An interview with puppet maker Jan Zalud about the production Hansel & Gretel. Poet Simon Armitage and Guildhall School of Music & Drama professor Matthew Kaner have collaborated for a reimagining of the Hansel & Gretel tale subtitled "(a nightmare in eight scenes)", which receives its London premiere on 12 October 2018.
Animations Online interviewed Rachel Warr ahead of the marionette performance ‘Tricks with Strings’ at the V&A this weekend.
Tricks with Strings is on at the V&A Museum in the Globe Space (European galleries) This Sunday 29th April 2018 at 1pm, 2pm, 3pm.
Performances are 20mins, and FREE.
As part of Puppet Centre's This Is Puppetry campaign we'll be interviewing puppeteers from across the range of puppet activity, from opera to film, and from community workshops to the West End and Broadway. This month, as we celebrate Puppets in Film, we chat to Iestyn Evans.
Iestyn's film credits include Star Wars: The Force Awakens. He has also puppeteered on stage and TV as well as the The London Olympics Opening Ceremony. He's also part of Talk to the Hand, who created puppets for the TV hit Mongrels.
Eleanor Margolies writes a feature for Animations Online called Women, Fairytales and Cultural Myths in light of her time at the Charleville-Mézières International Puppet Festival 2017.
Luke Breen from Smoking Apples talks about the state of puppetry and keeping it afloat.
Lori Hopkins writes PCT an article about how she views the future of the beloved string puppet and why she thinks marionette theatre is becoming more scarce.
20 Stories High and Theatre-Rites have joined forces to create a unique mash up of hip-hop, theatre and puppetry and Roxana spoke to two of the creatives behind this collaboration, Keith Saha and Mohsen Nouri.
Roxana chats and laughs with Frank Soehnle of Figurentheater Tübingen ahead of their sold out show Wunderkammer this week at the Barbican.
Mervyn interviews Bonnie Mitchell and Rachael Canning the co-directors of The Wrong Crowd talking about their show Kite and their making process as their appear this year at the London International Mime Festival.
We meet with a relatively new company to discuss their next show and how support is integral in the world of puppetry.
A new arcade of automata has opened in central London. Time for an afternoon playing the slots!
A brand new opera explores the power of objects and the creative process.
Founding member Penny Francis concludes her history series, this time looking at the period 2007-2014.
As Puppet Centre clocks up 40 years, founding member Penny Francis continues her history series, this time looking at the period 2002-2007.
Blind Summit's verbatim puppetry experiment comes to the New Diorama.
The 'Working Together to Strengthen Puppetry' project ends with a proposal to create a new Puppetry Development Consortium.
As Puppet Centre clocks up 40 years, founding member Penny Francis continues her history series, this time looking at the period 1995-2001.
As Puppet Centre clocks up 40 years, founding member Penny Francis continues her history series, this time looking at the early 1990s.
Shamira Turner plays lead character Robert Robertson in 1927's new show 'Golem', now playing at London's Young Vic. We quiz her about what it's like to act with animations.
As Puppet Centre clocks up 40 years, founding member Penny Francis continues her history series, this time looking at the period from 1984-1989.
A special screening at the BFI this December will star loveable puppets from the past. But what makes good TV puppetry?
As Puppet Centre clocks up 40 years, founding member Penny Francis continues her history series, this time looking at the organisation's first decade.
As Puppet Centre clocks up 40 years, founding member Penny Francis begins a four part history, starting at the very beginning.
Announcing a collaborative project that aims to build better infrastructure for puppetry in England.
The Puppet Centre is 40 this year. To celebrate we're catching up with some of the people who have won Puppet Centre bursaries to find out how their eclectic careers have developed.
Is puppetry a particularly effective way of exploring the challenging issues of the so-called Great War? We talk to Handspring, Les Enfants Terribles and Metta Theatre to find out.
The Puppet Centre is 40 this year. To celebrate we're catching up with some of the people who have won Puppet Centre residencies to find out how their eclectic careers have developed.
The Puppet Centre is 40 this year. To celebrate we're catching up with some of the people who have won Puppet Centre bursaries to find out how their eclectic careers have developed.
The Puppet Centre is 40 this year. To celebrate we're catching up with some of the people who have won Puppet Centre bursaries to find out how their eclectic careers have developed.
You may have noticed the Puppet Centre website has had a bit of a makeover. We’re celebrating our 40th anniversary this year and have taken the opportunity to refresh our vision. We're now developing an exciting new plan to champion the sector.
To mark the Bard's 450th birthday, theatre historian Tiffany Stern describes why director Beth Burns and her Hidden Room Theatre Company mounted an eighteenth century puppet version of 'Hamlet'.
Ahead of a Shakespeare themed show using characters from the V&A's puppetry collection, we meet writer and performer Allison Ouvry who has been given unique access to the archive.
The Puppet Centre is 40 this year. To celebrate we're catching up with some of the people who have won Puppet Centre bursaries to find out how their eclectic careers have developed.
Swiss performer Peter Rinderknecht discusses the important art of making intelligent and imaginative object theatre for young audiences.
A live performance photographer discusses her fascination with puppets, especially the relationship between puppet and puppeteer.
Ahead of their Mime Festival show, the artistic director of Vamos Theatre talks in-depth about the extraordinary process of creating full mask theatre.
Founder of Company Non Nova, Phia Menard discusses working with wind and plastic ahead of two shows at the London International Mime Festival.
Ahead of the 2014 London International Mime Festival, Philippe Genty discusses puppetry, performance and 'Forget Me Not'.
As ‘The Elephantom’ opens at the National Theatre’s Shed, we talk to co-directors Toby Olié and Finn Caldwell about creating a new play with a huge ghost puppet as its star.
It's Halloween – the perfect excuse to ponder the role puppets, particularly ventriloquists' dummies, play in the horror genre.
Rene Baker discusses her object-centric workshops, where the materials run things as much as she does – they’re “co-collaborators in the creative space”.
The new chair of British UNIMA, and one of the brains behind Pangolin's Teatime and the Great Puppet Horn, Jeremy Bidgood talks about his influences and the future of UK puppetry.
A prolific photographer and film maker, Mark Holthusen’s most striking project is surely his recent venture into animation with 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner'. Ahead of the show’s London debut, Holthusen talks about animating for live theatre.
Director Alex Sutton discusses the intricacies of bringing puppetry and opera together for 'The Crocodile'.
Puppeteer and maker Roger Lade discusses his work on ‘The Crocodile’, a new opera featuring a large puppet beast as its star.
Puppetry designer and director Isobel Smith talks about her involvement in the forthcoming puppet opera ‘Gala’.
Musician, writer and artist Ergo Phizmiz talks about his role as composer for the forthcoming puppet opera ‘Gala’.
What's the point of a 'scratch night'? Does showing work in progress and inviting feedback from a live audience help or hinder performers?
The artistic director of Tête à Tête talks about directing 'Gala', a new production about Salvador Dali's wife that sees puppetry and opera combine.
Director of Norwich Puppet Theatre, Liz Walker explains the unique challenges of directing for puppetry.
Puppeteer turned director, Liz Walker of Invisible Thread discusses the delights and demands of devising and directing puppet theatre.
Mervyn Millar - most famous for directing Handspring productions including 'War Horse' - shares the secrets of being a successful director of puppetry.
Since 2011, The Nightingale Theatre in Brighton has played host to ‘Punched’, a variety night that showcases puppetry from across Brighton and Hove. Miranda the marionette from Touched Theatre tells all.
This winter, a workshop with Drew Colby introduced us to the complex yet familiar world of hand shadows, where we hunted for the creatures in our hands and discovered it's a secret art into which initiation is necessary.
“Tradition is not tradition because it is old, but because it is alive.” As Mr Punch celebrates his 350th birthday, a host of academics and practitioners from around the world gathered to discuss the meaning and relevance of the great sinner in 2013.
Erth is a Sydney based theatre company that recently brought ‘Dinosaur Petting Zoo’ to London. Scott Wright, the Artistic Director, tells us about the company, the show and the Australian puppetry scene.
Prolific director, writer and animator Barry JC Purves talks to Animations Online about spontaneity, industry brownie points and why puppets need never compete with CGI.
Velo Theatre’s Charlot Lemoine tells Animations Online how the French theatre company has converted a jam factory into a flexible, creative space and explains the joy of returning to old favourites.
London's long running celebration of visual theatre returns on the 10 January. Festival Directors Helen Lannaghan and Joseph Seelig talk to Animations Online about what it’s like to be in charge of such a beast.
As piles of post Christmas packaging mount up, it seems timely to find out about Theatre-Rites new production ‘Rubbish’, which uses puppetry and object theatre to explore the potential of thrown away things.
As ‘The Animals and Children Took to the Streets’ returns to the London stage for a third time, 1927’s film maker Paul Barritt talks to Animations Online about his work, explaining why the combination of live action and animation is a such a heady one.
What happens when you combine objects and operatics? Over a day of illustrated talks at the Barbican, practitioners from the puppetry and opera worlds shared their experiences and thoughts on why the two can be combined to powerful effect.
Rebecca Caputo debates the future of theatre with fellow practitioners in Leeds, at an 'Open Space' conference hosted by Improbable. Anyone can put forward a conversation by writing a catchy title on a piece of paper and sticking it to the wall.
Puppetry is a provocative subject, and social media means discussions about the art form's relevance can rage for days. Ahead of a real life debate on puppetry's future, we review a previous debate on spectacle vs content via an experimental 'Twitter essay'.
Join Randy Ginsberg as he spends two highly strung weeks training to be a marionettist. "We played with short string marionettes to get us started, which hang from about shoulder height to the floor. Most of us felt like we were lugging around a broken body on strings."
The action is influenced by the way in which one hand can create part of one character while the other hand creates part of a second character, allowing interactions to occur. Sometimes two hands rapidly transform from one animal into another.
Voices is a series of interviews with puppeteers performing at this year’s Fringe. Here Shona Reppe tells us about taking The Curious Scrapbook of Josephine Bean to the festival. "Hallelujah for parents who take their kids to the Fringe - pick me, pick me!!"
Voices is a series of interviews with puppeteers performing at this year’s Fringe. Here George Mann tells us about taking Translunar Paradise to the festival. "There's just nothing like the Edinburgh Festival Fringe - it's the craziest, most beautiful and ugly festival in the world for artists."
Voices is a series of interviews with puppeteers performing at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe.Here Jeremy Bidgood tells us about taking the Great Puppet Horn to the festival. "We will be living by our wits, gathering by day and hunting by night."
It’s not often that neuroscientists are found in discussion with performers and that lectures are punctuated with puppetry. But, earlier this summer, puppeteers and scientists joined forces at the Wellcome Collection to explore the emotional connections we make with inanimate things and why.
Amid all the build-up of the past few months and the sporting activity to come, there have been some incredible animated offerings – from puppets out and about in the community to epic street performance on a grand scale.
For the Bauhaus, puppets offered the opportunity to play. Getting back to a childlike idea of playing was seen as a way of stimulating the imagination and creativity.
As you walk through the city, people spill from cafes in true Mediterranean style as dust kicks up from crumbling streets. And, hidden within Palermo’s small alleys, are the cavernous puppet theatres of the Opera Dei Pupi.
Puppetry in Lebanon reflects the country's varied cultural landscape. With such a large diaspora frequently travelling to and from Lebanon, there is a continual pollination of culture, especially throughout the capital Beirut, known for being a centre of art and sophistication.