This One-of-a-Kind Festival Brings Together Acclaimed Puppetry Artists from All Over the World

Los Angeles - The Music Center of Los Angeles County announced a two-day Toy Theatre Festival taking place on June 14 and 15, 2008 from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. in Walt Disney Concert Hall. This unique, FREE event is the only one of its kind in North America, with the exception of Great Small Works festival in New York City.

The Festival offers family-friendly professional Toy Theatre productions, presented in repertory over the two days. Eighty performances will take place in various spaces throughout Walt Disney Concert Hall, including the main auditorium and locations traditionally not open to the public like Choral Hall, the Green Room, the Founders Room, and Studio #3. In addition, there will be a Student Stage showcasing Toy Theatre presentations created by children. These works were created by students who worked with Music Center teaching artists. There will also be workshops where families inspired by these creations can create their own Toy Theatres and puppets to take home.

"It is an exciting undertaking but presenting the Toy Theatre Festival in Walt Disney Concert Hall showcases the caliber and quality of the art form," shares Mark Slavkin, Music Center's Vice President of Education. "It is part of the Music Center's commitment to providing innovative and engaging family programming and we are thrilled to present this extraordinary Festival in Los Angeles."

Toy Theatre is a type of puppetry that enacts plays using two-dimensional rod puppets in miniature theatres. Dating back to early 19th century England, drawings depicting a proscenium theatre, characters, and scenery were printed, reproduced, and sold packaged with abridged versions of play scripts. Families - including children and adults - assembled the stages and performed Toy Theatre productions in their living rooms as home entertainment. While the roots of Toy Theatre date back to the Victorian era, the art form is enjoying a renaissance and inspiring today's artists the world over. In the current revival, professional artists present their work in theatres and festivals internationally.

"Toy Theatre is a genre of puppetry that is small in scale but large in stature," explains Barbara Leonard, Music Center's Artistic Director for Education and the Festival's Curator, "Its creation and performance encompasses so many aspects of the art form because a Toy Theatre artist is architect, playwright, scenic designer, costume designer, actor and director. I think modern audiences will respond to the humanity and the craftsmanship of the work."

The Festival is bringing together many of today's leading Toy Theatre artists and includes the premiere of five original, commissioned productions. The award-winning Mexican puppeteer Alejandro Benítez is creating Panteón de Fiesta, a bilingual work based on traditions of the Mexican holiday Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). This piece will include traditional music performed live by musicians from Mexico. Laura Heit, who is on the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) faculty as Experimental Animation Program Interim Director, is creating new repertoire for her acclaimed Matchbox Shows especially designed for family audiences. The work is minute in size, since it is presented in an actual matchbox, and projected onto a screen for audience viewing.

Actor/puppeteer Paul Zaloom, perhaps best known for his portrayal of the title character on the children's television show Beakman's World is collaborating with designer Lynn Jeffries, a founding member of Cornerstone Theater Company, to create The Alphabet Show. Alison Heimstead, a graduate of the Cotsen Center for Puppetry at CalArts, is creating a Toy Theatre adaptation of Lewis Carroll's classic Alice in Wonderland.

Puppeteer Beth Peterson is creating a work inspired by Maya Angelou's poem On the Pulse of Morning. A distinguished Music Center Teaching Artist, she is also conducting Toy Theatre workshops at San Jose Elementary & Highly Gifted Magnet Center in Mission Hills, Birdielee V. Bright Elementary in Los Angeles, and Multicultural Learning Center in Canoga Park where students are creating their own Toy Theatre productions, many of which will be presented on the Festival's Student Stage.

In addition to these commissioned works, the Festival will present a variety of guest artists and productions. Alain Lecucq's Compagnie Papiertheatre from France will present A Robinson, a Toy Theatre adaptation of the classic Daniel Defoe novel Robinson Crusoe. Lecucq, one of Europe's leading Toy Theatre practitioners, has been working in the genre since the late 1960's. The New Model Theatre, a company created by British puppeteer Robert Poulter (known as the "Titan of Toy Theatre") will present the world premiere of a production entitled The Buccaneer's Bride, a pirate-themed travelogue in the 19th century classic English Toy Theatre tradition. Poulter's miniature productions use movement, light, and sound to create distinctive theatrical experiences.

Chicago's Redmoon Theater will bring its acclaimed Once Upon a Time to the WDCH auditorium. Set in the Great Depression, it is an urban fairy tale about a little girl who understands the secret language of birds. It is the festival's largest production and will use live video feed to capture the miniature action of paper puppets on a four-foot stage and project it onto a movie screen above the Toy Theatre.

Chinese Theatre Works, a New-York based company, will present their Toy Theatre production of the 16th-century Chinese opera classic The Peony Pavilion. The production, presented bilingually with arias in Chinese and English dialogue, won the UNIMA-USA Citation of Excellence in Puppetry Arts.

New York's Great Small Works, a leader in the American Toy Theatre realm, will present its lecture-demonstration, A Short, Entertaining History of Toy Theatre. Dov Weinstein's Tiny Ninja Theatre will present his production of Shakespeare's Macbeth, which premiered at the 2000 New York International Fringe Festival, where it won an Excellence Award for Innovation & Originality. This production is in the genre of object theatre where characters are actually toys, in this case, tiny plastic ninjas that Dov Wienstein collected from vending machines in and around New York City.

The Music Center's Toy Theatre Festival is free and open to the public. Advance reservations are recommended and will be accepted beginning May 19, 2008 by calling 213-972-8500. Due to limited seating capacity, there is a maximum of four tickets per show, no more than three shows per household. The Toy Theatre Festival is recommended for ages 6 and up.

In conjunction with the Music Center's Toy Theatre Festival, REDCAT (Roy and Edna Disney/CalArts Theater) will present a special evening program - for adults. Expect clever manipulation of objects, brilliant table-top theatrical epics, and a new work by Los Angeles collaborators Paul Zaloom and Lynn Jeffries guaranteed to change the way you think about the alphabet. The program also includes a special screening of the puppet and toy theater film version of "Dante's Inferno," adapted by Sandow Birk, Elyse Pignolet, Sean Meredith and Zaloom, and featuring the voices of Dermot Mulroney and James Cromwell. Screening and performance schedule available at www.redcat.org.

The Music Center's Toy Theatre Festival is generously sponsored by the Weingart Foundation, The Ahmanson Foundation, and The Rose Hills Foundation. Alejandro Benítez's Panteón de Fiesta is made possible, in part, by a grant from The Jim Henson Foundation.