Bonny Hall awarded Commendation for Design for

The Day It Snowed Tortillas

Bonny Hall has just been notified that she has been awarded a Commendation for Design in the Puppet Theatre by the Arlyn Award Foundation. Commendations were awarded to the five finalists in the competition.

The Arlyn Award for Outstanding Design in the Puppet Theatre is an international competition created to honor the memory and legacy of Arlyn Coad, a wonderful puppet designer who co-founded the Coad Canada Puppets in Vancouver, BC.

The Arlyn Award is dedicated to:
a) recognize outstanding design in the puppet theatre.
b) challenge puppeteers to refine their skills as designers.
c) enhance the image of puppetry in the world theatre community.

Arlyn Coad was and is, along with a handful of other puppet designers, one of Bonny's main inspirations, and it means a great deal to her to have the commendation!

Celebrating 25 26 Years of Crabgrass!

August 2007 marked the 25th anniversary of Crabgrass Puppet Theatre's first performance! When we began to create our first show in San Francisco in 1982, we had no idea what the reception would be. What a Clever Idea! used life-sized puppets and masked actors, and toured for over four years throughout California and on the East Coast. Since then we have created many more productions with puppets large and small . . . twenty productions in all!

In the past 26 years, we have performed at more than 20 regional, national and international puppet festivals, toured throughout the US and Eastern Canada, and we have twice been awarded the Citation of Excellence from the American Center of the Union International de la Marionette (UNIMA), the highest award in American Puppetry.

Crabgrass in the Summertime!

We have a very busy summer scheduled this year. The centerpiece of our summer schedule is a two-week engagement at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta in July. This will be our first time performing at the Center, and we are looking forward to it. Also in July, we'll be at the Vauxhall Library in NJ and we'll be performing and leading workshops at PuppetFest 2008, the Northeast/MidAtlantic Festival of the Puppeteers of America. In August we'll be returning to two of our favorite venues, the Cape Cod Playhouse in Massachusetts and the Ivoryton Playhouse in Connecticut, and we'll also be at the newly reopened Theatre by the Sea in Matunuck, RI. We wind up our summer with shows at the West Islip Library on Long Island.

Please check out our complete list of upcoming public performances for more information.

Jamie Keithline and Bonny Hall formed Crabgrass Puppet Theatre in San Francisco in 1982 and have delighted audiences across the nation with their whimsical humor and puppetry. Now residents of Halifax, Vermont, they continue to tour throughout the U.S., performing in schools, museums and theaters. Their performing venues have included the Detroit Institute of Art, the Smithsonian, Paper Mill Playhouse, Tribeca Performing Arts Center, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and many regional and national puppetry festivals. In 2001 Jamie and Bonny were honored by their peers when their production Anansi, Spiderman of Africa! was awarded an UNIMA-USA Citation of Excellence, the highest honor in American puppetry. This honor was repeated in 2005 with the receipt of a second UNI award for The Bremen Town Musicians.

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