Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2002 10:53:15 -0400
Subject: PUPT: Preston's Shows at PST


Hey critters,

Preston Foerder is one of the featured guest teachers at the National
Puppetry Conference at the O'Neill in June, so I thought folks who are
attending that august set of master classes might be interested to know that
the fabulous Preston is performing three of his most popular shows at PST
next week. Check them out!

"Slovenly Peter" has deservedly won the prestigous UNIMA Award, and his
wonderful and quirky "Works in Regress" has some of the most memorable short
puppet pieces you'll ever see. Both of those shows are for adults.  "Fairy
Tales of the Brothers Grimey", for families, was a big hit at the national
Puppetry Festival last summer in Tampa.  All three productions are
unforgettable.

PST is a great intimate theatre (100 seats) to see these shows in.  Here's
the basic info, and details and reviews will follow.  I hope we see some of
you there!

Fondly,  Karen 

Adult shows are on April 26 & 27 (the latter being the 4th annual National
Day of puppetry) with TWO COMPLETE SHOWS EACH EVENING FOR ONE PRICE- The
delightfully macabre SLOVENLY PETER and the alternately hilarious and
thoughtful WORKS IN REGRESS. Reservations highly recommended! Tix $12 ($10
members, college students, low income). 617.731.6400   Sadly, we're not set
up to take orders over the internet.

Preston will also be performing his amazing TALES OF THE BROTHRS GRIMEY as
part of our family series on the 27th and 28th.  Come see what happens when
the puppeteer doesn't show up and the custodian has to perform the puppet
show. Shows at 1 & 3. Tix $8 (7 members)  617.731.6400


Slovenly Peter
Written by Dr. Heinrich Hoffman
Designed and Created by Preston Foerder


Based on Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann's 19th century Struwwelpeter stories, these
German cautionary tales are presented with all the macabre humor of the
original.  Using small hand puppets, and himself as
story-teller/parent-figure, Preston Foerder depicts the grisly fate of
disobedient children.  From Slovenly Peter, who refuses to cut his hair and
nails to Paulina who plays with matches, to Casper who won't eat his soup,
there are nine tails in all. Slovenly Peter won a 1993 UNIMA-USA Citation of
Excellence, the highest award given in the field of puppetry.

 "...original and daring.  This show must be seen by all."
 The Puppetry Journal


Works in Regress 
Written, Designed and Created by Preston Foerder

This odyssey presents the world, as seen by a puppeteer, through a series of
short sketches using five different styles of puppetry across three puppet
stages. Amongst the pieces, we witness the joys of an    old woman in the
back row of a concert hall, the plight of a homeless man at the beach,
animal territoriality taken to ridiculous extremes, and the angst of a
goldfish watching his world self-destruct.  The work as a whole makes us
wonder about the role of the puppeteer in his universe, and our own  role in
ours. Complete with sex and violence, this is decidedly an adult puppet
show.

Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimey

A puppet show of the Grimm's Fairy Tales, but where's the puppeteer? The
janitor takes over. Using the tools of his trade, he brings the tales to
life. Sponges, mops and even garbage cans are transformed into all the
characters and settings of the show. The final story of The Frog Prince can
be done on its own as a perfect street theatre piece.

Preston Foerder Biography

Preston Foerder began his career as a puppeteer at the age of two when he
received a hand puppet as a present from his parents.  This is something
they regret to this day.  Had they known, his parents would have given him a
little doctor's kit, or chemistry set, anything but a puppet.  Preston was
fascinated with this puppet and collected others.  Eventually, he created
his own puppets and started performing shows.

 After studying theatre at Tufts University, Preston became a professional
puppeteer.  Over the next ten years, Preston worked with many puppet
companies as well as street performing in New York City.   In 1985,  he was
chosen to attend a workshop with the famous French puppeteer Philippe Genty
at the prestigious Institut International de la Marionnette in
Charleville-Mezieres, France.   In 1991, he returned to the Institut to
study with Josef Krofta, the director of the Drak Puppet Theater of
Czechoslovakia.  Since 1991, Preston has been peforming his own shows.

His first show, Slovenly Peter , an adult puppet theatre piece, won the
UNIMA-USA Citation of Excellence, the highest award given in the field of
puppetry.  Preston has produced six puppet theatre pieces for both adult and
family audiences.  He has performed throughout this country, Europe, and
Mexico, at both national and international festivals.  Preston is a '95/'96
recipient of  a New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State
Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Performance.  Recently, Preston was
commissioned by the Contemporary American Theater Festival to produce
Interesting Times, an adult puppet theatre piece based on chance, chaos and
complexity theories.  That piece was funded in part by a Jim Henson
Foundation Grant. 

Prestonıs current production, Loners, will be presented as part of PSTıs
2002/2003 Puppets at Night series for adults.  Loners  is also funded in
part by a grant from the Jim Henson Foundation.

                   
Preston's Reviews
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER
Monday, December 10, 2001

 'Slovenly Peter': Puppetry with a point
                   

 By Douglas J. Keating
 INQUIRER THEATER CRITIC

Dr. Heinrich Hoffmann, a 19th-century German physician, and Preston Foerder,
a contemporary American puppeteer, make an entertaining pair in a show at
Mum Puppettheatre. 

Not that Foerder's presentation has anything to do with medicine. The good
doctor Hoffmann is not known today for work in  his profession but for his
contribution to children's literature, in the form of a collection of
rhyming cautionary tales (that he also  illustrated) bearing the title of
the first story: Struwwelpeter in German, Slovenly Peter in English.

Hoffmann wrote Slovenly Peter to teach children lessons about such things as
the virtue of personal cleanliness, the danger of  playing with matches, and
the inappropriateness of making fun of those who are different. He achieves
his purpose in brightly  written, colorful stories that are neither preachy
nor scolding. 

They are also humorous. The comedy is slightly silly, to amuse children, but
it also has a slyly wicked edge more appreciated by adults - an edge Foerder
emphasizes in this show aimed at older audiences. Foerder, standing in full
view, manipulates small  hand puppets while he recites the stories. They are
much more fun than even Hoffmann probably intended them to be.

Reading to a child about Paulina, who sets herself on fire playing with
matches, you wouldn't be inclined to mirth. Watching Foerder's puppet
Paulina go up in flames as the narrator, in his droll voice, tells her sad
tale is hilarious.   So is seeing the dreaded Scissors Man cut off the
digits of Little Suck-a-thumb, and Johnny Stare-in-the-air stumble into a
pool  and almost drown, and cruel Frederick get bitten by a dog. I may have
felt guilty laughing at the misfortune that befalls these  cute little
puppets, but based on the guffaws I heard at Thursday's show, many others in
the theater had reason to feel much guiltier.

The first act consists of five original skits of varying quality. The best
part of "The Artist's Tribute to His Home State of New  Jersey" is not
watching Foerder manipulate a Bruce Springsteen puppet but seeing him
thoroughly enjoy himself lip-syncing his way through "Born to Run."

Foerder's puppetry throughout is simple but evocative. In a clever skit that
presages the amusing horrors of Slovenly Peter, he  presents a goldfish in a
bowl that reacts to events it sees but which we only hear. A comical tale of
sex, murder and a hungry cat - what's not to enjoy?

MONSTERS (Slovenly Peter)
by David Sears

A Bunraku surprise of decidedly macabre sadism is Preston Foerder's one-man
Slovenly Peter, based on Hoffmann's poems about nasty children. Preston's
puppets all have a baby-faced sophistication to them, and each oneshocks in
a different way. Only Slovenly Peter disobeys his parents and gets away with
it. Cruel Fred baits his dog,who bites off his leg; Harriett plays with
matches and immolates herself (quite a flame!). The drowning of a puppet
wasan aquatic first for me. If you know these poems, you either love them or
are repulsed. 

These obviously monstrous children are not the main surprise, however.
Preston, relishing his God-like role as
master, initially recites the poetry with tongue-in-cheek authority, clipped
and brutal. Later, he develops a dark smile bordering on the satanic in the
flame effect. He finishes waving one puppet overhead wildly with glee. From
well-groomed to well-disheveled, this puppeteer transforms himself into a
maniac one would hesitate to hire. Some genius has descended on Preston's
work. Clearly the monstrous has untapped a new freedom that is original and
daring. This show must be seen by all.
  

Preston Foerder's Slovenly Peter, Home Center, Walker St., NYC, 3/91.
 Shepherdstown Festival:
Plays Hard at Work 

By Lloyd Rose 
Washington Post Staff Writer

SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va.-On a bluff overlooking the Potomac, on the campus of
Shepherd College, the sixth annual Contemporary American Theatre Festival is
underway.   You don't go to a festival for finished, polished work but for
risk, excitement, the awkward but expressive work that may never quite pull
together, the small, thoughtful piece that's probably too refined for a
commercial future. Lack of slickness is part of the pleasure. The downside
to festivals is a tendency toward pretension and dullness, but that's been
absent at Shepherdstown this year.

Not that there was any shrinking from the Big Subject in the plays, which
range from Joyce Carol Oates's new
drama to the beguiling puppetry of Preston Foerder.   For pure
theatricality, the event of the weekend was the trio of puppet shows by
Foerder, a quiet, pony-tailed man who, especially when he's watching his
puppets with a mixture of bemusement and skepticism, slightly resembles the
humorist Calvin Trillin He has some of Trillin's style too -  whimsical,
deceptively light, penetrating.

His two shows for adults - "Slovenly Peter," from the sadistically punitive
19th-century children's book by Heinrich Hoffman, and "Works in Regress"-
are delights of invention and surprise, though a little hard to summarize.
One is about a goldfish having a bad afternoon. Another is about two
animated hands that daringly get naked. Trust me, you laugh. His show for
children, "The Toybox", is gently enchanting and held an audience of
under-8s spellbound and silent for 40 minutes, a remarkable theatrical
achievement.


 `The Brothers Grimey':
A clean sweep of the imagination

     by Misha Berson
     Seattle Times theater critic

     Theater review: ``Fairytales of the Brothers Grimey'' by Preston
Foerder. Friday-Sunday through Oct. 25 at the
     Northwest Puppet Center, 9123 15th Ave. N.E., Seattle. $5.50-7.50.
206-523-2579. 

     Preston Foerder has no need for a set designer.

     The New York puppeteer can find everything required for his diverting
show "Fairytales of the Brothers Grimey" in the
     cleaning-supplies section of any hardware store.

     In Foerder's hands, a slew of toilet bowl scrubbers are transformed
into a forest, a sopping sponge becomes an
     enchanted frog, a pail is a deep well, and those bright-plumed feather
dusters . . . 

     Well, they're practically the stars of this ingenious little show,
which gleefully inaugurates the new season at the Northwest
     Puppet Center. The dusters double as lush garden flowers, and (after
certain adjustments) as a petulant princess who has
     no use at all for a spongy, doting frog.

     In a show aimed at small children, the initially deadpan Foerder takes
his time (a bit too much time) to set up the basic
     premise: He's just a janitor who has come to clean up the stage. But
then he realizes the real puppeteer is a no-show. So,
     armed with a paperback copy of "Grimm's Fairy Tales," he decides to
fill in. 

     The youthful giggles and squeals start to multiply when Foerder (whose
found-object zaniness brings to mind Paul
     Zaloom's shows) starts turning his cleaning implements into props and
fairy-tale characters, and supplying them with
     wisecracking dialogue.

     He concocts a brief, irreverent re-telling of "The Spirit in the
Bottle" - which could be retitled "The Plastic Garbage Bag in
     the Detergent Container."

     And the merriment rises in his antic version of "The Frog Prince,"
which contains one unlikely broom-closet effect after
     another: squeeze mop bumble bees, string-mop palace guards and a
garbage receptacle carriage that bears away that
     tantrum-throwing princess and a pint-size human prince (played at a
recent performance by an amazingly nonchalant
     5-year-old audience member).

     Foerder doesn't use his brooms to whack you over the head with a moral.
But just the spectacle of someone having so
     much imaginative fun with a bunch of mundane objects, objects any kid
might play with, is refreshing in our
     high-consumerist culture. Even perhaps to a spoiled blond
feather-duster princess, who draws big laughs when she
     boasts of owning "657 Barbies."
  
  
  

THE MONTGOMERY COUNTY SENTINEL                 March 9, 2000

Tales of the Brothers Grimy: Unique and different
By David Cannon 
Sentinel Theatre Critic
  

    The Puppet Company is currently playing host to a talented performer
named Preston Foerder who brings a unique and totally different style of
puppetry to the stage. While the Puppet Company itself usually deals with
finely designed creations, often on display in the theater for their own
artistry, Foerder creates his puppets on the fly. It makes for a hilarious
take on two tales from the Brothers Grimm, that hew close to the originals
in plot but go their own way in terms of mood and atmosphere.
    The first thing you notice entering the Puppet Company Theater is that
there is a full stage, not the elaborate smaller stages usually employed for
puppets. Then Mr. Foerder enters looking like a janitor and busily starts
sweeping the stage clean. This may look like treading water, but Mr. Foerder
uses this time to build a rapport with his young audience. It also sets up
the premise of the entire show.
    That premise is that there is suppose to be a puppet show today but no
one seems to be around to perform it. Instead of sending the kids home Mr.
Foerder (who is seen reading a collection of the Grimm's Fairy Tales)
decides to mount two of the stories on the spot. The first is the lesser
known tale of "The Spirit in the Bottle," while the final tale is the
familiar "Frog Prince."  But there are no puppets, and that is where the
unique aspect of Mr. Foerder's art comes into play. He just creates them on
the spot. OK, the janitor's props are well chosen to become scenery and
characters, and no doubt every aspect of this show is planned in detail, but
the whole tone of the show is a man doing his best with very limited
resources, and a very active imagination. While meticulously designed, the
show feels spontaneous and improvised on the spot.
    For example, "Bottle" requires a dog and an old woman as two of the
characters. No such puppets here, so Foerder grabs a mop top and suddenly we
have a very shaggy (and eyeless) dog bounding around the stage, and doing
things dogs do. The creature makes an interesting exit at one point. The
Mother is the old "draw a face on a brown paper bag" routine many of us did
in elementary school, but it fits in well with everything else in the show.
Most of all, it is funny, but it works.
    Similarly, the mops and janitor's drum become, with a little bit of fuss
and work, an amazingly acceptable castle backdrop for the "Frog Prince"
tale. The frog makes his appearance as a very "spongy" creature, and
fortunately there is a green sponge on hand for this role. Half the fun is
watching the silliest things used for people and props, such as an empty
trash bag making a sudden appearance as a supernatural spirit. But
underneath there is a very strong imagination at work that is able to take a
common everyday object like a sponge and make it the lead characters in a
story. 
    Reading Mr. Foerder's biography in the small playbill, you quickly
realize his impressive credentials. He studied at Tufts University and
worked for ten years at a number of companies in the New York area. He has
studied in France and throughout Europe. He has won numerous awards and most
recently was commissioned by the Contemporary American Theater Festival for
a new piece, funded in part by the Jim Henson Foundation Grant. Henson of
course is the creator of the Muppets.
    Mr. Foerder is certainly unique and intriguing. To give away one more
trick, at one point he arranges the dusters into a small forest. Then he
takes one of those sponge mops with a handle that can be used to squeeze out
the water, and he turns it upside down. Suddenly the sponge mop becomes a
butterfly or bird flapping its wings from tree to tree. It is incredibly
silly and humorous. It is undeniably brilliant and effective. Just like the
rest of this theater piece.

  
THE WASHINGTON POST                           February 27, 2000

FABULOUS FUN PUPPETEER Preston Foerder is appearing at the Puppet Co.
Playhouse in Glen Echo.  The show is called "Fairy Tales of the
Brothers Grimy";  Foerder plays a janitor who make puppets out of trash he
finds while cleaning up and with them tells odd, jolly stories.  Personal
testimony:  I have seen Foerder hold an audience of 6-year-olds spellbound
with this show.  - Lloyd Rose
  

International Children's Festival
  brings out the kid in everyone             May 18, 2000

  By Alice T. Carter
  TRIBUNE-REVIEW THEATER CRITIC

  Warning: Taking youngsters to the Pittsburgh International Children's
Festival may result in a long  difficult summer. By products of attendance
may be disappearing flashlights, ransacked wastebaskets and recycling bins
and the backyard wading pool transformed into a splash pad.

  Spread among the leafy green trees of the North Side's West Park and
within buildings around Allegheny Center, The Pittsburgh International
Children's Festival is presenting eight performance groups in five
performance spaces.

  It's a varied assortment of dance, music, theater and some less easily
categorized entertainments. Some are aimed at the very youngest children,
others are for older kids and many will appeal to everyone, including -
maybe especially - very sophisticated adults.

  Plus, the three shows I saw on opening day all make such imaginative use
of their media that they're likely to awaken kids' imaginations to the
playful possibilities of flashlights, toilet brushes and water.

  Likely to encourage dumpster diving is "Fairy Tales of the Brother Grimy"
(40 minutes, aimed at all ages). Puppeteer Preston Foerder appears as a
janitor who fills in when the expected puppeteer fails to materialize.
Beginning with a smelly sock and a paper bag, he converts ordinary discarded
objects into feather duster flowers and black plastic genie clouds. As
narrator for "The Genie in the Bottle" and "The Frog Prince," he fills his
tales with loony humor and giddy sight gags - a dust mop dog lifts its leg
against a toilet brush tree, a green sponge frog squirts water at the
audience. 



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