Jane Catherine Shaw News

With its newest production, 'In Retrospect,' the LOCO7 Dance Puppet Theatre Company, led by Federico Restrepo, investigates how we each construct our personal memory box: how we keep our memories fresh and preserve the things that made us who we are.

'Broken Nails: A Marlene Dietrich Dialogue' by Anna Skubik (Poland) has NY premiere November 11-21 as part of 'La MaMa Puppet Series IV-Built to Perform.'

Nonstop theater, a costume competition and ballroom dancing will bewitch the East Village in Theater for the New City's 34th annual Village Halloween Costume Ball on Sunday, October 31 at TNC, 155 First Avenue.

'I Fioretti in Musica-Opera in Danza' (Little Flowers in Music, an Opera in Dance) is an original opera with concept, libretto, direction and sets by Gian Marco Lo Forte and an acoustic score for five voices composed by Sasha Zamler-Carhart juxtaposed with an electronic score consisting of fixed electro-acoustic sound and live vocal processing by Ryan Carter.

What puppeteer doesn't wonder what will happen to him as he impersonates the creator? In 'Wake Up, You're Dead!,' Aaron Haskell of Brooklyn Art Department (www.brooklynartdepartment.com), one of the original designers of Nightmare: NYC's Haunted House, gives us a Halloween-flavored creation myth. It's a De La Guarda-type event and spectacle that adds a late-night attraction to 'La MaMa Puppet Series IV--Built to Perform.' It will be presented October 29 to November 7 in the second-floor Club of La MaMa E.T.C., 74A East Fourth Street.

'Chopin-An Impression,' a virtuoso performance of Chopin's music by a virtuoso puppet troupe, was originally commissioned by the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as part of the worldwide celebration of The Year of Chopin 2010, celebrating the bicentennial of the composer's birth in Zelazowa Wola, Poland.

To add a family theater component to 'La MaMa Puppet Series IV -- Built to Perform,' La MaMa will present Jane Catherine Shaw in a solo show of found object puppetry, 'Folk Tales of Asia and Africa,' from October 16 to November 7.

Jean-Claude van Itallie ('The Tibetan Book of the Dead,' 'The Cherry Orchard,' 'The Serpent,' 'Master and Margarita') is writing 'The Mother's Return' as an addition to his seminal work of modern drama, the trilogy known as 'America Hurrah.' From October 15 to 24, 2010, Theatre Research Ensemble (TReE) will perform 'America Hurrah Revisited & The Mother's Return, a work in progress.' The evening is a re-envisioning of a portion of the famed trilogy together with a first staging of the new addition.

Italy's Dario D'Ambrosi, a radical innovator of the theater and founder of the movement called Teatro Patologico (Pathological Theater), will direct his newest play, 'Bong Bong Bong against the Walls, Ting Ting Ting in our Heads,' as the opening production of 'La MaMa Puppet Series IV--Built to Perform.'

'La MaMa Puppet Series IV -- Built to Perform,' the latest in La MaMa's celebrated annual puppet program, will premiere five adult puppet theater productions and remount a popular children's attraction this fall, exploring the artistic and creative possibilities of puppetry in all its forms. The series will run from October 14 to November 28, 2010.

'I Fioretti in Musica-Opera in Danza' (Little Flowers in Music, an Opera in Dance) is an original opera with concept, libretto, direction and sets by Gian Marco Lo Forte and an acoustic score for five voices composed by Sasha Zamler-Carhart juxtaposed with an electronic score consisting of fixed electro-acoustic sound and live vocal processing by Ryan Carter.

La MaMa ETC in association with La CriAtura Theater presents the World Premiere of THE ORPHANS by Karina Casiano. With this erotic love story, La CriAtura follows up its 2010 IT Award nominated production of Rootless: La No Nostalgia at PS 122 and 8vo Festival Internacional de Cabaret in Mexico City.

Puppet theater has an uncanny ability to take on big themes, and such was when Jane Catherine Shaw, co-director of the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival, takes on world drought in 'Thirst: Memory of Water,' her newest puppet theater work. It's a big theme, but Shaw is trying to make it manageable by concentrating on themes of women and water because, as she writes, 'around the world women are carrying (literally) the burden of maintaining life by walking for water.' The play will end its run at La MaMa on April 11 in its First Floor Theater.

Puppet theater has an uncanny ability to take on big themes, and such will be the case when Jane Catherine Shaw, co-director of the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival, takes on world drought in 'Thirst: Memory of Water,' her newest puppet theater work. It's a big theme, but Shaw is trying to make it manageable by concentrating on themes of women and water because, as she writes, 'around the world women are carrying (literally) the burden of maintaining life by walking for water.' The play, to be presented by La MaMa March 25 to April 11 in its First Floor Theater, will nevertheless have an epic feeling.

Puppet theater has an uncanny ability to take on big themes, and such will be the case when Jane Catherine Shaw, co-director of the Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival, takes on world drought in 'Thirst: Memory of Water,' her newest puppet theater work. It's a big theme, but Shaw is trying to make it manageable by concentrating on themes of women and water because, as she writes, 'around the world women are carrying (literally) the burden of maintaining life by walking for water.' The play, to be presented by La MaMa March 25 to April 11 in its First Floor Theater, will nevertheless have an epic feeling.

The Fifth Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival (www.voice4vision.org) will be presented December 3 to 13, 2009 by Theater for the New City to celebrate the work of a unique group of New York artists who have been creating dynamic puppet theater for many years.

The Fifth Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival (www.voice4vision.org) will be presented December 3 to 13, 2009 by Theater for the New City to celebrate the work of a unique group of New York artists who have been creating dynamic puppet theater for many years.

The Fifth Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival (www.voice4vision.org) will be presented December 3 to 13, 2009 by Theater for the New City to celebrate the work of a unique group of New York artists who have been creating dynamic puppet theater for many years. Theater for the New City is dedicated to presenting cross-disciplinary theatrical works and to developing audiences that support local New York artists; this festival is wonderfully suited to that mission. Puppet theater artists Jane Catherine Shaw and Sarah Provost are co-curators. This festival is generously supported by the Jim Henson Foundation.

The Fifth Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival (www.voice4vision.org) will be presented December 3 to 13, 2009 by Theater for the New City to celebrate the work of a unique group of New York artists who have been creating dynamic puppet theater for many years.

The Fifth Voice 4 Vision Puppet Festival (www.voice4vision.org) will be presented December 3 to 13, 2009 by Theater for the New City to celebrate the work of a unique group of New York artists who have been creating dynamic puppet theater for many years.