I built this wooden Punch puppet based on the mid 1800s illustrations of the Piccini Punch by George Cruikshank. And although the crocodile was not added to the cast until decades later, I also built a crocodile. If I have access to a workshop again one day, I’d love to finish the set.
Archives: Punch and Judy (2011)
When I was doing my MFA in physical theatre in Italy, I studied the Roy Hart voice technique under the legendary Kevin Crawford. I chose to do a project on the traditional Punch and Judy puppet show. Punch’s voice was done with the secret technique with a traditional “swazzle.” The others all spoke some form of gibberish/grammelot. I made the puppets and built the fit-up with materials and tools at hand. The puppets were worked in the old school “over the head” style.
Archives: Classic Clown Scene, Honey (2011)
An interpretation of the classic plot “Honey” as first performed in Paris (circa 1920) by the legendary clown duo Dario and Bario. With Chloe Whiting Stevenson and Mickey Lonsdale, advised by the Dimitiri School’s Joe Fenner at the Accademia dell’Arte in Tuscany.
Archives: I Diavoletti present, Shoe (2012)
MAGIC RE-SOULED. Today, the classical style of stage magic is virtually extinct as a form of popular theater and entertainment. Over-edited street magic flourishes on television and over-produced illusion acts rule Las Vegas. It is time, then, for 21st century magic to be re-souled. Howard Thurston, America’s Master Magician in the early 1900s, said, “You can fool the eyes and minds of the audience, but you cannot fool their hearts.”
With this piece, I attempt to deconstruct the fast, flashy, loud, and soulless Las Vegas style; while dodging the comic cliché of the ‘bumbling magician’ (a parody which outlives the parodied). Act One, by functioning like clockwork, provides a silent set up to an act of even greater deconstruction, as magic gives way to clown and the clockwork is torn apart gear by gear.
Archives: Comedy Trapeze (2007)
In my mid twenties, I was studying and teaching at the School of Acrobatics and New Circus Arts (SANCA) in Seattle and I began developing a doubles trapeze act. Creating an original partner act on the trapeze is difficult to begin with, but it was uniquely difficult for me because I didn’t have a partner. I began training with a Cabbage Patch Doll, in the process creating an original act which blended trapeze technique with clown and object manipulation. I have performed this act around the world, including in Cairo with the Egyptian National Circus, where the Egyptian Star (the Egypt Affiliate of the International Herald Tribune) described the act as, “An epic one-man collision of funniness and foolishness, of tragedy and triumph.” Here is a video of the act from when we were young. Ah, yesterday! (2007)