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A Brief History of Puppetmongers
Puppetmongers was created as the artistic vehicle for the sister and brother team of Ann Powell and David Powell. They started playing with marionettes at the ages of 8 and 7 respectively, and have turned their childhood interest into a lifelong artistic pursuit. One trademark of their work is the intense attention to detail, another is the on-stage presence of the puppeteers themselves, alternately interacting with one another, the audience and the puppets and then withdrawing so that only the puppets are observed. Each production is visually and conceptually different, marking the evolution of our approach to the art of puppet theatre. The critics have been generous with their praise. The US publication, The Puppetry Journal, called us "one of the most outstanding puppet companies in the world today." While words such as "brilliant", "imaginative" and "inspiring" are sprinkled throughout our reviews and audience responses. Between 1974 and 1989, we toured extensively in the Toronto area, throughout Ontario, in most major Canadian and US centres as well as in the UK, France, Belgium, Germany and Iran. After 1990, we focused on working nearer home in Toronto and Southern Ontario, with run outs to festivals in more far-flung locales. We built larger, more theatrical shows involving many artists and started self-producing our works in theatres. Among our tours, we have represented Canada at the World Puppetry Festival in Washington DC, and at the Festival of the Americas in Atlanta. We have run off-off Broadway in New York City, played four runs in Atlanta at the Center for Puppetry Arts as well a mounting a co-production, and played at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. In Europe we performed at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and toured Wales. In France we performed at the Charleville-Mezières Festival and toured Paris and the Paris region. In Belgium we played twice at the Dommelhof Festival, in the historic Theatre Toone of Brussels, and made the Vlaams Theatercircuit. In Germany we performed two productions at the Deutsches Institut für Puppenspiel festival. In 1976 we played at the Teheran Festival and then toured in Iran, and returned to play there in 2004. We have observed puppetry and worked in Indonesia, the former USSR, Turkey, and Rumania. In Toronto we have played in almost every available space, and have created a Toronto Christmas Tradition, now in its 16th season at the Tarragon Theatre. With our current studio space, we are just starting a March Break Tradition to match. We founded The Toronto School of Puppetry in 1996 with courses for adults, as a vehicle for disseminating our vision of puppetry as a theatre form. The School draws the skills of many puppeteers and theatre artists for its instructors. We now runs classes and courses through the year, with a master class and the Spring Intensive Course as the he major activities. Students to date are drawn from Southern Ontario, across Canada, the USA, and Mexico. We draw interest from prospective students around the world. We are currently developing a new production for adult audiences, tentatively called Tales of Mystery and Terror. We work with other theatre companies on their projects. Our involvement ranges from mask and puppet construction, through set design and manipulation coaching, to actual performance. This season we are working on productions with Theatre New Brunswick, Te-Amin Theatre, Roseneath Theatre, Threshold Theatre, and Patria Music with composer R. Murray Schafer. SHOW CHRONOLOGY
For more information please call us at 416-691-0806 or email
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