Virtual Toy Theater Festival

COMING TO A PERSONAL SCREEN NEAR YOU!
Isolating Together
Great Small Works' online Toy Theater Festival


Attend via Facebook Live:

April 2, 7:30 to 9PM - https://www.facebook.com/events/506283823401472/

April 3, 7:30 to 9PM - https://www.facebook.com/pg/GreatSmallWorks/events/?ref=page_internal

Toy Theater practitioners from around the world will offer original (very) short shows. From the intimacy of the Victorian parlor to the intimacy of your personal viewing device, puppeteers transform the traditional form to reach out during these days of separation.

Line-up coming soon!

Work Sample Video now live

Here's a 5-minute glimpse into the projects of Great Small Works.

Great Small Works Work Sample 2020

https://youtu.be/flGDbp2OX04

Examples of recent Great Small Works productions showing how we realize our mission of creating high level art work, and keeping theater at the heart of social life.  Productions featured include Spaghetti Dinners(cabaret), Honk(festival), Muntergang and Other Cheerful Downfalls(touring show), Purim(community based residency), Horizons youth facility(teaching), The Sukkos Mob(Street performing), River to River Festival (Processional theater) The Rapture Project (Sicilian Marionette Puppet show) and more. 

Thank you, Jenny, and Mary Feaster!

And while we're at it, you might enjoy these clips as well:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COUXVbd9d4A&feature=youtu.be

Work Sample Toy Theater

Footage from current Great Small Works touring productions in the Toy Theater form. Examples of teaching toy theater, and our effect on the field through the hosting of 10 Toy Theater Festivals. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4XCfAYU4z9M&feature=youtu.be

 Work Sample "Soul Songs Inspiring Women of Klezmer: Composers Orchestra"

Excerpt from 2018 Performance designed and costumed by Jenny Romaine/ Great Small Works

  

GSW dwells in communities of  artists who are deeply connected to tradition.  Our experience with experimental art has shown us that to create something new we want a relationship to ancestors. We pay attention to the integrity of traditional forms in service of evolution and the future.  All of the work by the composers in in the clip is new! Summoned into being by fourth-generation Philly klezmer legend trumpeter Susan Watts.   https://www.soulsongsklezmer.com/

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=398H_st_-wo&feature=youtu.be

Work Sample: Great Small Works Studio life

This clip shows how the GSW studio is a hub of creativity that houses many projects, and brings theater to tens of thousands of People. Examples include Building Stories, 2019 Reclaim Pride and the 2019 Sunrise Movements "Road To A Green New Deal Tour".  

GSW's Toy Theater stage on display at the Ballard Museum

In the mid-1990's, Great Small Works created a Toy Theater production called "Olivier's Hamlet." It was made from a Toy Theater kit created by Lawrence Olivier and based on his 1948 film of the play. The Toy Theater characters include Olivier and the other film actors. Great Small Works' version interspersed texts from Olivier's journals with a truncated adaptation of the Shakespeare script.

We are proud to be represented in the Ballard Institute and Museum's newest exhibit, "Shakespeare and Puppets," curated by Dr. Yungmin Song.