Basil Twist News

Japan Society has announced its upcoming season of live, in-person performances at the Society with programs spanning traditional to contemporary, across the disciplines of opera, theater, traditional noh, puppetry, dance and more, slated for Fall 2022 and Winter/Spring 2023.

Executive Producer Joe Hisaishi and the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) have announced that leading innovator in puppetry, animatronics, and digital animation, Jim Henson's Creature Shop, will create the puppets for the global stage premiere of Studio Ghibli's My Neighbour Totoro, opening at the Barbican on Saturday 8 October 2022.

The imaginative national tour of Roald Dahl's CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY wraps up its travels across the country with a final stop in Utah at the Eccles Theater.

The Royal Shakespeare Company has released the new concept trailer for the upcoming global premiere of the stage adaptation of Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbour Totoro.

The Obie Award-winning HERE has announced the honorees for the 2022 HERE SPARK Gala. On the heels of HERE’s Puppetopia festival, and in celebration of HERE’s Dream Music Puppetry program, Cheryl Henson will receive the HEREmanitarian Award and Brian Selznick will receive the Avant-Guardian Award.

The world premiere of the stage adaptation of My Neighbour Totoro has broken the Barbican's box office record for ticket sales in one day. The record had previously been held by Sonia Friedman Production's 2015 production of Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch in the title role.

The Obie Award-winning HERE will present the HERE Artist Residency Program production of Cannabis! A Viper Vaudeville. 

San Francisco Ballet (SF Ballet) today announced its 90th Season, which will celebrate the trailblazing company's nine decades of pushing ballet forward through offering innovative new works and adaptations, highlighting the world's leading and emerging choreographers and dancers, and performing beloved classical ballets at the highest caliber. T

San Francisco Ballet today announced its 90th Season, which will celebrate the trailblazing company’s nine decades of pushing ballet forward through offering innovative new works and adaptations, highlighting the world’s leading and emerging choreographers and dancers, and performing beloved classical ballets at the highest caliber.

The Joyce Theater Foundation will honor the conclusion of Pride 2022 with the Joyce debut of boundary-shattering movement artist Christopher Williams. The New York premiere of selections from his series of queer interpretations of renowned classical ballets will play The Joyce Theater from June 28-July 3.

The newly renovated State Theatre New Jersey presents Roald Dahl’s Charlie and The Chocolate Factory for four performances on Friday, May 13, 2022, at 8pm; Saturday, May 14 at 2pm and 8pm; and Sunday, May 15 at 2pm. Tickets range from $40-$98.  

The world premiere of the stage adaptation of Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbour Totoro which will open at the Barbican for a strictly limited run this autumn in collaboration with Improbable and Nippon TV.

The Obie Award-winning HERE has announced programming for Puppetopia, a presentation of HERE’s Dream Music Puppetry program. Puppetopia will run May 11–22, 2022 in the HERE Mainstage & Dorothy B. Williams Theatres (145 Sixth Avenue, New York, NY 10013).

Another work salvaged from this year’s Covid-aborted Prototype Festival has shown up in New York--at Brooklyn’s St. Ann’s Warehouse, this time--and it couldn’t have been further away from the last I experienced, Taylor Mac’s THE HANG, if it tried. BOOK OF MOUNTAINS & SEAS is the work of composer/librettist Huang Ruo (music influenced by Chinese folk melody, Western avant-garde and other styles, but unlike anything else you’ve heard) and director/designer puppeteer Basil Twist (a MacArthur “genius grant” winner in 2015). The four tales included in the piece, which Huang describes as “abstract and eternal,” kept the audience in its thrall for 80 minutes.

Ashley Wheater MBE, The Mary B. Galvin Artistic Director of The Joffrey Ballet, today announced the Joffrey’s 2022–2023 Season at Lyric Opera House, featuring a world premiere from a rising choreographic star, a revival from a Joffrey icon, the return of a Joffrey blockbuster, and a full-length story ballet of such grand scale that it is rarely seen in the United States.

As part of its Broadway Series sponsored by U.S. Bank, Alberta Bair Theater presents the everlasting showstopper Roald Dahl's Charlie and The Chocolate Factory on Wednesday, March 2 at 7:30 p.m.

St. Ann’s Warehouse and Beth Morrison Projects, in association with PROTOTYPE: Opera | Theatre | Now and Trinity Church Wall Street, today announced that the sonically rich and visually arresting Book of Mountains & Seas will make its U.S. premiere this March 15-20.

Roald Dahl's CHARLIE AND THE CHOCOLATE FACTORY will play in St. Louis at the Fabulous Fox Theatre for four performance only March 8-10, 2022.

Today, the directors of the PROTOTYPE Festival, alongside partners St. Ann's Warehouse, La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club, and Abrons Arts Center, announced the difficult decision to postpone this year's tenth anniversary festival to January of 2023, due to the current surge in COVID cases and the resulting safety risks, as well as logistical challenges including artist and staff illnesses, travel complications, and more. The Festival was scheduled to run January 7-16, 2022.

Bill's 44th (a 55-minute comedic puppet show for adults) created by Dorothy James and Andy Manjuck, returns for 9 live performances at Dixon Place in New York City, January 11-15, 2022.