Feb 3, 2022 Bread and Puppet Theatre

This week, wel’re looking at a  couple of videos of Bread and Puppet’s work..

Bread & Puppet Theater – Blue Sky Puppet + Mask Dance – July 2012   

 Insurrection + Resurrection Services Circus 2020

Monger Memories

This short work takes siblings Ann and David back to some of their earliest memories, during their dad’s British army posting to Hong Kong in the mid-1950’s. Using old family photos as triggers to their fragments of memory, they explore this big shared adventure through shadow puppetry. What experiences does it take to connect siblings, when do they really start to play together? These are relevant questions for this duo, still playing together for a living, some fifty-plus years later.

OAC Recommender Grants 2021

Puppetmongers is accredited as a Recommending Company for the 

Ontario Arts Council’s Recommender Grants for Theatre Creators 2021-22

We have a total of $5,000  to divide between  all worthy projects

All applications are now online! Deadline is November 12, 2021 at 1 pm ET

 CLICK HERE for the full guidelines and application form

Puppetmongers is seeking applications from artists who wish to develop puppetry projects.  Our priorities and areas of interest are:

  • The development of theatrical work with puppetry
  • The integration of puppetry into theatre productions
  • The creation of new forms of puppetry and new theatrical uses of puppetry
  • The nurturing of new generation and culturally diverse artists

Projects may be at any stage of development prior to production or workshop production.  These small grants are particularly suited to helping artists with the earliest phases of creation, the development of ideas, the building of a creative team etc.

We have a total of $5,000 to assign between all successful applications, thus the grants we can recommend range from a minimum of $1,000 to the unlikely maximum of $5,000.  They have tended to be on the lower end, spread over a few projects.  We are curious and excited to see what the artistic community has percolating, and extremely grateful to the Ontario Arts Council for their increased support of puppetry.

Deadline for applications is 1 p.m. ET on November 12, 2021.  We strongly recommend that you submit your application at least by the day before this deadline, to avoid technical glitches.

Before you apply, note that we request submissions include a budget and a short bio for all participants in their support material. NOTE: We do not require script samples but  do want ideas in the form of sketches, influences, photos… which can be included as stills on video in the Audio/Visual link.

These small  Recommender  Grants for Theatre Creators are to provide time in which to explore, experiment, and develop an idea in its infancy, and the why, what and how of the puppetry of it. This is not a grant to write or finish a script; it is not a grant to build already-designed puppets; or to complete a show for performance bookings.

With puppetry being such a visual artform, to help us get a feel for your proposed project please attach in your application any images, inspirations and influences; sketches and storyboards; any mock-ups of puppetry and performance ideas – anything that would give us insight into how puppetry is to be incorporated into your plans – We do not want scripts!

All applicants must meet the criteria requirements of the Ontario Arts Council. For more information on Recommender Grants for Theatre Creators, and to access the full guidelines and the application form, please click here for  the  OAC website.


OAC’s List of Recommenders

Cinderella in Muddy York (2021 Holiday)

Online Dec 18 to Jan 2. The much loved story of Cinderella is reset in 1830’s Upper Canada, just as “Muddy” York is to be renamed Toronto, and where the very Canadian Cinderella is expected to cater to every whim of her recently immigrated stepmother and sisters.  True to the classic fairy tale, with a little magic and some imaginative special effects our resourceful girl does get herself to the Ball, and to the satisfying conclusion of the play.

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Puppetry Hive Oct 14

I’m getting to the point of not being able to remember what videos we have or haven’t sent you over the course of Covid!

But here’s a  video of some traditional Turkish Karagoz shadow puppetry    and a contemporary take on Karagoz shadow performance by US puppeteer Paul Zaloom…

Puppetry Hive Oct 7- Local Tour

For this week’s Hive videos, we thought to stay Toronto local, with videos of recent (or recentish) work by Clay and Paper, Shadowland, Jumblies, and us Puppetmongers (collectively, we call ourselves the Raucous Caucus)

From   Shadowlands,   “What   Makes   a   House” .

From Clay and Paper, their lumin animal puppets and lumin human

Their paper/toy theatre project/community workshops, The Third Eye from last year. The trailer for the project.

This video is only viewable on Facebook. Click on image .