ALL VOWS, A Puppet Memory Play By Sam Jay Gold, Comes to the Morris Museum

Sam Jay Gold's All Vows, A Puppet Memory Play By A Master Puppeteer makes its world premiere in May.

Three Performances: Friday, May 6, 8:00pm; Saturday, May 7, 8:00pm; and Sunday, May 8, 2:00pm

All Vows is a puppet memory play by puppeteer, theatre artist, and writer, Sam Jay Gold, where history and imagination collide in a heartwarming tale. The play is centered on the possibly true life of his grandfather, Poppy, a Russian Jewish refugee raised in China. Poppy is portrayed through five hand-carved, wooden puppets, each modeled after him at a different age in his life.

"We didn't talk much about my grandfather growing up," Sam Jay Gold says, "but I was proud of what I knew about his life: how he grew up in China after his family fled the Russian Revolution, how he taught himself Italian while in medical school in Bologna, how he became a surgeon in a Jewish ghetto in Shanghai before fleeing again, this time for America at the dawn of the Cultural Revolution. His was a story of resilience, worldliness, and drive. And since he died when I was three, I was content with its broad strokes - until an old photo re-surfaced last year, leading me to question every story and memory I had of the man."

This performance explores what it means to suddenly realize you're both an inheritor and active participant in your family history-and it can be messy. The play investigates the powerful, fragile truths we turn into the stories of our lives, while examining the overlapping space between where an immigrant's history ends, and an American identity begins.

You can see Sam in action here as he explains how to make a puppet out of a spatula. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLOcuQNxZXI

All Vows was first developed at St. Ann's Warehouse Puppet Lab with Matt Acheson and Lake Simons as Lab Co-Directors at St. Ann's Warehouse in Brooklyn, NY, in 2019. Additional development made possible with the generous support of The Jim Henson Foundation.

All Vows was created partially in residence at Live Arts at the Morris Museum.

For tickets and information: https://morr-internet.choicecrm.net/templates/MORR/?event_ids=2450#/events