(mdn)n. 1. A refuse heap. 2. Archaeology: A mound or deposit containing shells, animal bones, and other refuse that indicates the site of a human settlement.
EMP Collective: 307 West Baltimore St, Baltimore, MD (Between Eutaw and Howard Street)
The latest theatrical masterpiece from EMP Collective RISES THIS OCTOBER. POTATOES OF AUGUST by Sybil Kempson Two middle-aged couples are sent into spiraling existential crises when they discover a growing sack of sentient potatoes. These potatoes have brains, have read their Swedenborg, and DON’T. PLAY. FAIR. Rapidly growing in number and intellect, the potatoes unravel the couples' carefully curated realities. Parts kitchen sink drama, musical comedy, intimate biographical portraiture, museum educational presentation, opera, Renaissance fair, science fiction, science fair, and phenomenological debate, Potatoes of August swells and swirls on a vision quest for a different kind of understanding of the world around us.
Directed by Evan Moritz Featuring Kelvin Pittman, Mattie Rogers Kroiz, Amelia Carroll, Ruben Kroiz, Connor Kizer, Sarah Jacklin, and Vii Lee.
Music Composition || Mike Iverson and David Crandall. Lyrics || Sybil Kempson Puppet and Potatoes Design || Lisa Krause and Gina Denton Props || Katya Villano Set Design || Emona Stoykova Costume Design || Stephanie Parks Lighting Design || Rick Gerriets Projections Design || Dan Zink
On NPR: "Baltimore’s EMP Collective is getting ready to stage an experimental play by Sybil Kempson, and to call it ‘experimental’ is an understatement. When The Signal’s Aaron Henkin dropped in at a rehearsal, all he knew about the play is that it features a trio of sentient potatoes. After his visit, he understood even less. Here’s Aaron’s attempt at a preview of The Potatoes of August." http://wypr.org/post/glow-o-s-taxidermy-artist-robert-marbury-painted-screens-and-potatoes-august
After the closing of "We Are All Strangers Here" I was approached by Carly Bales, Artistic Director of EMP Collective, to be the Puppet Designer for their upcoming production: POTATOES OF AUGUST.
EMP Collective has since won Best Of Baltimore Award for Best Multiuse Space for Arts and Entertainment. This will be their first show since receiving the award.
EMP COLLECTIVE 307 W. Baltimore St., (410) 244-0785, empcollective.org
Ishi’s
Brain is a show by Lisa Krause and Eamon Espey that incorporates
shadow puppets, a marionette, masks and a liberal use of painted cardboard.
It is based on a chapter in Eamon Espey’s new graphic novel, Songs of the Abyss published
by Secret Acres. The initial inspiration comes from the true story, but is by no means a historical re-enactment. Krause and Espey’s performance focuses on a lone spirit in his final days and an alien shaman who helps guide the dead into the next world. Original soundtrack by Stephen Santillian of Baltimore bands Ghost Life and Thank You.
Photo: Michel Anderson
Eamon Espey is a
cartoonist based in Baltimore whose books include Wormdye (2008) and Songs of the Abyss (2012). Both were published by Secret Acres.His work has appeared in art shows in
such places as Los Angeles, Istanbul, and New York and in print in Sweden’s Galago
Magazine and Washington DC’s Bash
Magazine.
Songs of the Abyss further examines and diagrams all things spiritual
and grotesque. Ancient Egyptian gods birth Biblical giants, Santa Claus is an
agent of the Devil and a scientist performs sadistic experiments in search of
enlightenment. All is rendered in black ink with scalpel like precision. The cover
remains true to the hand crafted aesthetic in that it is a stained glass design handmade by the author specifically for the book.
Link to Songs of the Abyss reviewed on IndieReader Lisa Krause is a trained
sculptor and has been an Associate Artist with Black Cherry Puppet Theater
since 2009. She has studied traditional marionette carving in the Czech
Republic and recently just spent a month living and performing with the
anarchist theater group, Bread and Puppet. Krause facilitates puppetry
workshops and has performed with Black Cherry at schools, recreation centers and
community festivals across Maryland, Virginia and at the National Theater in
Washington D.C.She has also
performed in the streets of Prague and the beautiful hillsides of Vermont.
Photo: Michel Anderson
SONGS OF THE ABYSS Book Release and Ishi's Brain Performance Dates (Spring 2013):
There was a national tour in April 2013- May 2013 which included 15 bookings and appearances at Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo in Columbus, OH and Stumptown Comic Festival in Portland, OR.
SPACE (Small Press and Alternative Comics Expo) Book table w/J.T. Dockery and Mark Rudolph! Performance * 8pm Sat Apr 13 at S.P.A.C.E. Cartoonist Polymaths After Party Pageantw/The Smacks! (J.T. Dockery & Brian Manley) Leela Corman and Maddie Fix -Kafe Kerouac(2250 N High St.) Workshops on Monday night at Short Stop Youth Center and Ohio Shorts Film Festival at Ohio State University: Shadow Puppets, Block Printing Patches (Non-Silkscreen Method)
After returning from my summer with Bread and Puppet, Eamon and I began working on a performance of his comic Ishi's Brain for the November 2012 release of his new book Songs Of The Abyss. We started working in August and enlisted the help of many friends throughout the process. Many long days, nights, and lists later- we performed for over 100 people at Windup Space for Eamon's art opening/book release party in Baltimore.
creating the Shaman mask, working from a maquette based on the comic.
Testing shadow puppets and backgrounds
creating props based on Eamon'scomic
Hinging shadow puppets for animation
Ishi's Brain comic, come to life. Performance at Black Cherry Puppet Theater.
I spent just over a month this summer as an apprentice with
Bread and Puppet in Glover, Vermont.
This is something that I’ve wanted to do for about 10 years, since when
I was more of an activist doing Food Not Bombs and working at New World
Resource Center in Chicago.But it was something out of reach in my former life. While it is easier now, coming up with the money to drop out of my life for a month was hard to do.But now after the experience- I can't imagine not having done it.I am thankful now that I can go because of my current lifestyle, flexible occupations, and Eamon.
Before leaving, I knew that going to Bread and Puppet is a chance to live collectively among activists and artists while collaborating on political puppetry and I was curious about the way that something like this can actually happen.
I was looking forward to
having the opportunity to work under Peter Schumann- to understand just what kind of person could travel the world with urgent, politically relevant, beautiful and often terrifying puppet shows completely made out of trash for 50
years.I have come to realize that
he is not slowing down.He is
becoming more urgent with his years.
“There is no time…”
“Art making against the existing order of life”
Bread and Puppet began as community theater, tackling the neighborhood issues inherent to a city such as New York, but it quickly grew. The idea was to make political theater in the streets of New York in the 60s as a reaction to Vietnam. To interrupt the faceless masses of people trying to hold on to conservative ideas during a time of world-wide insanity. Only a few people who had some of the facts were freaking out in their minds. What can be done? Tell their stories. Perhaps the urgency was due to the lack of information available at that time, before computers gave us more than we can understand. “For us there was a need to create something better than stupid leaflets and intellectualizing- its boring." Peter said, "It’s the color and speed that gets to people.”
Peter Schumann began as a sculptor. He uses scrap materials and works with the clay dug from the farm in all of it's awful naturalness. He moves quickly from project to project. Sculpting, painting, carving... we come to finish it with paper-mache over the clay, rigging the puppets, or printing his woodcuts. I had a very liberating feeling there watching him work. Seeing him work quickly with whatever is available was one of many realizations that helped me reflect on my own values. Its funny how a 70+ year old man can be more of a punk anarchist than I ever was. He works hard with whatever is available- using cardboard collected from local businesses, mixing glue from cornstarch-based packing peanuts, and painting with leftover house paint- everything is recycled. The aesthetic is raw, quick, unapologetic, and intense. If you need it, you make it. Like when I needed a strap to carry my drum- in 2 min. I was quickly shown how to make one from a flat bike inner tube, trash foam, and duct tape.
“The world is a giant terrible place. We must create chaos to live in this terrible mess”
Peter's aesthetic style of woodcut is as much part of Bread and Puppet as the puppets are. Jagged words chalked out and cut into scrap masonite and printed on old bed sheets with watered down house paint. Swirling archetypes, iconography and words in a form of english intended for a more urgent impending time.
During our visit, Peter and Elka gave us a tour of the print shop. Peter told us about how in New York he would use the masonite that was ripped out of the tenement houses that were constantly being gutted- or from the backs of furniture thrown in the alleys. He makes the woodcuts in the quiet winter months and while it used to be his wife Elka that decided the color and printing, Lila prints them now- working with Elka on those decisions. The fabric prints are often sewn into things used in our parades and performances as well as stocking the museum store with posters, banners, patches, flags, etc.
"A fragment of an image of a story becomes a big huge show"
The Bread and Puppet Museum is in what used to be a dairy barn from the 1800s. It's a massive building that houses work from across the 50 years of the theater's existence. In addition to puppets of all sizes there are dioramas, reliefs, small paintings on cardboard, flat wooden figures and giant paper mache globes. Each stall and bay has scenes of shows with puppets of various sizes in themes such as Anti-Vietnam War, the assassinations of Oscar Romero and Chico Mendes, My Lai Massacre, Cambodian genocide, Environmental themes, angelic figures, Uncle Fatsos- the grotesque counterpart of Uncle Sam, Persephone, St. Francis, Medieval and Pagan figures, giant red demons representing the threat of nuclear war, and the garbage men and washer women who fix everything.
During my internship, I had the good fortune of getting my first choice of jobs- working in the Museum. I really enjoyed the opportunity to spend time with work that has spanned the entire history of Bread and Puppet. I enjoyed the intimate experience with all of the work while cleaning the exhibits and even got to repair some of Peter's work that had proven its impermanence a little too soon. After our Friday night shows, I was often staff in the museum store and got to anonymously overhear audience members reaction to the shows, learned how far they travelled to come, and also helped to educate the public on some of the exhibits. My favorite part of the job was getting to know and working directly with Elka Schumann.
Elka giving us a tour of the museum when we first arrived. Photo: Elmogin Huang
The Bread and Puppet Museum Store Photo: Elmogin Huang
"PEOPLE have been THINKING too long that ART is a PRIVILEGE of the MUSEUMS & the RICH. ART IS NOT BUSINESS! It does not belong to banks & fancy investors. ART IS FOOD. You cant EAT it BUT it FEEDS you. ART has to be CHEAP & available to EVERYBODY" Across the street from the museum lies the Cheap Art Bus. It serves as a place for puppeteers and interns to make a little money selling things they make- from small art to prints, patches and stickers. I found a little time a few weeks in to the summer where I drew and painted warriors on cardboard and sewed a frame of sticks around them. It felt good to have a quiet activity in my free time and sell all the stuff I made.
"I am an anarchist. Bread and Puppet is over-organized anarchy."
Every morning began with a meeting at 9am during which Peter would lay out the plan for the day ...which would then be amended at the 2pm afternoon meeting. He would often give quick plans for rehearsals, or the development of shows and other projects on the agenda- and then he'd be off to finish baking bread, paint a contestoria, sculpt or paint new puppets. It was then turned over to those just under Peter that would decide how exactly things would get done- these were the puppeteers who have been working with Bread and Puppet for many years. Most days there were 40-60 of us- we'd pick our jobs to be handled in smaller groups and reconvene after siesta. At the end of each morning meeting, we sang Shape Note songs. This was something very difficult for me because I don't just sing all the time, and I had an involuntary repulsion to many of the songs because of their Christian themes. Later though I realized the epic intensity of reviving songs written ages ago out of awe and reverence for nature. Maybe it was a survival tactic, but I began to realize how many of the most apocalyptic songs would be great metal covers. It was felt great to start the day yelling with a huge group of friends.
This was one of my favorites:
Word quickly got around among my new friends that I loved the idea of a shape-note metal band, and so by late in the month something epic happened. Eamon came up to visit with Matthew Thurber and Rebecca Bird- and they bore witness to one of the most amazing things that has ever happened for my birthday: Sacred Harpcore. A huge group of some of my favorite people made my idea happen! It was amazing to see a them get all dressed up, sharpie tattooed, and growl the lyrics to these songs. I was really shocked and before it was over they grabbed me, a pit broke out, and they crowd-surfed me! Hilarious!
Our days often included night activities where we learned more about the history of Bread and Puppet through a panel discussion of long time company members taking place at Emergent Mosaic, an exhibit of photography by Mark Dannenhauer. There were also opportunities to go to political actions and protests surrounding the Vermont Tarsands project and installation of the controversial wind turbines. We saw many shows from visiting performers and puppeteers- including Less Miserable- a 100 person huge touring show adaptation of Les Miserables, directed by Baltimore-based Donna Sellinger of Missoula Oblongata. There also were shows by current puppeteers doing Bertold Brecht's St. Joan of the Stockyards, a performance of Do Right Bellyfire, Do Right Monkey Brain at Plank House Farm where Bread and Puppet's Rose Friedman and Justin Lander live, and Y No Había Luz from Puerto Rico, among others.
* * * * * All quotes are by Peter Schumann from my notes, unless otherwise cited.
Next: Part 2- Bread and Puppet style 4th of July Parades, our first weekly Friday night show "The Possibilitarians", and development and rehearsals for the weekly Sunday Circuses and Pageants.
Later: Part 3- The Everything and Everywhere Dance Circus, The Pageant of The Possibilitarians, the second weekly Friday night show "The Shatterer of Worlds" and saying goodbye to your mother ...among other people.
Disclaimer: This is my second draft of writing this entry. I already wrote the entire thing and had it pretty ready to publish but then accidentally deleted it. Aaahrgh! I hope I can recreate the mood accurately now that I've been back a few weeks. Also, I'm using some other people's photos and giving credit- so If you see something you took not cited-Please let me know. Thanks!
