Voice 4 Vision Puppetry Festival

The Second Annual Voice 4 Vision Puppetry Festival will be presented December 1 to 11 by Theater for the New City to celebrate the work of a unique group of New York artists who have been creating puppet theater for many years.

The festival will include the following works:
The Adventures of Charcoal Boy conceived by Sarah Provost and Eric Novak, Portraits - Night & Day by the Obie-Award winning Karen Kandel, Mrs. Wright's Escape by Amanda Maddock and Nikolai Gogol's The Nose. It ends with Puppet Art Attacks, a puppetry slam for short works by a variety of puppet artists.

The participants in this festival are all award-winning artists who create original works of their own and contribute their performing and conceptual talents to significant large-scale works by other contemporary puppet theater artists and groups. The festival will include new works and works of merit that have been seen briefly in New York in the past few years and deserve to be shared with a wider New York audience.

• The Adventures of Charcoal Boy
  Synopsis: A fantastical musical theater piece in which organic and industrial objects are brought to life as puppets. The story follows a tree branch, struck by lightning, who wakes to an unfamiliar world. This charred stick begins his journey, yearning to be a tree again. When he learns to draw with his charred feet, his seeming predicament proves to be a useful talent.
  by Sarah Provost and Eric Novak.
  Plays from the 1 - 4 Dec 2005.
• Portraits - Night & Day
  Synopsis: A series of intimate journeys into the lives of a family of women. Embracing unconscious connections to ancestor spirits where time has no meaning. Portraits..." is a multi-scale installation/performance piece with masks, objects, lots of fabric, text, movement and music ranging in style from the literal to the abstract.
  by Karen Kandel.
  Plays from the 1 - 4 Dec 2005.
• Mrs. Wright's Escape
  Synopsis: A full-length puppet show regaling some of the history of architect Frank Lloyd Wright, his wife Olgivanna, his family, and his architecture school known as the Taliesin Fellowship. The show features tabletop puppetry, a few shadows, object manipulation, and live music all presented from the perspective of the Taliesin 'apprentices.'
  by Amanda Maddock
  Plays from the 8 - 11 Dec 2005
• Nikolai Gogol's The Nose
  Synopsis: In a society built on lechery and deceit - where love is rewarded with lies, and corruption rules the day - one nose has the courage to cut itself off from its face to spite its man and strike out on its own.
  Story adaptation by Andy Roth
  Plays from the 8 - 11 Dec 2005
• Puppet Art Attacks
  A puppetry slam for short works by a variety of puppet artists.
  Plays on the 11 Dec 2005