#FeaturedFriend: Jennifer Vargas

Hey there,
We’re back this #ThrowbackThursday with another #FeaturedFriend! Last month we began a series of interviews with past artists who have come through the Outcast Café. We are delighted to catch you up on their journeys since parting ways and to share a few of their fond memories from their time with us. If you missed our first Featured Friend, Kelsey Hogan, you can check out her interview here.

This month is a special treat as we introduce Jennifer Vargas, one of our Ministering Angels from The Dick and The Rose NYFringe tour in 2012. We are pleased to welcome Jen back to the company this fall as MA (Ministering Angel- solo that is) in our workshop of Riley Ann Visits the Outcast Café. We invite you to enjoy Jennifer’s brilliance right along with us:

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The beautiful and talented Jennifer Vargas.

OC: Welcome back, Jenny! We’re so happy to have you in the rehearsal space again. Can you take us down memory lane? Tell us a little about your initial collaboration with Outcast Café:

JV: I was attending NYU Tisch for Drama and Barbara Allen was a clowning teacher of mine. It was my favorite class and I asked her if she knew of any other clowning opportunities in the city. Barbara later reached out to me about a show she was choreographing and she told Biggs about me. I auditioned for him and the rest, as they say, is history.
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Jen (front and center) leaps fearlessly into the Ministering Angel team in a pick-up rehearsal at NYFringe 2012.
OC: A history we remember fondly! It was such a joy to have you join the team. What was one of your favorite memories from the summer of 2012?
JV: I have so many! One of my favorites was just working with the Ministering Angels. I was the youngest of the four and I never felt like I was underestimated. We all took good care of each other. We also had a lot of fun behind the scenes (and beyond the drape).
Enjoying a cast dinner at The Elitzer Home (L to R: Tori Sheehan, Jennifer Vargas, Kelsey Hogan and Cindy Elitzer)
Jen (Center left) enjoys a beautiful company meal hosted by Cindy Elitzer (far right). Pictured: Tori Sheehan (far left) and Kelsey Hogan (center right).
OC: Indeed, we did. Getting to show you the Berkshires was a pleasure, and once we arrived on your turf, New York City, it was great for the non-NYC based members of the company to have someone who knew the ropes. We’d love to know what you’ve been working on since we last saw you. When you’re not workshopping in the Berkshires with us, we can still find you in New York, right?  
JV: Right. I just graduated from NYU Tisch with my BFA in Drama. I also wrote, performed, and directed my very own piece called An Afternoon Visit; or otherwise known as Pussy. Since then, I’ve officially moved to New York City and have been auditioning. I’m also in the process of writing a web-series, which will hopefully start filming in the next couple of months.
The Ministering Angels and Puppet Babies take part in Fringe NYC 2012's "get off your couch.." initiative
The Ministering Angels and Puppet Babies take part in Fringe NYC 2012’s “get off your couch..” initiative. Jenny and her babies sit top right of the couch.
OC: Wow! We are so proud of your hard work and accomplishments. We love collaborating with such a driven and creative artist. Are there any thoughts, feelings you want to share about diving into another show with us?
JV: I’m about to be a part of the cast for Riley Ann Visits…, which I am very excited for!! Every time I get in the room with the puppet babies, there are so many new characters to meet and stories to explore. I can’t wait to start working on the new coyote puppets and exploring the depth of the story of Riley Ann Visits The Outcast Café.
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Jen and her babies appear in the bottom right corner of the drape during “Yoke of Oppression” rehearsal in Lee, MA.
And what an exploration it is becoming! We are now a week into our process out here in the peaceful and creatively nurturing Berkshire hills and are discovering lots of new information about our story as well as developing a heightened puppetry vocabulary. Stay tuned for more tidbits and pictures from our process soon! Go ahead and follow our Facebook, twitter, and instagram accounts for frequent updates.

#FeaturedFriend : Kelsey Jayne Hogan

Howdy Fellow Outcasts,

As we move forward in our work this year and begin to stage the second play in our trilogy, Riley Ann Visits The Outcast Café, we wanted to give you readers a chance to check in with some of the amazing folks we had the privilege of working with on the several iterations of our first piece, The Dick and The Rose. 

To kick us off, here’s a few words from the radiant Kelsey Jayne Hogan:

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Kelsey shares a laugh with Company members Dave Demke and Caley Milliken at the Gryphon Venues’ Opening Night party in Edinburgh 2011.

 

OC: Can you tell us a little about your initial collaboration with Outcast Café?
KJH: I remember getting an email from Biggs early into the new year.  I had loved working with Biggs in my freshman year improv class. He introduced me to so many new forms of theatre and I had never felt more expressive.  This opened my world. I had always been a bit reserved in auditions and life in general, Biggs was the opposite. Larger than life with an ability to express the deepest emotions. I admired him as an artist, professor, and person. When I learned he wanted to work with ME, I was shocked and looked forward to getting to work.
OC: Sounds exciting! What was it like, bringing to life the work of your mentor? How was the rehearsal process? And what was the Edinburgh Fringe like? 
It was hot, but magical in the Berkshires. That first summer with Gail, Emma, and Dylan as my fellow Ministering Angels was incredible. Being under a sticky sweaty parachute with puppets really does create a bond that can’t be broken easily (really the entire cast spent a lot of time under there and we loved each other in spite of our smells). There were days that felt like we were swimming through the air and I was excited to get to Edinburgh with its cooler forecast.
Layover in Heathrow with the gang (R to L: Kelsey Hogan, Dylan Wittrock, Emma Sims-Biggs and Ian Milliken)
Layover in Heathrow with the gang (R to L: Kelsey Hogan, Dylan Wittrock, Emma Sims-Biggs and Ian Milliken)

Traveling there was another adventure all together…I suppose this show was really entirely one huge adventure with millions of others taking place inside of it. A night spent in London’s Heathrow, an amazing flat, the pubic triangle, flirting with the coffee shop boy down the street, making friends with our venue managers, telling dead baby jokes to passersby, handing out hundreds of flyers, scotch lessons from my dad, ACDC karaoke, and performing a wildly fun, dark, and entertaining show…Edinburgh Fringe was a delight and ended way too soon.

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Kelsey and her puppet baby “Bob” work the Royal Mile in Edinburgh.

OC: Indeed, it was. But we were lucky enough to have you with us again in 2012.

KJH: Yes, the following year I received another email from Biggs, we were going to New York. I was thrilled. The play had evolved and so had the cast and crew. I was reunited with my puppet (Bob) and introduced to our new ministering angels. It was a great evolution. We clicked again (I am convinced that parachute makes you friends for life). Bob (my puppet) often had a lot to say. One of my distinct memories was Biggs pulling me aside to tell me “You don’t even realize you are talking when you have your puppet with you, but you need to tell him to pull back a bit”. It was a realization that masks and puppets have a life of their own, it was what truly made me appreciate the art form. Bob did need to pull back and he did.

  We had a great time experiencing the  NY Artist lifestyle. We had a small apartment and I chose the smallest room (I could touch both walls at the same time). That summer the show really hit a stride, and we got to see other fantastic shows.Performing in the Cherry Lane Theater was an experience I will never forget.

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Kelsey rocks the spoons again in our new four-man band (Ian Milliken, Evan Gambardella, Robert Biggs) for NYFringe 2012!
OC: Neither will we! You were such an important part of the experience both times around. It was a pleasure to work with you and we miss your enthusiastic and collaborative presence in the rehearsal room. You’ve had a big journey since we parted ways 3 years ago (!!). Could you tell us a little about what you’ve been up to?
KJH: Of course. A lot of time has passed since then. I truly miss it everyday. It was a time in my life that I was incredibly passionate and excited to get up every morning  to create something and be around and connect to other artists. Though I still perform here and there and write when I take the time for myself, I have now moved back to the west coast.
 After graduating from Emerson I moved to Washington D.C. and took a year long internship in devlopment and administration with Woolly Mammoth. It was great experience and I found a way to soothe my creative mind in an office by taking on event planning. After a year there I moved back west and took a job with Berkeley Rep handling donor relations and assiting with events.
I just had a one year anniversary with this job, something I have never had! It is exciting and terrifying. I enjoy what I do, love the company and my co-workers, though it can feel a little monotonous not working under a hole-filled parachute with a 7ft penis puppet…I’m moving up in the company and starting in September will be the special events manager which I am very proud of and grateful for. I tend not to plan my life ahead of time; that must be the artist, nomadic soul in me.
A Fantastic Puppetry Discovery (Kelsey Hogan)
Kelsey’s first encounter with the Puppet Babies (South Lee, MA 2011)
OC: We, too, know that traveling spirit very well;) Congratulations on all your hard work and many accomplishments over the past few years! We are so proud of you. Anything else you’d like to treat our readers to? Big life lessons? One more laugh? 
I do hope I can see Bob again…when you connect with a puppet it never really leaves you (and my non-puppeteer friends don’t get it). Having Biggs in my life, being a part of “The Dick and the Rose”, connecting with Tori, Caley, Dave, Ian, Ron, Dylan, Emma, Gail, Jenny, Jake, Evan, Barbara, Deborah (I know the list goes on, but for the sake of this sentence I’ll end it here) also will never really leave me. They pushed me to be better every day and make me who I am now. I don’t stay in a shell and won’t be reserved; my self-confidence has soared and I will be forever grateful for them.
The main lesson I learned is to take life by the 7ft. dick, if you will, and live your adventure.
XOXO
Kelsey
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Kelsey in action in The Dick and The Rose (with Gail Shalan).

 

 

Throwback to Summer Rehearsals…

After the most horrendous winter we’ve seen in a good long while, I think it’s FINALLY safe to say we’re officially approaching Summer. Next weekend we arrive at the Vernal Equinox and this muggy week beckons in a hot next few months. To celebrate the warmer days, here’s a collection of  our warm Summer Memories from the 2011 and 2012 rehearsals for The Dick and The Rose: 

 

Fondly Remembering “Flyering”

Courtesy of one of our original Ministering Angels, Dylan Wittrock, we are happy to send you on a journey down memory lane. Here is a compilation video of our promotional efforts on the Royal Mile at Edinburgh Fringe 2011, shout out to Bob and Mickey for all their hard work:

The Evolution of Coyote: Part 2

Raw Materials used to build Coyote's head: Masking tape, brown paper, cardboard cone, Japanese Hibiki Hand Saw
Raw Materials used to build Coyote’s head: Masking tape, brown paper, cardboard cone, Japanese Hibiki Hand Saw

With a few raw materials, an old coyote skull, some petty cash, a rough idea, and a good dose of faith in hand, off I went to make a puppet!

When I returned to the Berkshires in late June of 2013, Biggs presented me with the top half of a coyote skull that he’d found and a plush coyote, about four feet long, constructed of muslin and stuffing,  by the lovely Emily Justice Dunn, creator of our Drape and Baby Noah from “The Dick and The Rose”. We had discussed, while I was still in New York, the upcoming story he was spinning into play and screenplay form, and that in this story we needed a talking Coyote. He told me to take inspiration from Emily’s sweet pup, mix it up with what we learned in Tom’s workshop, and dive boldly into the experiment of making an approximately life-sized Coyote puppet for an upcoming short film and play.

Emily's Baby Noah from The Dick And The Rose
Emily’s Baby Noah from The Dick And The Rose

So home I went to do some research on Handspring Puppet company, the amazing South African group that Tom worked with on War Horse, a company that has been producing incredible animal puppets that move in lifelike ways while maintaining a creative, homespun, story telling aesthetic in their overall look. I knew this is what I felt inspired by and envisioned for Coyote. Before I moved back up to the Berkshires, I’d had the good fortune of being invited to puppeteer with HiveMind Theatre Company in their short puppet play at St.Ann’s Warehouse’s Toy Theatre Festival. Over the rehearsal period, I watched puppets be tinkered with and built from wood, fabric, paper, glue, paint, staples, and pretty much anything else you could imagine. Witnessing the work behind Chan Thou’s Tuk Tuk also gave me confidence to dabble in the unknown.

Great experience with puppet creators of all types at the Toy Theatre Festival at St. Ann's Warehouse in 2013
Great experience with puppet creators of all types at the Toy Theatre Festival at St. Ann’s Warehouse in 2013
Chan Thou from "Chan Thou's Tuk Tuk" by HiveMind Theatre Co. Emily Leshner and Ryan Minezzi on bottom left, my arm in top image and bottom right.
Chan Thou from “Chan Thou’s Tuk Tuk” by HiveMind Theatre Co. Emily Leshner and Ryan Minezzi on bottom left, my arm in top image and bottom right.
Coyote Skeleton as inspiration
Coyote Skeleton as inspiration
Coyote shadow puppet inspiration
Coyote shadow puppet inspiration
A beautiful drawing of a coyote... so soft and wise, but slightly a trickster all the same.
A beautiful drawing of a coyote… so soft and wise, but slightly a trickster all the same.
Coyote Skeleton
Coyote Skeleton
Amazing Coyote Marionettes as inspiration
Amazing Coyote Marionettes as inspiration
Scary Wolf puppet as inspiration
Scary Wolf puppet as inspiration
Tom Lee's puppet feet and legs....
Tom Lee’s puppet feet and legs….
Joey from Warhorse by Handspring Puppet Co.
Joey from Warhorse by Handspring Puppet Co.
My Previous puppet making experience, circa 1999
My Previous puppet making experience, circa 1999

And so several months of experiments began as I started on what I envisioned as a two to three person, Bunraku-style, life-sized Coyote puppet. I started with a rough, wooden  skeleton. I used the size and shape of Emily’s plush Coyote, as well as photos of coyote skeletons found online, to create templates out of large sheets of masonite that I had on hand. Then, I planned to connect them with wire, dowels, and backpack strap (a useful, strong material that Tom suggested). The main part of the skeleton consisted of a ribcage with a front  and back piece of masonite and wire “ribs” connecting the two. A hole was cut in the front piece to allow for the neck stick of the head to come through and the back piece was designed with a wrist rest so that one hand could manipulate the shoulders and head together. The rib cage then connected to a spine, which would have some hips constructed in a similar fashion to the shoulder piece, with an identical, dowel-sized hole for the tale. The legs were built of masonite, dowel,and backpack strap with appropriate joints and as natural movement as possible ( this inspiration I pulled from Handspring), and the feet were weighted to potentially relieve the puppeteers of excess manipulation.

Half finished legs and Emily's plush Coyote sit on top of templates for a Coyote Skeleton
Half finished legs and Emily’s plush Coyote sit on top of templates for a Coyote Skeleton

Then came the head. Building roughly in the format taught by Tom Lee, I created a coyote skull out of crumpled paper and masking tape. Mounted on a short dowel (functioning as the neck, and also as a mechanism to control the head from within or beneath the body), I took the rough skull shape and added finesse with fine, transparent paper (similar to the traditionally-used rice paper) and watered-down wood glue. After completing the moveable top half of the skull, I also made a working jaw. Biggs wanted an active tongue, if possible, so I began to play around with trigger systems and got a little in over my head. I’m no engineer and that’s for sure! But, with a little help and patience, I managed to rig a spring trigger inside the mouth to move the jaw from the hand which would be inside the rib cage,  and saw potential to make moving ears/ tongue.

A second iteration of Coyote from the upcoming short "Coyote Girl" and play "Riley Ann Visits the Outcast Cafe"
My first draft of Coyote. Complete with head and jaw… glass eyeballs and leather nose.

 

However, my patience began to ware thin. I was struggling with maintaining focus and inspiration as well as solving what felt like challenging physics, and I was reminded of why I chose the artistic path that I did. I’m a collaborator, and find my fuel in the melding of my passion with others. I was having a really hard time working mostly alone, in silence, assembling a creature I couldn’t yet bring to life in a satisfactory way. There were other issues, too. The head I’d worked so hard on, was much to large and long for an actual coyote. The body was becoming too complex to manipulate with ease and we weren’t sure that we’d have more than just myself as a puppeteer, especially for the film, so I needed to get back to the drawing board and work on a simpler, smaller, more accurate puppet for a single puppeteer. The good news is that I could focus on just the top half of the body for the film’s sake. I decided to start from a place of necessity, the bare bones of what the puppet needed to do, and to come from a puppeteer’s functional perspective rather than a design-oriented angle. But this a tale for next time…

The Evolution of Coyote: Part 1

Coyote today looks very much like this... but he's had a long journey to get here.
Coyote today looks very much like this… but he’s had a long journey to get here.

How long does it take to build a puppet? A minute, an hour, a day, a year? All of the above. The discovery and then simple manipulation of an inanimate object within minutes can create a puppet. The careful stitching and gluing of a collection of materials over several hours, days, or weeks can produce a puppet. The trial and error experimentation with many forms, patterns, shapes, ideas, and animations of a specific character can eventually materialize into an appropriate puppet for a new film and play in development over the course of what has now been a two year process. This hardly marks the end of our development of Coyote, as we are still discovering the ways in which we need the thing and creating more and more uses for it as we continue development of Riley Ann Visits the Outcast Café.

If you were to ask me, I’d say this puppet began over a conversation about a workshop held in Williamsburg, BK in April 2013. After closing The Dick and The Rose in the summer of 2012, I decided to return to NYC in hopes of some artistic and general clarity. Biggs continued to develop the next chapter of his tale at home and on the farm, and knew that puppets had become an inviting, compelling, and powerful way to tell his stories. Not knowing the exact form, but knowing that they would return and I’d most likely be the one putting my hand up their butts or wherever else they might call for, he contacted me with a fantastic offer to hone my natural draw to puppets as a storytelling mechanism. Right down the street from my then apartment Triskelion Arts happened to be hosting a weekend long workshop with the incredibly talented and knowledgable Tom Lee and we were to attend!

Tom is one of the original creators and animators of the puppets used in the international hit War Horse. He’s also built puppets for many other renowned works and teaches as a professor of theatre and puppetry at Sarah Lawrence College. Having studied and observed the traditional (rather laborious and extensive) Bunraku form of puppetry in Japan, Tom developed his own form of building, manipulating, and teaching the art of puppets to many others. So, Biggs and I spent an eye-opening weekend with Tom, and a diverse smattering of fellow artists with  varying puppetry experience, refining our skills in storytelling through the animation of inanimate objects. We also discovered the magic, the power and delight, of the puppeteer as the puppet maker. There is a certain ceremony in bringing life from scratch to the thing we will call ‘puppet’. From this place comes our inspiration, and our patience and persistence, to embark on a brand new journey with Coyote Girl/ Riley Ann Visits the Outcast Café in which I, as puppeteer, and Biggs as creator, dive head first into the unknown territory of building our own puppet: Coyote.

Still shot from Tom's workshop in Williamsburg, BK. Other students help to manipulate the papermache head I made for the workshop, attached to one of Tom's body prototypes.
Still shot from Tom’s workshop in Williamsburg, BK. Other students, Alexander and Emily, help to manipulate the papermache head I made for the workshop, attached to one of Tom’s body prototypes.
Another still from Tom's workshop... learning how to make the puppet sleep. Gail (center) with students Dorothy and Caty.
Another still from Tom’s workshop… learning how to make the puppet sleep. Gail (center) with students Dorothy and Caty.
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Sample of Tom’s work. Back of puppet head joint made of wood and finely layered paper.
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Sample of Tom’s work. Side of puppet head joint made of wood and finely layered paper.
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Sample of Tom’s work. Back of puppet head joint made of wood and finely layered paper. With Back of head included.
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Sample of Tom’s work. Underside of puppet head joint made of wood and finely layered paper.
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Sample of Tom’s work. Simple jointed feet.

 

A second iteration of Coyote from the upcoming short "Coyote Girl" and play "Riley Ann Visits the Outcast Cafe"
The (second) prototype of Coyote, and the one that came closest to what we learned in Tom’s workshop.

Stay tuned for the next installment of “The Evolution of Coyote” coming soon!

Blast From The Past

Hey readers,

Outcast Café is hard at work on our future projects. Our team is spread far and wide right now (and so is our film Coyote Girl) before we come together again early this Spring to start work on the next installment of Robert Biggs’ original works. We can’t wait to tell you more about are plans for the Spring of 2015, but first lets all go back to some past adventures in a little image throwback. Enjoy!

The cast of the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Tour of "The Dick and The Rose" hang out in the Gryphon Venues' lobby in Edinburgh, Scotland
The cast of the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Tour of “The Dick and The Rose” hang out in the Gryphon Venues’ lobby in Edinburgh, Scotland
Our first Sleeper, Dave Demke, from "The Dick and The Rose" premiere production at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2011
Our first Sleeper, Dave Demke, from “The Dick and The Rose” premiere production at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2011
Actors Kelsey Hogan and Gail Shalan ( plus babies) in the Puppet Baby Funeral March from our preview of "The Dick and The Rose" at Shakespeare and Company in Lee, MA 2011
Actors Kelsey Hogan and Gail Shalan ( plus babies) in the Puppet Baby Funeral March from our preview of “The Dick and The Rose” at Shakespeare and Company in Lee, MA 2011
"The Dick and the Rose" Edinburgh 2011 tour's musical trio (Dylan Wittrock, Ian Milliken, and Robert Biggs) entertain at the Gryphon Venue's opening party.
“The Dick and the Rose” Edinburgh 2011 tour’s musical trio (Dylan Wittrock, Ian Milliken, and Robert Biggs) entertain at the Gryphon Venue’s opening party.
Our cast and producer celebrate in style at the Gryphon Venues Opening Party  (feat. Dylan Wittrock, Emma Sims-Biggs, Deborah Sims, Caley Milliken, Kelsey Hogan).
Our cast and producer celebrate in style at the Gryphon Venues Opening Party (feat. Dylan Wittrock, Emma Sims-Biggs, Deborah Sims, Caley Milliken, Kelsey Hogan).
Musical Director and Ministering Angel, Ian Milliken, plays around with Mickey in rehearsal for the 2011 Edinburgh Tour of "The Dick and The Rose"
Musical Director and Ministering Angel, Ian Milliken, plays around with Mickey in rehearsal for the 2011 Edinburgh Tour of “The Dick and The Rose”
Bob the puppet baby makes friends during rehearsal in 2011
Bob the puppet baby makes friends during rehearsal in 2011
Actors Emma Sims-Biggs and Gail Shalan celebrate the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Tour at the Gryphon Venues Wrap Party (also feat. Jax Seager of Gryphon Venues)
Actors Emma Sims-Biggs and Gail Shalan celebrate the 2011 Edinburgh Fringe Tour at the Gryphon Venues Wrap Party (also feat. Jax Seager of Gryphon Venues)
The poster for "One Year's Crop", our original documentary film featuring artistic director Robert Biggs' journey from his upbringing on a small town farm in Westfield, IL to his hand spun theatre and film company in Lee, MA
The poster for “One Year’s Crop”, our original documentary film featuring artistic director Robert Biggs’ journey from his upbringing on a small town farm in Westfield, IL to his hand spun theatre and film company in Lee, MA
Our 2012 NYC Fringe Tour Sleeper, Ron Botting, holds up baby Noah at the end of our Berkshire preview in Lee, MA
Our 2012 NYC Fringe Tour Sleeper, Ron Botting, holds up baby Noah at the end of our Berkshire preview in Lee, MA
Ministering Angels Gail Shalan and Evan Gambardella share some puppet love on the streets of lower Manhattan during our 2012 NYC Fringe tour of "The Dick and the Rose"
Ministering Angels Gail Shalan and Evan Gambardella share some puppet love on the streets of lower Manhattan during our 2012 NYC Fringe tour of “The Dick and the Rose”
The Ministering Angels  and Puppet Babies take part in Fringe NYC 2012's "get off your couch.." initiative
The Ministering Angels and Puppet Babies take part in Fringe NYC 2012’s “your couch is making you small…” initiative
Choreographer and Movement Director Barbara Allen meets us for a pick up rehearsal in NYC. She discusses The Tango with actors Caley Milliken (Circus Girl) and Sleeper (Ron Botting).
Choreographer and Movement Director Barbara Allen meets us for a pick up rehearsal in NYC. She discusses The Tango with actors Caley Milliken (Circus Girl) and Sleeper (Ron Botting).
Actors Gail Shalan and Kelsey Hogan throw a tantrum with the other puppet babies during our Berkshire Preview for the 2012 NYC Fringe Tour of "The Dick and The Rose"
Actors Gail Shalan and Kelsey Hogan throw a tantrum with the other puppet babies during our Berkshire Preview for the 2012 NYC Fringe Tour of “The Dick and The Rose”
Actor Gail Shalan trains with puppet master Tom Lee in the traditional Bunraku form of puppetry in Brooklyn, NY April 2013
Actor Gail Shalan trains with puppet master Tom Lee in the traditional Bunraku form of puppetry in Brooklyn, NY April 2013
Actors Robert Biggs and Gail Shalan rehearse the Workshop sharing of "Coyote Girl" for our sharing at The Bookstore in Lenox, MA
Actors Robert Biggs and Gail Shalan rehearse the Workshop sharing of “Coyote Girl” for our sharing at The Bookstore in Lenox, MA
A first iteration of Coyote for the upcoming short "Coyote Girl" and upcoming play "Riley Ann Visits the Outcast Cafe"
A first iteration of Coyote for the upcoming short “Coyote Girl” and upcoming play “Riley Ann Visits the Outcast Cafe”
A second iteration of Coyote from the upcoming short "Coyote Girl" and play "Riley Ann Visits the Outcast Cafe"
A second iteration of Coyote from the upcoming short “Coyote Girl” and play “Riley Ann Visits the Outcast Cafe”
Our current iteration of Coyote learning his lines.
Our current iteration of Coyote learning his lines.

#inspiringfellows: January/February

 

Hey, y’all, sorry we missed January! We were busy making the movie Coyote Girl, or hadn’t you heard? While we garnered much inspiration from the expansive Heartland and the howling coyote friends, we didn’t get out to see much. Luckily, we were tipped off to a very cool puppet happening that took place at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre in DC by DCist contributor Anya VanWagtendonk (read her article here) while we were half-way across the country making our cool puppet happening. Over the holidays, Woolly Mammoth hosted our #inspiringfellow of January & February: The Old Trout Puppet Workshop:

January/ February

Old Trout Puppet Workshop (Source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Old Trout Puppet Workshop (Source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)

 

 

We feel particularly inspired by this odd and fantastic self-proclaimed: “motley gang of artists churning out ideas for a whole heap of unlikely things: puppet shows for adults and children, sculptures, films, music, books, plays, paintings, and pedagogy.”(source) The show that VanWagtendonk shared with us, Famous Puppet Death Scenes, is a celebration and exploration of the fears, anxieties, and curiosities we have about death through the safe and illuminating medium of puppetry. In a very puppet-y way, the show turns these horrors on their heads and into joy and amusement… the ups and downs of which we at Outcast Cafe know well from our work on The Dick and The Rose

Famous Puppet Death Scenes now touring (Source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Famous Puppet Death Scenes now touring (Source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Still from FPDS (Source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Still from FPDS (Source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)

 

Still shot from FPDS (Source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Still shot from FPDS (Source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)

But we also feel akin to the Old Trout folk, in their beautiful exploration of puppets on film, their ambitious world travels, and of course, their broad exploration of the light and dark, the holy and bawdy, the ins and outs, the passage through the veil.

Still from Old Trout's "Ignorance" (source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Still from Old Trout’s “Ignorance” (source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Still from Old Trout's "The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan" (source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Still from Old Trout’s “The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan” (source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Still from Old Trout's "ignorance" (source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Still from Old Trout’s “ignorance” (source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Still from Old Trout's " The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan" (source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Still from Old Trout’s ” The Erotic Anguish of Don Juan” (source: http://www.theoldtrouts.org)

Old Trout Puppet Workshop, we salute your detailed and gorgeous bravery in storytelling and look forward to taking in a show down the road! Thanks for the inspiration, #inspiringfellows !

Still from Old Trout's "Ignorance" ...love this guy.  (source : http://www.theoldtrouts.org)
Still from Old Trout’s “Ignorance” …love this guy.
(source : http://www.theoldtrouts.org)

Check out this stunning music video they made for Feist’s song “Honey, Honey”:

 

Can’t get enough of them…Although we may have missed the U.S. leg of the run, if you are interested in catching Famous Puppet Death Scenes, the show is still touring in Canada and here are the dates I pulled from their website:

February 3 – 22, Majestic Theatre, Eastglen High School, Theatre Network, Edmonton, AB

March 13 – 28, Flanagan Theatre, Theatre Junction GRAND, Calgary, AB

March 31 – April 19, York Theatre, The Cultch, Vancouver, BC

Find out more about their past and present work, and about where to see it at their website: http://www.theoldtrouts.org/index.html

and join us following them on twitter: @theoldtrouts

Puppets in Edinburgh: The Royal Mile and Beyond

As promised on our previous blog post about Gail’s adventures with puppets, here is the second installment of the journey, Edinburgh:

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If you’ve ever had the fortune of attending the Edinburgh Fringe Festival you know what a glorious shit-show the Royal Mile is during the month of August (Side note: this chaos goes on for a bit longer than you’d think as in typical Scottish fashion, “the lang Scots mile” [Tam O’Shanter, Robert Burns] stretches approximately 12% further than what we know as a mile in the good ol’ US of A).

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(The Royal Mile photo credit ESB )  (Kelsey Hogan and Bob working the Mile, photo credit ESB)

There are people EVERYWHERE: some tourists, some theatre fanatics, some poor locals who didn’t manage to join the annual mass exodus, but mostly performers of all shapes and sizes pushing the crap out of their Fringe shows on the many passers by. It’s a fantastic place to go if you came for the Festival and the measly brochure detailing hundreds of shows with a brief paragraph and tiny image is not offering you enough vivid detail to make an educated decision, or you came to see the sweet little city, but stayed on for a few too many days and have run out of things to do, or if you want to see some previews of what you might buy tickets to like the fabulous La Putyka Circus pulling out their stops on stilts, or discover new favorite bands like The Buffalo Skinners, or you just want to shop around for vested, bearded, talented cuties most likely possessing a delightful accent and then blog about it .

 

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(A fellow puppet on the Mile, photo cred. ESB)

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(The Buffalo Skinners, photo cred. ESB)

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(A Royal Mile Extravaganza, photo cred. ESB)

 

The Royal Mile during Fringe is a lot of things, most specifically chaos, and being asked to busk on the streets in the misty, often rainy, Scottish weather to garner attention for your show can feel like a thankless effort…

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(Defeat feat. Dylan Wittrock and Kelsey Hogan, photo cred. ESB)

… until you get a puppet.

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(Mickey on the Mile, photo cred. ESB)

Once we put the puppets on, swarms of people turned heads, stopped to listen, or even have a conversation with Mimi or Mickey or Bob, our little puppet babies. Children were dragging their parents over and we were explaining on repeat that there were elements of the show (such as a 15 ft. long Dick puppet)

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(Some of our flyers we gave out on The Mile, design by Outcast Cafe and ESB)

 

which may not be appropriate for their four-year old, which still didn’t deter the adorable little girl in a polka dot dress who made friends with Bob and came to visit daily with her grandmother. The work became play, and it was a lot easier to stop feeling like an annoying, nagging asshole, when it wasn’t you who was doing the nagging, but a little, loveable piece of foam and cloth on your hand.

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(Babies love Bob, photo credit ESB )

 

These little buddies not only became the highlight of the show for many, but also became one of our main draws and the some of the hardest workers in our company. I remember the sense of inspired delight when the babies would “pop!” through the drape and ripples of laughter would occur, or later they would meet their short ends when drowned to death, and some would be moved to tears. What had started as a solution to a delicate aspect of our storytelling ended up becoming much more in bringing us a whole new audience, a different sense of charm and reality, and a harking back to ancient themes of storytelling and play, as we tend to do at the Outcast Café.

We belonged to a new club, the unofficial Puppet Club, which would turn out to be one of our best assets in marketing but also a great new exposure to some like-minded artists using like-minded “tools” of storytelling. We saw many fascinating, entertaining, sometimes ridiculous, sometimes incredibly dramatic and moving new works during our month at the festival. The use of music, poetry, dance, projection, and circus arts were all inspiring and provocatively employed. But what stuck with me most, the shows I still talk about, were the ones that belonged to the Club, the ones which utilized the transportable magic of puppetry.

I remember a rainy afternoon in Edinburgh, when most of the cast and crew put on our wellies, or whatever else we were keeping dry with, on and marched down to a vacant lot behind a brick building to discover a rag-tag gypsy tent unfolding off a rickety trailer. Upon entering, we discovered the very stuff of enchanted fairie-folk tales children (and us whimsical adults) only dream of: many rows of closely fitted benches arrayed with multicolored pillow cushions facing a spectacular little stage on which we witnessed the most magical puppet play, Little Matter by The River People. It was an epic coming of age/ morality tale full of whimsy and warnings, and was told primarily by handcrafted pieces of wood, fabric, paper, and other tidbits; secondly by a bunch of talented musically inclined riverpeople

 

 

 

 

 

(Our Hero in Little Matter, source www.threeweeks.co.uk)

 

This was not our only puppet foray at the Fringe. Some of our other favorites were the amazing performances by Blind Summit and Cirk La Putyka.

In Blind Summit’s The Table we watched several pieces of well-sculpted cardboard transform into the crotchety, grumbly, 24” tall little man who promised to perform “the last 12 hours of Moses’s life on top of a table.”1980-0064-2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Our Friend from The Table, source http://trampenau.co.uk)

 

In Cirk La Putyka’s La Putyka, puppetry played as an element in this circus extravaganza, when a beautiful woman in a red dress, waltzed romantically (and drunkenly) with this “man” here:cirk-la-putyka

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Drunken Waltz from La Putyka, source http://www.sideshow-circusmagazine.com)

 

Throughout the witnessing of these mesmerizing instances of story telling, I continued to be surprised by how “real” it all felt. I was stunned by the fact that I felt more connected to the inanimate objects most of the time, than I did the very humans who interacted with or manipulated them. It was in Edinburgh that I first discovered my passionate belief in puppets and forever wanted a membership to the Club.
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(Moved to Tears feat. Gail Shalan, Kelsey Hogan, and the Babies, photo credit ESB)

 

                                                                                   Written by company member Gail Shalan

My First Foray With Puppets: A Throwback

 

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(Mimi and Me in rehearsal in S. Lee, MA, photo credit Emma Sims-Biggs)

Three years ago, rehearsals began for The Dick and The Rose. I showed up for rehearsal in an old church in Lee, MA with the promise of puppets and was greeted by a bag full of white socks and a bin of magic markers. We were told to put the sock over our hand, hold it so that we could make it talk, and look for the face; then draw what we discovered onto the sock. This felt goofy, fun, juvenile, and ultimately, to quote one of my favorite acting professors, a little “fake-it-till-ya-make-it” in nature.

What then proceeded was a phenomenal discovery of the delicate and magical manipulation that happens both from within and from somewhere completely outside of oneself to bring an inanimate object to a free, vibrant and animated life. The only other times in my life I could equate this experience to, were studying the liberating art of mask during my training at LAMDA and BU, and to the early days of play in my imaginative child hood. It was a time when my playmates consisted of about fifteen Beanie Babies who fully functioned with illustrative personalities for an audience of two; my patient little brothers.

The plush creatures’ personalities were so distinct, that for years, I never forgot the cadence of a voice, the history of emotional moments in their little lives; I definitely had many a conversation with them, even when no one was there to listen. And, undoubtedly, this lasted a little longer for me that for most, after all, I still do it, but it was a universal experience, something children all over the world for years, and years, and years had experienced.

 

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 (Mimi meets a fellow baby, photo credit ESB)

So, after allowing the inhibition and judgment of being a socialized adult to pass, we listened, looked, and allowed creative inspiration to flow through us; for the “puppets” to show us their hidden voices, thoughts, and personalities. Then, after paying close attention to the sock at hand (literally), our “puppets” were allowed to interact with the other puppets on other players’ hands.

Eventually, our fabulous puppet designer, Jim Day, brought in about six different hand designed puppet babies, that each came in three iterations of themselves at different ages, which sat inside of themselves like little nesting Matrushka dolls. We ceremoniously revealed the babes to ourselves and the rest of the company and allowed these pieces of hodge-podge fabric, foam, and thread to introduce “themselves” to us.264725_254336767914573_5046766_n

(The first time I met Mimi, and her larger iteration, Francine, photo credit ESB)

 

These little pieces of magic stayed with us every day through rehearsals in the hall, at our previews to Shakespeare and Co. and The Topia Arts Center, and eventually were road warriors stuffed in a suitcase on their way to Scotland. They then functioned as our primary source of audience heckling for the duration of our month in Edinburgh. But the story of Scotland is a whole other tale for another day. As is the continuous presence of puppets in my life and in the growing lives of the many stories told by the Outcast Café.

 

                                                                                                                             written by company member Gail Shalan