Mum News

Press Photos

- mum news -

New staff at Mum Puppettheatre opens a world of possibilities - four new staff members help kick off 2000-2001 season

For Immediate Release: September 20, 2000

Philadelphia, PA - Mum Puppettheatre, the world-class, touring company in Old City Philadelphia announces a new season and a new staff that continue Mum's strong commitment to amaze and educate their audiences. Mum Puppettheatre's staff size nearly doubles this year as four new staff members join the team that this year will create and perform the magic and wonder that is Mum Puppettheatre.

After fifteen years of teaching dozens of performing artists to work with puppetry, this year Mum Puppettheatre has hired two Resident Artists to work with the company for the entire year. Artistic Director Robert Smythe toured the country last year, auditioning performers with experience and skills complementary to Mum Puppettheatre's vision of theatre, one that uses strong visual imagery and movement to create incredible theatre experiences. Little surprise that he found the people he was looking for at the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre, where Daniel Stein, his performing partner from last year's Measuring Man, is the director of students. A generous grant from the Philadelphia Theatre Initiative, a program funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts and administered by Swarthmore College enabled Mum Puppettheatre to make the commitment to developing a resident company of artists for the first time.

Sondra Blanchard and Jarrid Masse, Resident Artists, and Kali Lela Colton, Education Director, all trained at the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre where they trained in the physical theatre styles of Corporeal Mime with Daniel Stein, Melodrama with Michael Fields, Commedia Dell'Arte with Joan Schirle and Carlo Mazzone-Clementi, Clown with Ronlin Foreman as well as the hybrid theatre style of Stephen Beuscher.

Sondra Blanchard, Resident Artist, has been performing and teaching for the last 24 years. She earned her BA in Women's Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz, where she also studied dance and choreography with Tandy Beal and Mel Wong. Sondra spent a year in Korea studying Korean Masked Dance Drama, and has toured the Pacific Northwest with the New Pickle Family Circus, the tri-state area with Bloomsburg Theatre Ensemble's "Theatre in the Classroom" project and nationally with Landis and Company Theatre of Magic's "Beauty and the Beast". Sondra is a co-creator of the original clown show "The Red Slippers", directed by Ronlin Foreman. Her clown character, Pia, has become a staple at First Night in Bloomsburg, PA. Locally, she has appeared in Landis and Company Theatre of Magic's "Magic of Vaudeville" with the Philadelphia Orchestra. In addition to her lengthy list of attributes, Sondra is also an accomplished mask builder and violinist.

The second Resident Artist, Jarrid Masse, is a skilled actor, mask maker, clown, visual artist and globewalker. Jarrid is a graduate of Harison Performing Arts Center in Florida, where he taught and performed for communities throughout the state and where he was a performer for the Pied Piper Players. He has performed abroad with the Dance Company Vital Spark. Jarrid's experience in theatre includes training in acrobatics, clown, stage combat, voice, yoga animal studies, movement and ballet. Jarrid's motto towards life is lunge, laugh and learn.

It was also at Dell'Arte that Robert Smythe found Mum's new Director of Education, Kali Lela Colton. Kali is a recipient of the Lotta M. Crabtree Trusts, a Performance In An Intimate Space Grant for her solo work in "Green Girl" which premiered at Philadelphia's Community Education Center and won the 1998 Emerging Artist Award from Franklin Furnace for the inaugural season on the Performance Channel which premiered Kali's creation myth" Mama is blue. Pop is red. Girl is green?" Kali has been an Artist-in-Residence with the Bologna Performing Arts Center in Mississippi, the Philadelphia Department of Recreation, Friends Select School in Philadelphia and Maryland's Camp 1124. Kali has been a featured artist at the Painted Bride, Franklin Furnace in New York and the Ensemble Theatre Company in California, among others. As an actor, writer, director, teacher, stiltwalker and wigmaker, Kali, a cultivator of truth and magic, is a firm believer in the transformative power of theatre.

First up for Sondra, Jarrid and Kali is the fifth installment of Mum's annual Fantoccini series, Revenge of the Fantoccini. The threesome will write and design the season premiere under the direction of Artistic Director Robert Smythe. On October 1, Jarrid and Sondra will begin work with Barrymore Award nominated Director Deborah Block on her adaptation of legends and traditions of the Athabaskan peoples of Alaska, which will open in the spring.

Watching over all of this new activity is Managing Director Duncan Busser, who is no stranger to the Philadelphia theatre scene. Duncan has served as an independent designer for such theatres as the Wilma, the Arden, Philadelphia Theatre Company, Walnut Street Theatre and Spiral Q Puppet Theatre. A graduate of Temple, Duncan moved on to become the Operations Manager of the Community Education Center. Duncan expects his MS in Arts Administration from Drexel next year.

Mum Puppettheatre is dedicated to introducing, entertaining and educating people of all ages and backgrounds to the art of puppetry and theatre through the integration of puppetry, masks, mime, acting, dance, music and design in performance and the classroom at the highest caliber possible. Mum Puppettheatre is committed to effecting the perception, awareness, acceptance and understanding of puppetry in all audiences. Our new artists will move the company further and faster in this direction than ever before.

With an infinite number of skills and experiences among them, the new faces at Mum are here to help Mum Puppettheatre reach and also surpass our goals of creating an environment of education, awareness and magic. Add their skills, charisma and drive to the already head-spinning excitement that Mum Puppettheatre upcoming season has to offer, and you have everything a theatre should be!

For more information on Mum Puppettheatre or the 2000-01 season call 215-925-8686.

# # #