Sleeping Beauty Three Pigs or It Takes a Woman Little Red Riding Hood or the Tale of Jacques Lup, the French Wolf The Crocodile, the Boy and the Good Deed
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All performances by Judith O’Hare Scenery designed and built by Agusta Agustusson These plays are between ten and thirty-five minutes. When booking a performance, you can choose two or three! Toy Theater originated in first half of the 19th Century. People reenacted complete dramas in their living rooms. They used small replicas of the theaters of the day and acted out the plays that were popular at time. They used paper cut out figures pasted on cardboard which were moved with their hands or sticks from the sides of the stage or from above. People could purchase artists’ sketches of the characters and sets for a play; they were called “a penny plain, two pence colored". They would take these drawings home, cut them out and put together the sets, costumes and characters and then act out the full story for family and friends, a wonderful family activity that was lost with the invention of movies and TV. Bringing Toy Theaters back to the home and school has returned as way to involve children and adults in entertaining themselves and others. The people doing the plays put their own personality into the play and decorate the characters with images from their imaginations. The possibilities for acting out plays, scenes and events in miniature are limitless and from these beginnings in the 19th century, contemporary puppeteers have taken the concept of acting out a play in miniature and made it their own. The size and style of the theater acting space can vary, but it is always “small". The puppets or animated objects are as unique as the performer and the subject for the stories are varied from retelling stories from the theater, literature or life. The stories can be historical, hysterical, satirical, cynical, humorous, fantastic, factual, fantastical or just plain fun.
What is Toy Theater?
The Three Bears or A Bed and Breakfast in the Woods Toy Theater/ Petit Puppet Plays Hansel and Gretel click to view a video on YouTube Click to see videos