CONTACT Sarah Olmsted Thomas 302 Patterson Court Apt 6 Takoma Park MD 20912 Project Budget Grant Request $5,400 $3,000 NA PAST GRANTS AWARDED 703-582-6364 Olmsted.Sarah@gmail.com saraholmstedthomas.com/puppetry. 501 (c)(3): Black Cherry Puppet Theater is a 10-minute Puppet Slam piece that we are developing into a full-length show. This project intends to expand Milo's world by creating new characters and building interactive set pieces. VIDEO SAMPLE Title: 1) 's Magic Show (2014) 2) and his Amazing Science Fair (2015) Artists: Alex Vernon: Puppet Designer, Co-Director, Writer, Milo Puppeteer Sarah Olmsted Thomas: Co- Director, Writer, Puppeteer Description: This video is an introduction to the creative team. It is a look at past performances of and their upcoming full-length project. WORKSHOP
1 PROJECT DESCRIPTION TECHNIQUE: will employ several disciplines of puppetry; Mask, rod, hand, object manipulation, and shadow puppetry. Milo has a flat, circular face that s constructed like a horizontal book. Using a mechanism that we developed, the puppeteer can flip through his 13 unique expressions. The puppeteer wearing Milo not only controls his facial expressions, but his hands and feet also serve as the puppet s extremities. In this way, Milo is worn like a theatrical Mask. The puppeteers wear full-bodied black velvet jumpsuits and hoods against a black backdrop. Our visible invisibility adds a layer of play to the narrative as we are both present and indiscriminate agents in the story. Rod puppets, Hand puppets and Object manipulation will be employed to create characters in Milo s world. Finally, there will be a moment of live video projection and of shadow puppetry. CONCEPT:, a magician and scientist, wakes up in his home to a daily routine of breakfast, science experiments, and listening to the radio. He is a Vaudeville-style entertainer in a 3-piece seersucker suit. His workshop is comprised of vintage suitcases and hand-cranked automata. A vintage, vacuum tube radio malfunction requires him to mail-order a replacement part. Within the housing of the radio, Milo finds a band of vacuum tube musicians and capacitor back-up singers; small puppets that will be projected onto a screen behind him. A series of strange packages arrive and animate unexpectedly. DRAMATIC ARC: The animate packages escalate from creatures/objects that befriend Milo to ones that threaten him to ones that alter his reality completely. A pinnacle moment in the piece will be when Milo is forced through a portal which doubles him. Two Milos interact on stage in escalating degrees of horror and playfulness. A third Milo will be a button on this most dramatic scene. Ultimately, the radio is fixed and everything returns to normal just in time to hint at the next problem to arise. EXECUTION: We plan to execute this project with the aid of set pieces. Because a black background is necessary to highlight Milo and to disguise the puppeteers, we plan to build set pieces that are primarily in the foreground of the playing space. A series of table tops with hidden compartments will be set structures on the stage. There will be a door frame among black fabric walls and a projection screen that retracts. USE OF PUPPETRY: This piece will use puppetry exclusively. All characters will be puppets. Milo will be the centerpiece and on stage for the majority of the story. The set will also be interactive; tabletops and boxes will have built-in trick features. Our goal is to animate everything on stage. PERFORMANCES: We have an agreement with Michael Lamason at Black Cherry Puppet Theater in Baltimore to premiere this full-length version of in 2017.
2 PROJECT BUDGET 1. Project EXPENSES Cash Amount In-Kind Amount Materials for Puppets & Set 1,000 Materials for Costumes 300 Materials for Sound System & Lighting 500 Travel Expenses to & from Baltimore 150 Puppeteers Stipend for Two Performers 1,000 (at 500 each) Set Building Stipend 500 Puppet Building Stipend 500 Promo Materials 150 Photos/Videographer 500 Rehearsal Space 500 Fiscal Sponsor/Admin Fee 300 2. TOTAL Cash Expenses 4,300 3. TOTAL In-Kind Expenses 1,100 4. TOTAL EXPENSES (sum of lines 2 +3) 5,400 5. ELIGIBLE GRANT AMOUNT 3,000 Artist: 6. Project INCOME Cash Amount In-Kind Amount Tickets Sales (4 performances at Black Cherry) 2,000 Indiegogo Campaign 400 7. Henson Foundation Grant Amount Requested 3,000 8. TOTAL Cash Income (sum of column B) 5,400 9. TOTAL In-Kind Contributions (sum of column C) 10. TOTAL INCOME (sum of lines 8 + 9) 5,400
3 ARTIST BIOS ALEX VERNON BIO: Alex Vernon is an actor, puppeteer, tinkerer, and automata engineer. In 2010, Alex made his living in NYC as a street artist by cutting freehand silhouettes in Union Square Park. In 2011, he joined a tour with Adventure Theatre to Singapore where he engineered the concept for his puppet. In 2015, Alex was hired by the American Visionary Art Museum to repair and service the permanent automata in their Cabaret Mechanical Theatre exhibit. Alex has been a company member with Washington, D.C. s awardwinning Happenstance Theater since 2012. With Happenstance, Alex was nominated as Outstanding Lead Actor for the 2016 Helen Hayes Awards. Alex built a 6 foot mechanical horse puppet for the 2015 Washington Revels, 21 Wayang Kulit puppets for WSC Avant Bard s 2016 Midsummer, and a Fettig-inspired mechanical puppet Faust 4 that he constructed in Bread and Puppet s Vermont workshop this year. Alex trained with Julia Tasheva, a master puppeteer from the Krastyo Sarafov National Academy in Bulgaria, and Dody DiSanto of the Center for Movement. B.S., Middle Tennessee State University. www.thealexvernon.com SARAH OLMSTED THOMAS BIO: Sarah Olmsted Thomas is a fifth generation artist. She creates and performs original physical theater pieces. In 2010, she was commissioned by Fortnight Journal in NYC to create 6 movement works for their inaugural edition. In 2012, she completed an apprenticeship with Bread and Puppet Theater in Glover, VT, which presented one of her dances in their Possibilitarian Circus. In 2014, she starred in the DC premiere of Sarah Ruhl's Late: A Cowboy Song with No Rules Theatre Company at the Signature Theatre. Sarah has been a company member with Washington, D.C. s award-winning Happenstance Theater since 2012. With Happenstance, Sarah was nominated as Outstanding Lead Actress for the 2016 Helen Hayes Awards. Sarah trained with Synetic Theater in Washington, DC, The Pig Iron Theatre Company in Philadelphia, and Le Samovar, Ecole de Clowns, in Paris. B.A., Sarah Lawrence College. www.saraholmstedthomas.com ALEX & OLMSTED BIO: (Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas) have been making puppets together since 2010. In recent years they have performed at the Kennedy Center, Black Cherry Puppet Theater, Strathmore, The Puppeteers of America Festival, The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Vermont Vaudeville, The Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry in Connecticut, and Bread and Puppet in Vermont. Their puppet was accepted into the National Puppet Slam twice and was featured on the front page of the Hartford Courant. was also accepted into the 2015 La MaMa Puppet Slam. s crankie The Life of an Apple premiered at the Black Cherry Puppet Theater in Baltimore and has since performed at the 2016 Puppet Homecoming Festival.