ONCE THERE WERE SIX SEASONS, environmental puppetry by Glass Half Full Theatre, February 21 - March, 2013

(performing at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre, 2803 Manor Rd. - click for map)

presents

Once There Were Six Seasons

opening February 21, 2013

We’ve leaped into full pre-production mode for Once There Were Six Seasons, a new work focusing on the effects of climate change on traditional societies which will open on February 21st, 2013. The title comes from a true story Caroline heard in Orissa, India, from a story passed down to a man from his grandmother:

In earlier times, in this grandmother’s lifetime, there used to be six seasons in that part of the world. The farmers still used an ancient method of observing animal behavior to determine when and what to plant. Now, that region only has two seasons (Summer, and Rains), and the animal behaviors that farmers counted on to grow their crops have been distorted by the rapidly changing planet. Farmers can no longer rely on their traditional methods, and communities are slowly collapsing as people move on to settle in the city slums.

Stories like this are happening all over the world, and we’d like to invite you to learn more of them with us in February.

The performance will make use of very small puppets existing in vast landscapes on the SVT Mainstage, with visible puppeteers affecting changes in the landscapes and on the puppets themselves. This is a genre of puppetry we have been gradually crafting, which we are calling “Environmental Puppetry.” In this style, the focus is on the changing landscapes rather than the articulations of the puppet’s body. If you are familiar with our piece, “Bob's Hardware” performed in the 2010 Winter Austin Puppet Incident, it’s in that genre.

Donate

Glass Half Full has received a very small amount of City of Austin funding for this project, which will have a workshop performance for two weeks only in February 2013. If you are interested in donating to this project, or learning more about our process of creation, please get in touch at info@glasshalffulltheatre.com or click on our donate button below:



Otherwise, we hope to see you when we present Part One in February.

Thank you from myself and on the behalf of the collaborating team on this show:
Parker Dority, Gricelda Silva, Noel Gaulin, Rommel Sulit, Connor Hopkins,
Kyle Zamcheck, Ia Ensterä, Stephen Pruitt, Zac Crofford, and Eliot Haynes.


Caroline Reck
Producing Artistic Director
Glass Half Full Theatre
caroline@glasshalffulltheatre.com
 
(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)

2012-2013 Season of Puppetry and Performance, Glass Half Full Theatre

celebrates its 13 B. Iden Payne Award nominations this year, with double nods in Comedy and Drama to both FupDuck and The Orchid Flotilla for Production, Acting, Script, Score, and Puppetry, as well as Direction for FupDuck and Sound & Scenic Design for Orchid

and announces its 2013 season:


Once There Were Six Seasons

February 2013 @ Salvage Vanguard

This new work uses puppetry and physical theatre to addresses the impact of climate change on traditional farming societies around the world. This project will show, through puppetry, narrative and imagery, how farming systems used for hundreds of years across the globe have been drastically affected by the rapidly changing global climate, and how communities and families are undone when their cultures are irrevocably altered by these external environmental changes. Tiny puppet figures exist in vast spaces onstage, and visible puppeteers move the figures through a changing environmental landscape. Emphasis is placed on the shifting landscapes around the puppets, and on the puppeteers’ role as the “cause” of those changes. There will be lots of sand and water. Featuring the performance and design work of Ia Instera, Eliot Haynes, Connor Hopkins, Rommel Sulit, Gricelda Silva, Parker Dority, Noel Gaulin and Caroline Reck.



The fourth Austin Puppet Incident

an evening of short works of puppetry from a variety of local and visiting artists
June 2013 @ Salvage Vanguard 

The Austin Puppet Incident is a joint creation of Glass Half Full Theatre and Trouble Puppet Theater Company, with the goal of highlighting short works of puppetry for adults, we encourage artists to participate in our reciprocal model, in which artists work with and for each other in a variety of pieces. 



The Boston/Austin Project

December 2013 at the Salvage Vanguard (Austin) and at the Charlestown Working Theater (Boston) 
 

A physical theatre performance crafted and devised by Caroline Reck and guest artist Bonnie Duncan, whose Poste Restante won the Austin Critics' Table award for Outstanding Touring Show. Bonnie and Caroline met in 2008 at the National Puppetry Conference, and are crafting their performance via Pintrest*, phone calls, and residencies. They got tired of their cohorts saying, "You two have a similar vision. You should work together." So now they are. Find it on Pintrest as "The Show We Will one Day Make Together."

The Jungle, Trouble Puppet Theatre Company at the Salvage Vanguard, September 17 - October 4

Connor Hopkins' The Jungle is a deeply serious work using high craft to dramatize the worst days of American industry.

Upton Sinclair's 1906 work, first published in serialization and then as a novel, caused a tremendous stir. He tells the story of an penniless immigrant family, crushed by corrupt exploitation, indifference, and unsanitary conditions of the Chicago meat packing industry. Sinclair's ambition had been to shake the American public into awareness of the inhumanity to the workers practiced by management and by capitalists -- an aim mirrored in Trouble Puppet's tag from the work, "They were slaughtering men there, as surely as we were slaughtering animals."

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .