Toy Theatre (aka Miniature Theatre, Model Theatre, Paper Theatre)

Come and find out about the theatrical revival this antique form of puppetry is currently undergoing in Europe and the USA.

In this short weekend course you will design and build your own miniature theatre, sets, puppets and props. You will discover how to stage vast productions on a shoe-string.

DATES: Saturday afternoons, February 2, 9, 16 & 23, 2008.

HOURS: 12:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.

 

COSTS: $200, plus $50 materials fee.

TO REGISTER for this class please contact David at 416-469-3555 or school@puppetmongers.com to confirm that there is still room in the course.

PAYMENT can be made with this PayPal link

or by cheque made out to Toronto School of Puppetry and mailed to

1110 Dundas Street East, Toronto. ON. M4M 1S1

 

LOCATION: Puppetmongers' Studio. 1110 Dundas Street East (at Logan).

INSTRUCTERS: Ann Powell & David Powell of Puppetmongers Theatre.

 

Toy Theatre Origins and Developments

Toy Theatre developed at the beginning of the19th century as an educational toy, and was all the rage as a family entertainment in Victorian middle class drawing rooms across Europe and the Americas.

As children, Oscar Wilde and Jane Austen, Laurence Olivier and Orson Welles all delighted in re-enacting their favourite literary works and West End dramas by staging them in two dimensions on a miniature proscenium stage.

Traditionally, the puppets are little cardboard characters 10 - 15 cm tall, and the scenery is flat printed or painted wings and backdrops, combining the dramatic and visual arts.

By the mid 20th century the small box theatre in the living room had been replaced by another, the television, and was all but forgotten.

Within the past twenty years, however, toy theatre has once again grown in popularity, becoming a more public theatre form with professional performers in Germany, Holland, England, France, Denmark and the US performing in their own venues and at festivals, notably the annual "Papiertheatertreffen" in Preetz, Germany, and Great Small Works' International Toy Theater Festival, in NYC.

Visit these sites to see what it is all about

Great Small Works and Chinese Theatre Works

and the sites from whom the pictures above come

Accolyte Science Children's Museum.of Minneapolis

But do come back!

For more information please call us at 416-469-3555 or email