Charlestown Working Theater to Present WHO'S HUNGRY, 10/3-5

Charlestown Working Theater presents Who's Hungry October 3-5, 2013. Who's Hungry is an evening of experimental tabletop puppet plays that give a voice and face to hunger in America. The project aims to raise awareness of the lives of those of us who, on a daily basis, must choose between life's basic necessities - food or rent, food or medicine, food or bus fare. The production weaves together the life stories of five homeless and/or hungry individuals, incorporating puppetry, dance, music, and text.

In Who's Hungry, the performers serve the audience a visual and narrative feast. The 60-minute puppet theater adaptation tells the oral histories of five very different homeless and/or food-insecure people through five 15- to 20-minute segments, woven together much as a chef weaves a succession of flavors into a cohesive multi-course meal. Performed at a specially built 24-foot dinner table, the audience views the action from one side, as if they are banquet guests.

Joining the audience at the table are:

- Angel - who tumbled into homelessness after a prominent career as an interior designer

- Sharon - a caseworker for an addiction recovery agency and recovering heroin addict herself-

- Chris - an original member of the notorious 1970s surfing/skateboarding crew known as the Z- Boys

- Mike - who endured an eviction from subsidized housing while undergoing a dire health crisis

- Chanel - who headed to New York City when the World Trade Center towers collapsed, feeling the need to run down the street in fear with her fellow New Yorkers.

Who's Hungry is the brainchild of award-winning playwright, composer, choreographer and performer Dan Froot, an associate professor in UCLA's Department of World Arts and Cultures / Dance. Working in close collaboration with Froot is Dan Hurlin, a nationally acclaimed puppet artist who directed the production and designed and constructed the objects and sets. The project incorporates a range of puppetry styles -- a 3-foot tall Japanese bunraku figure, rod puppets, shadow plays inside 1960's TV sets, and a world of carved wood objects painted to look exactly like Delft china -- in order to give each of the five stories its own aesthetic treatment.