Wrecking Orchestra Tron Dance

Just found this on youtube. If meat & potato had the money, this is the kind of stuff we'd want to do: TRON, DANCE CRAZE IN THE MAIN FRAME

The Continuing Appeal of THE ODYSSEY

Marynell found this incredible story in the New York Times about a group of puppeteers preparing to mount their newest event "Odysseus at Hell Gate". The traveling audience are the war weary Greeks walking through streets lined with creatures inspired by Homer's classic. The puppet makers are Alex Kahn and Sophia Michahelles.

Here's the link to the article.

Small Crimson Parasol

Meat & Potato Theatre recently assisted the Calvin Smith Elementary Drama Club by building a handful of set pieces for their production of folk tales entitled TWO FOR THE SHOW: HEGGITY PEG & SMALL CRIMSON PARASOL. The latter is a retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood", but set in Japan rather than the Bavarian woods.

The Calvin Smith Drama Club is directed by Kathleen Atkinson, a M&P board member. The fight and dance choreography for the shows were directed by Enid Atkinson, former associate producer of M&P.

Here Small Crimson Parasol meets grandmother who looks a little under the weather...



Here Heggity Peg arrives at the children's house, looking through the window we built.



Here is the bamboo screen we built for the story set in Japan. The unit rotated to represent the Heggity Peg woods on the other side.

Hello Baby Universe

While it would be more marketing saavy to toot our own production horn with the successful opening of AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS last weekend, this NY Times article seemed noteworthy. Wakka Wakka Productions has created BABY UNIVERSE-A PUPPET ODYSSEY, an hour long puppet play about the end of our current world and the desperate search to create a new one before the last human perishes.

Hmmm...you mean you can have a socially relevant "meassage" play AND be entertaining at the same time? You mean Brecht wasn't the last person to think in those theatrical terms? Who knew?








(pictures from the Wakka Wakka website and NY Times)

More 80 DAYS Travel Posters

Michael finished the travel posters for the AROUND THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS set. Here are the two 8'x5' monsters. There are 3 7'x4' posters also. They will hang above the playing area.

80 DAYS takes shape

Meat & Potato has been in pre production for Around the World in 80 Days for almost 2 months now.

Marynell made final adjustments to her translation of the French script.

Tobin designed and built a portable set which sits disassembled in his garage.

The play has been cast with 5 very capable, exciting actors: Kirt Barnes, Susan Maurer, Roger Dunbar, William Richardson, and Kent Hadfield. All five actors are new to the M&P stage.

Enid Atkinson returns to M&P and has sent each cast member a dialect tape and notes to help them with their accents. Enid is also choreographing the three dance moments in the show.

David Evanoff returns to M&P composing two new songs for the show.

Heather Meyers, having just completed a run of Hamlet at Pioneer Theatre Company, returns for a third time to M&P as our capable stage manager.

Sam Mollner, lighting designer, returns for his third M&P show--IN A ROW!

Two new artists join the M&P team in this project. Megan Crivello and Tobin worked together for two years in the Playwrights' Laboratory before she took on the role of costume designer for 80 Days.

Lastly, Michael Skorney assists Tobin with the set elements of the show by generating five vintage travel posters that will hang above the set in the Studio Theatre at the Rose Wagner. The posters highlight the various places the characters travel during the play. The pictures on this blog entry show the progression of the "India" poster and the first hours of work on the "England" poster.

We start rehearsals in 10 days!

Admiration for puppet opera

M&P loves the power of the doll. We have worked puppets into half of our productions to date. Four productions have been completely puppet-based including our DC productions of Beginnings, Hard Times, and Roshomon and our SLC production of Shadows of the Bakemono.

It is with special admiration that we acknowledge the Gotham Chamber Opera and the Tectonic Theater Project's production of “El Gato Con Botas” (“Puss in Boots”), a 1947 children’s opera by Xavier Montsalvatge sung in Spanish. Thanks for the inspiration! Please read the whole NY Times article.