Friends of Congress Square Park is a volunteer-led organization invested in ensuring Congress Square Park is vibrant, welcoming and safe. By creating a place where all people can feel a sense of belonging, contribute, and have shared experiences, we’re fostering a more equitable, resilient, and pluralistic city.
Try your hand at bunraku puppetry in a free playshop made possible by Friends of Congress Square Park! Participants will work in groups of 2-3 puppeteers to animate a single puppet and create short, non-verbal performances, which we’ll share with each other. Along with noh and kabuki, bunraku is one of the “high forms” of theater in Japan. We’ll make it easy & accessible for people of all ages and abilities!
Friends of Congress Square Park is a volunteer-led organization invested in ensuring Congress Square Park is vibrant, welcoming and safe. By creating a place where all people can feel a sense of belonging, contribute, and have shared experiences, we’re fostering a more equitable, resilient, and pluralistic city.
Photo by Mike Dana
Mayo Street Arts’ mission is to strengthen its neighborhood and community by providing a vibrant, safe, and inspiring center for the arts, and to engage neighborhood youths of diverse cultural communities in quality learning experiences in the visual, performing, and literary arts.
American audiences are in for an exotic treat with Figures of Speech Theatre production of Jester Kings of Java. Gorgeous hand-crafted puppets made from gilded water buffalo hide portray the heroes, villains, and lovers from the ancient Ramayana, who dance across the eight-foot wide shadow screen to the mesmerizing sound of Indonesian gamelan music.
The story follows King Rama, who wants to marry Princess Sinta. But Sinta is in no mood for romance, because an evil giant has dog-napped her precious pup, Furri-Furri! All is in chaos, for there can be no harmony in the Kingdom when the King’s heart is not at peace. To restore equilibrium and win Sinta’s heart, Rama enlists the help of his overly chatty servant Gareng, Hanuman the White Monkey, a giant Garuda Bird, and even the heavenly lord Bathara Guru! Wild battles, strange adventures, and outrageous humor promise to entertain audiences of all ages.
Our recent shadow puppetry work at Wentworth School in Scarborough, Maine was a lovely and fruitful collaboration!
FST Director of Education Ian Bannon offered four performances of “Jester Kings of Java” to reach the entire school, participated in an hour-long interview for the school media channel, and conducted a professional development workshop to help teachers integrate their newly-constructed puppet theater resources into the curriculum.
We were elated to see the work come to fruition in the classroom so soon after our visits. Kudos to Abbie Willwerth and Joanne Maloney for all of their hard work and planning!
-
-
Students participate in a Q&A session following a performance of “Jester Kings of Java”
-
-
Teachers create simple shadow puppets during a hands-on professional development workshop designed to help them integrate puppetry into their classroom curriculum.
-
-
Students rehearsing a Revolutionary War shadow puppet play on Wentworth School’s new shadow screen.
-
-
We loved the custom wayang kulit thank you card signed by EVERY student at the school!
Students in Rachel McNally’s 3/4 grade classroom use theater games to demonstrate their learning on the formation of igneous rocks.
FST Director of Education, Ian Bannon, is one of two teaching artists invited to participate in a year-long project in Eastport to create a schoolwide culture of arts integration. Ian and creative movement artist Katenia Keller have both visited the school for two days per month since August, working side-by-side with teachers in every classroom.
In 2018-19 in partnership with the administration of Eastport Elementary School (EES), the Maine Alliance for Arts Education has provided all of the EES’ classroom teachers with the professional development training and classroom support to make EES the state’s first schoolwide, classroom teacher-based model of arts integration. The Maine Department of Education is treating this pilot project as a case study, which if successful will be providing data that will be disseminated on their information platforms and presented to school administrators statewide.
Photo by Mike Dana
FST Director of Education, Ian Bannon, will perform Jester Kings of Java for students at Wentworth Elementary School in Scarborough, Maine on March 27th & 28th.
On April 22nd, Ian will return to offer a professional development training to the teachers at Wentworth, instructing them on the construction of a simple shadow puppet and starting a discussion of how they can integrate puppetry into their curriculum.
Six high school students at Heartwood Regional Theater Company have been working closely with FST Director of Education Ian Bannon to turn their Ivan and Maroushka character sketches into working puppets.
As her classmates construct the bodies for a smaller pair of puppets for the middle school production of “The Snow Maiden,” one student is beginning to sculpt a head for a larger Maroushka puppet, which the high school students will create for their own production of the same play.
From adaptations of beloved classics from page to stage to interactive performances inspired by great literature, The Rosenbach presents theatrical arts in an intimate setting. The library’s collection includes the only surviving copy of Benjamin Franklin’s first Poor Richard Almanac, the manuscript of James Joyce’s Ulysses, the papers of poet Marianne Moore, and Bram Stoker’s notes for Dracula.
Help us spread a little light and joy in the new year. There’s still time left to support Figures of Speech Theatre in 2018!
Thank you,
John & Ian
Don’t miss your chance to catch Holly Star on the big screen at the City Theater in Biddeford, Maine this weekend.
Thursday, December 20 | 7:00pm
Friday, December 21 | 7:00pm
Saturday, December 22 | 2:00pm + 7:00pm
Tickets $8.50 evenings | $7.00 matinee
Tickets are available online or at the door.
As a small non-profit theater company, support from charitable foundations and individuals has always played a large part in making possible all that we do. This year we’d like to thank the following organizations:
• The Helen and George Ladd Charitable Corporation has renewed their support of our educational programming with a $5,000 grant. A portion of this funding will be used to support FST Education Director Ian Bannon’s participation in a year-long arts-integration pilot program with Maine Alliance for Arts Education and Eastport Public Schools. We are grateful to the trustees of the Ladd Corporation for their longstanding support.
• Gifts from the Brooks Family Foundation and the Casey Family Foundation, each for $1,000, will support FST’s general operating budget.
• The Maine Arts Commission awarded FST an Organizational Development Grant of $2,000, which will be used to purchase new video equipment and provide staff training in its use. (As you may have noticed from our increased social media presence, we’re trying to get better at sharing the good news about our work!)
• Lastly, an anonymous grant of $8,500 will support a 2019 tour of Four Quartets and in-school programming in the mid-coast area of Maine.
We wanted to take a moment to thank these foundations and those of you who have donated to FST in the past year. Your support is invaluable!
Thank you,
John & Ian