Emmy Bean

Toy Theaters in Ashfield!

2011-07-24T12:07:00.000-07:00

Turns out I like teaching the more I do it. Here is some evidence: Ashfield Community Theater's Summer Arts Program gives me a week every year to do something theatrical with children. This year was toy theater, and turned out to be pretty darn successful. Kids who weren't close friends got a little closer, worked together, got on each other's nerves and made great art anyway. And their ideas got bigger as the week went on, a fine thing to witness. Note especially: the kids on their own decided that their toy theater stories would play alongside such classics as "Despicable Me" and "Cars 2" in the little cardboard theaters they'd made. You can read it for yourself as they markered it on their marquee/proscenium arches.

Between Projects

2011-06-10T20:50:00.000-07:00

And then, maybe, I thought, maybe I should just go ahead and keep writing. Just, you know, to ward off the ever-encroaching doom and gloom feelings that bare their ugly teeth when I'm done with one big performing/creating/rehearsing thing and not yet on to the next.

Because who knows, I thought, maybe the three or four people reading this know what that's like.

I'm performing at the Clown Lab on Sunday. Nominally. And actually. Trying to pick up a stringed instrument every day. That works. Putting in applications. Starting to think about more music this summer, and recording.

Trying to remember to call my friends.

And now, um ... blogging. She said sheepishly.

making a killing

2011-06-08T17:08:00.000-07:00

I take care of a 22-month-old child for my work. It's the best day job I've ever had. And yet.

Today is hot. Was and is. I'm bleeding DOWN THERE and I'm tired of it and I sometimes get bored and antsy in that climate-controlled house waiting for the little one to wake up from his nap and I sometimes watch too much Top Chef and sometimes I feel like the struggle looks a little strange from up there.

Like a struggle against boredom.

And then this woke me up today. After naptime, M and I wandered outside in hopes of seeing the bunny that's taken up residence in his backyard. (When I say it's in the backyard, M points to his back and says, "bunny? bunny?") We go out in the sweltering shade -- no bunny. But an extra-loud chirping sound persists -- I keep checking in the corners by the fence to see if bunny is trying to imitate someone or something else, but no, after the 10th time, I finally see it. A baby bird, exactly two stories down from its nest, huddling in a corner of an empty planter. It chirps plaintive and desperate and M and I go over to watch it.

I'm suddenly not sure what to say to him. "We should help it," I say. And I watch the little guy open and close his mouth, that yellow-orange origami surprise in his little tender beak flashing open and shut, open and shut. He wants food. So we dig. I'm not sure what I'm doing. But I can't do anything else. I feel a quiet panic, like I have no choice but to try and help. I find no worms, but bug after potato bug, which I try to empty into his little mouth, to no avail.

Finally I decide against digging up more of the carefully cut sod in their yard and stand there helpless and frustrated with my little digger, and M with his. We watch the baby bird squawk and rattle around his planter and poop. "He pooped," I tell M. "Pooped," M says. He laughs. I can't.

And then I notice the robin with a beakful of bugs who has been alighting on the fence every few minutes. Mom. Oh Mom. She is chirping, too, looking for the lost little one. I bring the planter over to her spot on the fence and point to it, thinking she'll understand.

I don't know if she found him, or what will happen.

M's Mom comes home.

I leave.

I can't understand how upset I am, how I yelled at M for laughing and spilling apple juice out of his mouth -- it's hot! you need to hydrate! swallow! -- and how I don't want to let go of this awful, incredibly common little story.

a song i done wrote

2011-02-24T08:17:00.000-08:00

Hi, you two.

Here's a song I wrote last month for the Laboratory for the Development of Substitute Materials. Their show "Mirror City: A Phantom Experiment" at the Rhino Fest this year in Chicago dealt with phantom limbs, Chicago neighborhoods, memory and mirrors. It was great. I sang this song.

Also, I've got some stuff up on Soundcloud now, as you can see. Some of it's solo, some is unfinished demos with Annie Winkler of Little Barks, one hasty one-off with Merrill Garbus(Tune-Yards).

Give a listen.

Paint Box Theater on the Bill Dwight Show

2010-06-29T17:44:00.000-07:00

Hi all ...
I guess I moved to Chicago in January and then came back to Montague for the summer and forgot to post about that. And then there was the Great Small Works Toy Theater Festival at St Anns Warehouse in NYC that I also didn't post about. Perhaps I am not a great blogger, all things considered.

But this is a good excuse to blog: talking to Bill Dwight is a durn good time, he's a durn good interviewer, citizen, and Valley resident extraordinaire. Give a listen. And come see a Paint Box show if you're in Northampton this summer. I'll be the one in the bunny ears.

In other news, the barn's intact, I'm teaching toy theater to beatific gorgeous children in Bernardston, and I turn 30 in a month. Bam.

The Mary Fields Memorial Puppet Theater

2009-11-25T08:14:00.000-08:00

Salmon Falls

2009-09-30T08:44:00.001-07:00

My friends Jonathan and Godelieve at Piti Theater Company have created a show about the Deerfield River called "Salmon Falls" -- performed with friends, neighbors, young people and hand-painted pictures in Shelburne Falls this month. Come see!

(I'll be playing the Deerfield River Oct 10 and 17.)

Saturdays at 1:30pm
Oct 3-17

under the big maple behind the Arms Library (100 Bridge St, Shelburne Falls, MA)
Rain location: Buckland Shelburne Elementary School
$7 suggested donation

Paint Box Theater is my July

2009-07-20T09:49:00.001-07:00

Hi dears,

Chicken Little is the second of the two shows I'm performing at Paint Box Theater .... yeeehaw!

I do love the little ones.

And the kids are cool, too.

Check out our videos on YouTube!

Mary and Sarah and You and Me: A Series of Tiny Spectacles

2009-06-10T13:05:00.000-07:00

MARY AND SARAH AND YOU AND ME: A SERIES OF TINY SPECTACLES
An Installation by Naima Lowe and Emmy Bean

WHAT? An exhibit of sights and sounds, both historical and pleasurable, installed for your delight at the famous Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village, NYC. Puppet theater! Sideshow spectacle! A gallery of moving and still images and archival wonders.
WHEN? June 23-28, 2009. 7 DAYS! ONE WEEK! DON'T MISS THIS!
Gallery hours are as follows:
Tuesday and Sunday: 1pm - 9pm
Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: 1pm - 5pm
Saturday: 1pm - 7pm and 1030pm -- 1230am
Friday June 26: 7pm -10pm RECEPTION w/ performance, refreshments, and ghostly visitations.

HOW MUCH? Pay what you can, friends.
Donations are gladly accepted at the door. No one will be turned away.
$10 suggested donation for the June 26 reception.

WHAT THE BLAZES IS THE INTERNET?
Why, you're there right now! Come see us! http://tinyspectacles.wordpress.com/

Made possible in part by Fractured Atlas and Pirate Jenny Productions.
Donations may also be made "online"
through the fine upstanding entity known as Fractured Atlas:
https://www.fracturedatlas.org/site/contribute/donate/2505
Art boosts the economy. It does. And you can help.

Mary and Sarah and You and Me is co-authored by Emmy Bean. Emmy Bean is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. Contributions in behalf of Emmy Bean may be made payable to Fractured Atlas and are tax-deductible to the extent permitted by law.

new video from The Man Without a Shadow

2009-06-08T05:23:00.001-07:00

Mornin glories!

Jacob Richman has posted some clips from our Dec 2008 performance of The Man Without a Shadow. Thanks, Jacob!

puppets on film!

Naima and I got done some great setting-up, painting and photo-taking this week with the help of my extremely talented neighbor Chris Wise and his fancy camera. We are indeed a lucky couple of fish. Installation work is underway for real ....

Mary and Sarah and You and Me, in NYC

2009-05-26T20:33:00.000-07:00

Kind Friends:
Watch for upcoming reports of the installation "Mary and Sarah and You and Me" soon to be at Judson Memorial Church in New York City. It's soon! Preparations are underway in the barn!

more at: our website over here.

and thanks to Troy, a fellow artist in western Mass, and a true champ, for giving me a shout-out on his blog Artists of the Valley.

Vegetables are working their way out of the ground; kale and tomatoes and basil! What bounty.

Music happens; singing Shaker songs with women friends here in the Valley rattles old ghosts out of the eaves, and I practice on my own as much as I can, chord after chord on the guitar. Kitties prowl the perimeter and devour rodents daily. Hannah says: "If life doesn't humble you, you're not doing it right."

There ya go.

Old Joe Clark

2009-04-29T06:34:00.001-07:00

this is adorable. even more so to think that this is an actual family actually playing together.

Puppetry International's new issue

2009-04-21T13:42:00.000-07:00

I'm honored to share a page with Marsian DeLellis in Puppetry International's current issue: 40 Under 40. I mean, honestly, honored and chagrined. There are quite a few puppeteers I can think of, some of whom I've learned a whole lot from personally, who would go on my own list of 40 Under 40 ... and some just barely over 40.
It seems almost arbitrary that I got a mention in this fine magazine, but hey. Go buy a copy. It's good reading anyway.
I've got their website in my blogroll ... look it up!

The Man Without a Shadow

2009-01-25T08:46:00.000-08:00

Hi folks,

Anyone in Cambridge, MA + environs on Thurs Feb 5 should come check out Outpost 186 (formerly the Zeitgeist) at 8pm. We're reviving "The Man Without a Shadow" -- brainchild of myself, Jacob Richman, Stephen Higa (he plays the lute! for real!) and Heather Carter, a great puppeteer who's joining us for this short and sweet shadow show. Come on out, and say hi. Do. It's 9 MINUTES LONG. No excuse not to.

OUTPOST DIRECTIONS: Near cr. Prospect, opposite Hess gas, behind 7-11. Big ‘186’ on R side. Follow walk at Left to gallery, REAR.

OUTPOST INFO:
All shows 8pm doors unless otherwise noted.
Admission by donation at door.
No reservations, come early!
All shows all ages.
No smoking, alcohol please.

works in progress at Sandglass Theater, Nov 28-29

2008-11-21T06:45:00.000-08:00

Hi y'all.
The first installment of "The Story of E" will appear Thanksgiving weekend, Sandglass Theater, Putney VT. Two nights! Same show! Do come out of your turkey coma, just for an hour or two. It'll be worth it.

1000 Miles of I Love You

2008-11-13T05:37:00.000-08:00

it's all happening, people.
Léa Donnan.
artist of Montague, installation creator, filmmaker, shows her short film Truckers on Love tomorrow night, Nov 14 at 7pm in Northampton at the Masonic St lot, in an installation entitled 1000 Miles of I Love You. Poster image created by Philip Ilatovsky. (!!!)

www.leadonnan.com

All Music. No Columbuses.

2008-10-09T05:45:00.001-07:00

autumnal bliss. you gotta come check it out. SUNDAY 3pm! till whenever we see fit to end the music ...

wham bam it's FALL

2008-09-26T05:56:00.003-07:00

hi blog.

three weeks out of town shook me up in a good way. a number of things happened:
Mrs Wrights Escape, part Four: the lost weekend at Fallingwater ... starring some of my favorite puppeteers, new friends, and the residents of Normalville, PA. aka...Frank Lloyd's Reich.

I applied, and was accepted to the Community Word Project's Teaching Artist Training and Internship Program (any other TATIP folks out there?), which will put me back in NYC at least twice a month until JUNE, to study and to teach about teaching art and classrooms and public schools. it's definitely right, it's definitely good, it's definitely the one thing on top of the Jenga pile that is my schedule that will make things work, and NOT fall over.

A have a friend who has been at his most productive making art since he's had kids: jobs, children, families can be the routinizing life events that force your artmaking ambitions to either go dormant or find their chunks of time and energy in which to thrive, and THRIVE.

so there. I'm taking big bites, and chewing slowly.

and announcing: OCT 12! a show in our barn -- starring tUnE-YaRDs, Ruth Garbus + Chris Weisman, Mixylodian, and special guests from far and wee ... 3pm. bring your party hat. but not your booze.
Montague, MA.
stirring up the leaves.

rain's coming down hard, memories of hurricanes down south.

ready to quit caffeine this weekend.

ready to fall apart about it.

news from the front

2008-09-03T05:22:00.000-07:00

We're gearing up for another run of "Mrs Wright's Escape", this time at a Frank Lloyd Wright conference near Fallingwater, out in western PA. Such love for this show, Amanda's work, and the team who has gathered around it.
Onward!
Rehearsing in Bushwick, dipping my toes back in NYC again, thinking about what it means to be bi-coastal. If the Connecticut River can be called a coast.

A small play about children is gestating ... in the meantime I'm practicing music, meeting old friends on the bus, gathering, growing. Making plans for the barn: a concert, another puppet night, walk-in movies, Halloween party ...

Looking forward to the cooling of fall.

making time.

2008-08-19T06:02:00.000-07:00

on a hot tip from http://amywalsh.typepad.com/,
i have started waking up and using my coffee/eating time to sit down and NOT check email, but instead write and draw. wow. what a difference it makes to feel like i'm creating things first thing in the morning. everyone who makes art for any kind of a living , read Amy's notes on making time for art. they're fabulous.

can i believe that i have not yet made red currant tarts? that i've been meaning to for three weeks now, or more? and that i have not yet? man.

another daily lovely: www.tuneyards.com

i am addicted to my friend Merrill Garbus' new album here, as Tune-Yards, wherein she makes magic with a ukelele, an mp3 recorder, and found sounds from everywhere.

mmmmmm delicious!

so we did a show.

2008-08-05T16:43:00.001-07:00

Naima and I, together.
Along with several dozen of our closest collaborative allies and helpers -- our esteemed stage/production manager Jamie Simons among them, who is now my personal hero as well as the woman with more good ideas than any one person should legally be allowed to possess -- we made Mary and Sarah and You and Me, the first incarnation.

As a carnival barker outside the front doors of the Parlor, I was quietly terrified but somehow sure of my ability to keep talking until someone told me to stop. I even took a walk around the block in costume, encountering some stoop-sitting, curb-hanging folks from the neighborhood, most of whom politely ignored me ...

And once inside, I realized we had created a great, tiny, intense ride, full of visual and aural stimulation, excessive heat (it IS August) and hard-won storytelling. As Naima says (her blog post on this topic beats the hell out of mine, so I'll keep it short), we succeeded. Not in perfection, but in completion. Of Phase 1.

On to world domination. And rest in my country home, painting the porch, cleaning my room, making birthday wishes, watching the skies and thinking ...

what people do for each other

2008-07-28T07:24:00.000-07:00

this is a way of saying thank you:
for the fact that artists and like-minded folks band together in this way, that Naima and I are saved from existential despair and artistic oblivion by the efforts of our colleagues (mostly fellow grad students from Temple), who arrive in our performance space to help us hang things, light things, film things, talk about things, and put things up and then down and take them away.
we do the work together, and for no money, just because the work is being done and we can do it together?

is this not just a little bit incredible?

when Naima and I talk about religion, she mentions this: that her doubts about religion are tempered by the reality that artists create together a kind of volunteerism that approaches devotion, that the process of making art points, well, ... up. many hands. pointing up.

thanks, hands. thanks, fellow travelers. we are so lucky to have each other.

Mrs Wrights Escape!

2008-07-26T10:12:00.000-07:00

great documentation, thanks to Amanda Maddock. Here are some clips from her show "Mrs Wright's Escape", performed at Sandglass Theater in Putney, VT. Starring Amanda Maddock, Kirk Murphy, Ron Binion, Frederic Villano, Matt Brooks, and me.

Roughly Cobbled Together Footage from April 11 Shoot

2008-07-24T07:28:00.001-07:00

Click to Play

This is the footage with synched sound, a few transitions, and the silent footage of Mary and Sarah staring overlayed so that we can start to see how they will look together.

elephant leg art

2008-07-24T07:12:00.000-07:00

well, well, well...

2008-07-16T05:39:00.000-07:00

... someone's finally graduated from the LiveJournal murmurings of her past. Hello, blogger world!
It's just a few weeks until Naima and I set sail in our cardboard and celluloid boat for the undiscovered territory of Mary and Sarah and You and Me:

http://tinyspectacles.wordpress.com/

we're excited. we're rowing frantically.

today i'm finishing puppet-building in the barn, and taking a break to stake my tomato plants and tart up some of the tasty red currants from our bush outside.
yes, you heard me. tasty red currant tarts from the bush.

us foul-mouthed puppeteers gotta get our kicks somehow.

ahoy!