Ishi's Brain Puppet Show with Eamon Espey

Photo: Michel Anderson

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.  

Future Book Relase/Performance Dates TBA

... Check back for more info!

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Past Book Release/Performance Dates:

Baltimore MD

Saturday November 3rd, 2012 * 9p

Windup Space- 12 W North Ave

Songs Of The Abyss book release and puppet show

Saturday January 19th, 2013 * 7pm & 9:30pm

Worlds Collide! Puppet Slamwich! 

Black Cherry Puppet Theater -1115 Hollins St

Brooklyn NY

Friday November 11th, 2012

Tomato House- 301 Saratoga Ave

Joint book release with Dongery's Just Sayin' retrospective (Norway) 

As part of Brooklyn Comics and Graphics Festival

Washington DC

Thursday February 7th, 2013 * 7:30PM

La Casa Community Center -3166 Mt. Pleasant St. NW

w/A Police State Cabaret (mbrs of Bread and Puppet/Flying Donkey)

Presented by Puppet Underground

Pittsburgh PA

Friday April 12, 2013 * 8PM

Puppet Happening to be held at ModernFormations -4919 Penn Ave w/Pittsburgh artists Tom Sarver & Mike Cuccaro doing excerpts from "Aristophanes' Peace" 

• write up in Pittsburgh City Paper

Columbus OH

Saturday, Sunday, and Monday April 13-15, 2013

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 Pageant w/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)

• Matt Kish's S.P.A.C.E. Recap, including our show: EveryPageOfMobyDick

Detroit MI

Tuesday April 16, 2013 * 8PM

Trumbullplex -4201 Trumbull St. 

w/shadow puppets by Patrick Eakins (MI) and Jerry Fels and the Jerry Fels

Chicago IL

Wednesday April 17, 2013  * 8:30PM

Roxaboxen Exhibitions -2130 W. 21st. (Pilsen)

w/Wume

Minneapolis MN

Saturday April 20, 2013 * 4PM

Moon Palace Books 2820 E 33rd St

Missoula MT 

Tuesday April 23, 2013 * 7:30PM

Zootown Arts Community Center 235 North 1st St. West

w/Local Theater group Lost Dog Productions presenting a short play entitled "The Musical Stylings of Sigmund und Amalia Freud: Mother und Son"   

• Write up in Missoula Independant
• interview in The Montana Kaimin

Seattle WA

Thursday April 25th, 2013 * 7PM

Richard Hugo House - 1634 11th Ave (Capitol Hill) 

presented by Short Run 

w/Tess Martin, Tim Miller, and Erin Tanner  

• Write up in Seattle Stranger 
• Write up in City Arts Magazine

Portland OR

Saturday and Sunday April 27th-28th, 2013

Stumptown Comics Festival  Oregon Convention Center- 777 NE Martin Luther King Blvd

Gridlords 12 monthly comics performance/reading series presents:

Ishi's Brain performance Saturday April 27th, 2013 9:30PM

at Hollywood Theater 4122 NE Sandy Blvd 

w/Birch Cooper and Brenna Murphy (MSHR), Chelsea Kamm (Many Fur Puppet Troupe), Erin Tanner, Wally C and Alex Chiu (MARSUPLALA), and a Gridlords Animations Reel!

• Our Performance at Gridlords 12 reviewed on Comics Grinder 
• and reviewed by Daria Tessler on Animal Sleep Stories
• and recommended by Scott Harrison

San Francisco CA

Thursday May 2nd, 2013 * 8pm

Alter Space 1158 Howard Street (SOMA District)
w/ Tim Giugni of Il Teatro Calamari, Liz Mayorga, and Charlatan Stories

Los Angeles CA

Saturday May 4th, 2013

The Velaslavasay Panorama 1122 W 24th St.  90007

Brown Paper Ticket link
PERFORMANCE * Saturday 5/4 8pm with Christian Cummings

Puppets Retake Northeast Los Angeles Festival presents:

WORKSHOP * Sunday 5/5 1pm: Shadow Puppet Workshop 
at Avenue 50 Studio 131 N Avenue 50, Highland Park, CA 90042.  

Santa Fe NM

Saturday May 11th, 2013

WORKSHOP 2p: Shadow Puppet Workshop 

at Wise Fool New Mexico -2778 Agua Fria Rd, Ste D

PERFORMANCE 7p: with Flying Wall and Human Beast Box

at Santa Fe Arts Center 314 S. Guadalupe -Santa Fe NM 87501

St Louis MO

Tuesday May 14th, 2013 * 8pm

The Lemp Neighborhood Arts Center 3301 Lemp

Bloomington IN

Wednesday May 15th, 2013 * 7pm

Boxcar Books 408 E. 6th St. 

Lexington KY

Thursday May 16th, 2013 * 7pm

Institute 193 193 N Limestone

w/ The Smacks

joint book release: J.T. Dockery's Despair and Eamon Espey

Chicago IL

Saturday May 18th, 2013 * 9pm

at BRAINFRAME performative comix reading series 

The Orphanage - 643 W 31st St, Chicago IL 2nd Floor

w/Nate Beaty, Thorne Brandt, Kevin Budnik, Meghan Lamb, and Anne Elizabeth Moore 

Making of Ishi's Brain Puppet Show

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's comic

Hinging shadow puppets for animation

Ishi's Brain comic, come to life.  Performance at Black Cherry Puppet Theater.

Eamon paints a paper mache mask.

designing the shadow puppet

painting shadow puppets

Bread and Puppet: : Part 2- Bread and Puppet's 4th of July Parades, our first weekly Friday night show "The Possibilitarians", and development and rehearsals for the weekly Sunday Circuses and Pageants

"We are all in the same Boat"  As soon as the internship began, we started learning the sequence for the parades Bread and Puppet had been booked to participate in for the 4th of July celebrations in 5 surrounding Vermont villages.  We revisited a parade that they had done in New York for May Day this past year.  It was a chapterized performance where the first part involved many people inside of a boat that was made of a long continuous printed fabric and several large flags that look like sails- each person holds up a section and dips while walking forward.  I was in the a drumline in the boat that alternated with the yodeling singers, giving them a break and keeping momentum for the length of the parade.  There were random interruptions by cymbalists that ran around the boat clashing- signaling rough seas and the sinking of the boat.  People would thrash the fabric back and forth and collapse to the ground- drowned, while the drums were beating wildly.  We would then resurrect with Genevieve Yeuillaz beginning the calling yodel from the front of the boat- echoing back and forth until the sails and boat rose and we began to march again.

Each time we drowned, we would be heckled by longtime puppeteer Linda Elbow- dressed as a CEO, and Peter Schumann- dressed as Santa Claus who was walking with Uncle Fatso in his own ship: The Pursuit of Want.  Behind them were the 1% stilters and their brass band- dressed in fancy clothes and drinking cardboard martinis saying "they're all in the same boat".  Following them were skeleton with long arms wearing signs that said "Excellent Wind" representing the controversial wind farming- and the end were children dressed in blue waving flags that said "the Wave of the Future".   Reactions were varied from applause to crossed arms, support to confusion- but Peter said it was one of our most successful parade performances.  Each town had invited us and were happy we were there to add a spectacle to their annual parade celebration.

Video by my friend Myra, one of the printshop interns

 “Cultural preparation precedes revolution, not through organizing or arms training”  Every day through the week was spent in rehearsal of some kind.  Either we were practicing for the Friday show, the Sunday Pageant, or developing acts for the Sunday Circus.  The process of developing acts began with us listing ideas and inter-/national or local issues that we were passionate about.  It was facilitated by the staff puppeteers, and they would do a great job guiding projects and helping them be most successful.  We would go over the list in small parts deciding which acts we each would want to participate in.  Then we would break off to go to the shed where all of the masks, puppets, and props are stored.  There were things made over the course of the history of Bread and Puppet available for us to use in this space.    

It is a really well organized and beautifully overwhelming place.  I enjoyed wandering the walkways exploring all the giant boxes and masks hanging overhead.  This process was pretty hard for me, because I'm not used to improvisational acting.  But it was always interesting to see what everyone was able to come up with in the 20 minutes or so that we had to put something together before showing it to the group.  Acts that weren't used in the Circus were available to be revisited on our own as Ding-Dongs- side shows that happen before the Circus starts, as a way to welcome the audience that trickles into the Circus Field.  Peter seemed to appreciate the new interpretations of characters created for acts and performances long ago.

An act that wasn't used about Immigration

"Remember the importance of joy and uplifting in activism" While some of our acts had serious tones, it was important to keep them fast and strange in order for them to be exciting to the audience.  So much can be conveyed in humor or absurdity, even when the theme is somewhat bleak.  After returning from the shed and practicing a bit in our small groups, would show our skits in the backyard between the garden and the house where the staff puppeteers live.   We would go through each act- with or without a response.  Then the acts would be further developed, combined, shortened, put on hold for the next week or axed all together.

(somewhat) Captive Audience

The Circus band showing new songs and rehearsing Flatso movement for the Pagaent

Vermont Yankee act- about America's Geriatric Power Plants and the Zebra that runs through the Circus

“We use all our performances as rehearsals.  We never ever finish them because the performance is a rehearsal. Its just a rehearsal with public, so the public becomes an actor...

Interior of the Dirt Floor Theater
(AKA the Paper-Mache Cathedral)

...Its not that you bring something to perfection and they eat it up- that’s not the case- you bring something to imperfection and they have to then help you ...chew it, do something with it, digest it.  They have to help, they have to do something.  If you just dish up something they can expect anyways, it’s not good.”

After our shows on Friday night and the Circus and Pageant on Sunday- we had a day off on Monday.  Tuesday morning meeting was when we heard back from Peter about the performances and got an outline for the week ahead. It was then that we learned what would be changed in each of the shows or acts, and what would need to be developed in the week ahead.  Following that Tuesday morning was also our work day- where we did our main jobs on the farm.  I was in the Museum restocking the store, cleaning, and repairing displays; but after that we returned to work on our shows and acts. 

“What is a Possibilitarian?  It is a utopianist, someone who believes in what is possible in this impossible world”  

Photo: Matt Palo

This years season of imperfect performances began on July 6th with our first show of The Possibilitarians in the Paper Mache Cathedral.  The Cathedral is a former barn that is now a dirt floor performance space covered in paper mache reliefs and paintings from floor to ceiling. It was a show we did the next 2 Fridays -until we first performed The Shatterer of Worlds on July 27th.  The Possibilitarians was inspired by the Diggers- an 17th Century squatters movement in England where people reclaimed common land and lived in peace without god or government.  The show began with a contestoria, which is a series of painted pictures on fabric banners attached to a pole so they can be  flipped as the song is sung.  We sang World Turned Upside Down that told the history of their uprising in order to set the tone for our show. 

One of my favorite verses:

They make the laws

To chain us well

The clergy dazzle us with heaven

Or they damn us into hell

We will not worship

The God they serve

The God of greed who feeds the rich

While poor men starve

Photo: Cynthia Ene

Once the gong rang and the audience was seated, I helped open the show by lowering the biggest marionette I've ever seen from the loft above so it could dive over the audience and begin a dance sequence with clouds.  It took 12 people working in tandem to operate the puppet smoothly, and my job was basically what my thumb does to control the marionettes that we use at Black Cherry Puppet Theater- I helped steady the head and make her movements more dramatic.

In this video by Matt Palo taken on July 20th- our last performance of this particular show, You can see the descent of the Blue Sky Goddess that began The Possibilitarians.  I'm up in the balcony to the right.  In the second act, you can also see me playing the chimes- which were basically 6" washers, rusty circular saw blades, and iron scrap chunks of metal tied to the 2x4s that framed the walls and hit with smaller metal rods as strikers- for the Animal Dance in Paradise.

The Earth Momma, a gift from the Blue Sky Goddess

The Earth Momma was delivered during the Blue Momma's first appearance.  Following the cloud dance, puppeteers manipulated separate pieces of her form.  The Earth Momma was confused- pieces were at war with one another- it kept forming different sculptural shapes until finally becoming a reclining woman and gave birth to a small, naked, and scared looking man.

The Proletariot

I'm not sure if that spelling of proletariat was intentional, but it seemed that way.  In this act- these 2D cardboard people came out garbling and hooting in a wild mess- dancing forward to see the man born from the Earth Momma.  Various representatives came forth from the crowd preaching about agrarian theology, injustices committed against the earth, and respect for all kind.  The other characters echoed back what each representative said in a silly chatter and danced from side to side.

Following this act was the University of Hands and Feet, where we learned basic skills such as caring for one another, the benefits of digging in the dirt, and raising hands against the existing order of life.  We learned to walk carrying our body and soul, and to kick the ass of government.  

Then everyone moved to put on jackets and ties, grabbed weapons that had been lain around the stage and raised them in unison for next act: The Epic Battle of Good and Evil.  The battle was entirely in slow motion and we silently killed each other off until we were all dead on the ground, and operatic singers advanced through the bodies- joining us on the dirt floor.  Peter gave his Fiddle Sermon of the folly of our times, calling us to rise up to the potential of a new understanding.  We finished with several verses of The Diggers Song.

* * * * *
All quotes are by Peter Schumann from my notes, unless otherwise cited. 

Coming Soon: 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. 

Quest Fest 2012: "Between Mean" - Black Cherry Puppet Theater's new marionette show

Black Cherry Puppet Theater has been commissioned by Quest Visual Theater to create a new marionette show: Between Mean 

featuring live music accompaniment by Walker and Jay

Between Mean will be performed Friday March 30 and Saturday March 31

at the Creative Alliance at the Patterson Theater

3134 Eastern Avenue Baltimore MD 21224

Tickets are available through the Creative Alliance box office or at Choice Ticketing

Photo: Black Cherry Puppet Theatre

The Black Cherry Puppet Theater’s puppets collaborate with musicians in a study of loss, remorse and redemption. Marionettes, hand puppets and shadows take a delightful dance through folklore, mythos, music and death in a visual telling of an old story. The audience follows the hero first through green verdant gardens as they grow seedy, weedy, until he finds himself in an urban wasteland watched by a darker side. He relives memories of one true love and how he lost it. He decides he loves what he no longer has and goes to get back what he never wanted, but now sees as his. Meanwhile, the woman isn’t quite what he thought he thought she was. This is the story of a man’s journey as he discovers he never knew what he had until it was gone. When he gets it back, does he really want it after all?

Michael Lamason, executive director

William Haas, co-director

Jennifer Strunge, puppeteer/education

Lisa Krause, puppeteer/education

James DiLisio, Musician

Walker Teret, Musician

Black Cherry Puppet Theater is an association of artists and performers blending decades of craft and innovation to breath life into the art of puppetry.

Company artists pursue three goals: Excellence at the art of puppetry, making the tradition of puppetry accessible to all audiences, and using puppetry as an educational tool.

Key Information

Venue: Creative Alliance at the Patterson

Saturday, March 30 @ 8:00pm*
Saturday, March 31 @ 8:00pm*
*Talk Back after show

General Admission: $16
Students/Senior Citizens: $11

BUY TICKETS!

Black Cherry’s values:

• Art is central to our mission and work.
• Art is an essential part of achieving success in school, life and work.
• Achieving the highest quality education and community arts programs.
• Being an anchor in the Southwest Baltimore Community, by supporting community-based activities and buying local goods and services.
• Providing affordable programming to audiences and communities without access to high quality art.
• Attention to our planet by re-using materials and adapting recycling principles throughout the creative process.

The troupe has performed for tens of thousands with a repertoire that includes complex marionettes, transformation puppets, object-theater, shadow puppets and giant parade puppets. Black Cherry has developed innovative, educational programming for children and youth.