Nasty Brutish and Short

Nasty Brutish and Short

Presented by Links Hall and Curated by Seth Bockley and Julia Miller

This event is funded in part by the Puppet Slam Network (a project of IBEX Puppetry)

An evening of puppetry where performers are asked to create new work and risk sharing it with an audience for the first time. The goal is to give artists a reason to create new work and help foster touring opportunities and artistic exchanges.

An evening of shorts:

Jason Adams' Clipper Ship Spectacular is a toy theatre story in verse about the whaling ship St. Sebastian and its destruction at the tentacles of the terrible kraken.

Jason Adams has been an actor/puppeteer in Chicago for the past seven years. His work has been seen in Atlanta, New York and right her in Chicago. If you like this show you should come see "The Dream Journal or Dr. Jekyl" playing at 10:30 every Friday and Saturday through the end of March at the world famous "Zoo Studios" in the heart of Ravenswood.

Part scripted material, part improvisation, Noah Ginex's The Keyboard tells the story of a typical night at a watering hole deep in the recesses of space. Relying on their skills as improvisers and puppeteers, NGPC hopes to delight and entertain with a tale of a place where everybody knows your name. Even if your name is unpronounceable.

The Noah Ginex Puppet Company has been building and performing puppets around Chicago for 15 years, and has been seen in everything from videos for Barenaked Ladies, to halloween shows at the USNA in Annapolis, MD. You can find out more at www.noahginex.com, or friend us on Facebook!

Jessica Simon's The Talleys follows the lives of Harold and Marjorie as newlyweds through old-age. It was originally conceived and presented at the 2009 O'Neill National Puppetry conferenceand will be seen at Trouble Puppet Theater in Austin, TX at the end of the month. Featuring Dan Kerr-Hobert and Lizi Breit with music performed by John Bliss.

Jessica Simon has worked with Sea Beast Puppet Co., Redmoon, Adventure Stage, Manifest Theatre, and Lookingglass.  She has a degree from The Theatre School at DePaul University and spent 4 summers at the O'Neill National Puppetry Conference manipulating  tabletop puppets, shadows, bolts of fabric, bottlestoppers, and balloons.  She'd love to tell you how the idea for this piece originated during a road trip at a rest stop, but is now out of room on this page.

Performed by Julia Miller, Drew Dir, and Sarah Fornace

Sounds by Ben Kauffman

Manual Cinema attempts to stage Samuel Beckett's Nact und Traume, while avoiding the all-seeing eye of the notoriously strict Beckett estate. Staged with exacting fidelity to the original stage directions, Manual Cinema's version of this short Beckett play incorporates elements of puppetry, cinematic editing, and sound art.

Shattered Mirrors is serial musical soap opera starring kittens. Tonight we present three installments of this ground-breaking piece. Journey with us to the village of Meowsburg, where the local drama and non-stop kitty puns will leave you fe-line groovy.

The Royal We are Max Wirt, Mason Fidino, and Sophia Hamilton The Royal We make theatre pieces supported by original music. The Royal We are excited to bring you this show tonight.

Meredith Miller is a designer and performer of original object-based work and is one of the Midwest's leading puppet and mask designers.

Emmy Bean's Baby is a solo performance with music and tabletop puppetry.

Emmy Bean is a theater artist and musician who busies herself with
puppets from time to time.  Her work has been seen at Steppenwolf
Garage, the Studio Theater in Washington DC, the ASSITEJ conference in Montreal, and Judson Church in New York City.