Productions for School, Family and Adult Audiences
Enjoyed by Family and School Audiences:
Brick Bros. Circus
This inventive play delights audiences of all ages, bringing the world of play, creativity and performance to life, brick by brick by brick. Guaranteed to stimulate imaginations and spark creative thinking, the Brick Bros. Circus is a complete, miniature one-ring circus, performed by highly trained building bricks in itty bitty costumes. See the acrobatic Bildovitch Family, the breathtaking Madame Brikaskova, the amazing Brick Contortionist and much much more!
Cinderella in Muddy York
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.
Foolish Tales for Foolish Times
Four classic tales of misadventure, full of venerable folk wisdom from around the world, are retold in a celebration of our shared humanity. Presented in a deceptively simple, low tech style, each story is told using a different style of puppetry, and highlights how we humans can overlook the obvious when we worry needlessly about the impossible, take advice without thinking, or use yesterday's solutions to solve today's problems.
Tea at the Palace
Rich in magical surprises and mechanical ingenuity, inventive puppetry and exuberant folk music, Tea at the Palace is a sumptuous retelling of two stories told in old Russia about justice, humanity and compassion. In the first, a peasant finds a samovar in his field, but when he uses it to make tea “just like the Tsar” he is charged with treason. In the second, the Tsar is introduced to a wise and intriguing peasant girl, which scandalizes the courtiers who plot to thwart their friendship. Full of riddles, ritual and humour this play is both relevant and enchanting.
The Miller and the Miller’s Wife
A poor miller leads his family from rustic poverty to middle class comfort by gently guiding his none too ethical landlord, a gullible, grasping fellow, into simple financial speculations that go way over his head. This play is an adaptation of a classic folk tale known around the world under a multitude of names.
Walidad the Grass Cutter
Performed with delicately carved rod marionettes, delightful visual effects and traditional Persian music, this retelling of a Near-Eastern folk tale is puppet theatre for older audiences. The Puppetmongers introduce a stunningly beautiful world of imaginative experience, based on their own travels in Iran, in this moving tale of a poor grass cutter whose generosity inadvertently draws him and his friend, a travelling merchant, into a world of p
Enjoyed by Adult Audiences
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
Walidad the Grass Cutter
Performed with delicately carved rod marionettes, delightful visual effects and traditional Persian music, this retelling of a Near-Eastern folk tale is puppet theatre for older audiences. The Puppetmongers introduce a stunningly beautiful world of imaginative experience, based on their own travels in Iran, in this moving tale of a poor grass cutter whose generosity inadvertently draws him and his friend, a travelling merchant, into a world of p
2004 “Shuttle Dreams” with Daria Dobrochna Kwiatkowska and Scott Wilson
Shuttle Dreams with Daria Dobrochna Kwiatkowska and Scott Wilson
Terror
A site-specific staging of The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe, in which Roderick Usher entombs his still living sister, Madeline, in the vault of their decaying mansion. To offset, and interweave with this piece, we chose a scenario suggested by David Ives in his short story, Bolero, which tells the story of a contemporary couple listening to noises in their building, where it also sounds as though a woman is being harmed.
Pirate Widow Cheng
This production, set in early 19th century China, explores the true story of Shih Yang and her rise from prostitution to her command of one of China’s most ruthless pirate combines. We know that she married a gang leader named Cheng I, but how were they able to forge a confederation of pirate fleets that numbered 80,000 strong? When her husband died, how was it that the Widow Cheng was elected the Paramount Admiral of the combined pirate fleet? Was it her charisma that enabled her to transform the pirate’s violent activities to the more lucrative and stable business of protection and extortion?
Brick Bros. Circus
This inventive play delights audiences of all ages, bringing the world of play, creativity and performance to life, brick by brick by brick. Guaranteed to stimulate imaginations and spark creative thinking, the Brick Bros. Circus is a complete, miniature one-ring circus, performed by highly trained building bricks in itty bitty costumes. See the acrobatic Bildovitch Family, the breathtaking Madame Brikaskova, the amazing Brick Contortionist and much much more!
Hard Times
We take one of the classics of Dickensian literature and flip everything on its head, including the audience. Hard Times shows us a world in which supply and demand govern every human interaction, a world where a lot has changed since the Victorian era of greed, power, marginalization and class conflict – or has it?
The Ballad of Tamlin
(Retired from repertoire.) A story about coming of age in the time of Faeries. Tamlin is an ancient story from Scotland, kept alive in the sung oral tradition and written