.m.
GET TICKETS HERE:
La MaMa Puppet Series - Puppet Slam
We premiered our latest virtual show,
LIGHT AS PAPER, as part of the
Object Movement Digital Puppetry Festival!
Friday 4/23 @ 7:30 pm EST (with talkback)
and
Sunday 4/25 @ 2:30 pm EST (all of the puppet pieces with no talkback).
Info and tickets at www.centeratwestpark.org/omf-spring-2021
...is Evolve's fourth original full-length
puppetry/theatre/multimedia show.
More info coming soon!
'Tis the season! Evolve's new short holiday blacklight show DECEMBER NYC will be appearing at the La MaMa Kids Winter Wonderland Performance on Sunday, December 22 at 12 noon, alongside works by other amazingly talented artists! Click the link below for tickets and more information:
La MaMa Winter Wonderland!
Evolve Puppets is proud to have worked with
Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble
creating the Kite and Dog puppets
for the world premiere of the new opera
PRINCESS MALEINE
at La MaMa
(click the above image for more photos and information)
Music: Whitney George & Curiosity Cabinet
Libretto & Staging: Bea Goodwin
Choreography: Lauren Hlubny
Costumes: Claire Townsend
Lighting: Dante Olivia Smith
Set: Joo Hyun Kim
Puppets: Evolve Puppets
For more information on Dell'Arte Opera Ensemble,
please go here:
DELL'ARTE OPERA ENSEMBLE
HOME is a play that fuses puppetry, theatre and multimedia into a visually thrilling and emotionally moving story of a woman’s connection to the universe. Alice is an archaeologist, mother and scholar at the final crossroads of her life. A visit from an intimidating guardian angel (and his strangely familiar young companion) sends Alice on a trip through time and memory, digging through the layers of the past, unearthing her life with her brilliant but troubled husband and their young daughter, and her years studying the people of Pompeii, frozen forever in their last moments on Earth.
The production uses live actors alongside lifelike full-figure puppets inspired by Japanese bunraku techniques, shadow play, state-of-the-art digital projections and more to tell Alice’s story through the very contents of her home. Photos on the walls become animate; plush toys and dolls come to life; clouds of dust form into moving images, singing in the voices of ancestors; furniture travels around the space, opening up to reveal dynamic museum-style dioramas of the past. HOME is a play for adults, appropriate for audience members age 12 and up.
HOME is written and directed by Tanya Khordoc & Barry Weil (world premieres of Vàclav Havel’s MOTORMORPHOSIS and Lord Graham Russell’s DEVIL AND THE DEEP), who also designed the show’s innovative puppetry. Original music is composed and arranged by Joel Phillip Friedman (Drama Desk and Outer Critic’s Circle nominee). Lake Simons (Lincoln Center’s WAR HORSE, Basil Twist’s SYMPHONIE FANTASTIQUE) is associate director and movement choreographer. HOME features projection design by Jared Mezzocchi (Obie and Lucille Lortel winner, VIETGONE), set design by Tom Lee (SHANK'S MARE) lighting design by Federico Restrepo (founder/artistic director of Loco7) and costume design by Sarah Riffle (Lyric Opera of Chicago). Stage manager is Berit Johnson and movement assistant is Mark Myles Murray.
The cast of multitalented actors and puppeteers includes Mery Cheung, Marjorie Conn, Max Gayford, Kevin P. Hale, Ross Hamman, Tanya Khordoc, Caitlyn Piccirillo, Barry Weil and Meghan Maureen Williams.
Photo by Sarah Riffle / Digital Design by Brigitte King
= = = = = = = =
Presented by The Tank, a home for emerging artists.
HOME is made possible in part with public funds from Creative Engagement, supported by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and administered by LMCC. LMCC empowers artists by providing them with networks, resources, and support, to create vibrant, sustainable communities in Manhattan and beyond. Additional support has been provided by the Linda & Isaac Stern Foundation. Earlier developmental presentations of HOME were made possible with support from The Jim Henson Foundation, the Puppetry at the Carriage House program and Dixon Place.
Evolve was thrilled to assist with the launch of
Carolyn Sloan's interactive children's book
"Welcome to the Symphony"!
The book concerns three mice who learn about the instruments of the orchestra and the elements of classical music by attending a concert of Beethoven's Symphony No. 5. Tanya and Barry translated the book's characters into three-dimensional puppet form, so the three mice could participate with Carolyn (and live musicians) in a series of author visits to bookstores throughout New York and New Jersey between October and February.
L-R: puppeteer Sarah Ely performing "Mabel," Barry performing "Edward," Tanya performing "James," and author Carolyn Sloan, at the Greenlight Bookstore in Brooklyn.
FOR INFO ON THE BOOK, CLICK BELOW:
Welcome to the Symphony by Carolyn Sloan
Evolve (as puppetry designers and associate producers)
joined Theatre East and an amazing team of
creatives and performers to bring
DEVIL AND THE DEEP
to the stage!
To see a video on the making of one of the songs
(featuring two of our illuminated puppet creations)
CLICK BELOW:
Devil and the Deep -- The Making of the Song "Home"
For more info CLICK BELOW:
Theatre East - Devil and the Deep
Evolve Co-Artistic Director Tanya Khordoc performs fuzzy co-host Phoenix in the children's webshow ROSIE'S PLACE!
For more info on ROSIE'S PLACE, go here:
www.rosiesplaceshow.com
We premiered
(directed and designed by us
from a script by Edward Einhorn)
as part of UTC61's
More info here:
UTC61 Website
We performed as part of...
at
St. Ann's Warehouse
DUMBO, Brooklyn, NYC
…where we presented...
Performed in and around the body of a 7-foot-tall doll, Tanya Khordoc & Barry Weil's multimedia collage is an hilarious and moving journey through the conflicted soul of 20th Century America. SECRETS HISTORY REMEMBERS is a toy theater experience not to be missed!
For more info on SECRETS itself,
click the image above!