Curated by the Puppet Government
Poster by Morgan F.P. Andrews. Hosted by Duncan Busser.

Frankie from The Ballad of Frankie & Johnny.

Puppet Uprising's first ever cabaret was a one-night affair that came about after a group of puppeteers had dinner together in West Philadelphia. Various puppet troupes had been putting on performances at art galleries, community centers, live-in lofts, punk rock shows, and occasionally in actual theaters, but most of these events and venues were not specifically puppet-oriented. It was proposed that puppeteers band together to start a regular puppetry cabaret, and so Puppet Uprising was born.

About 100 people packed the CEC's Meetinghouse Theater to see five 20-minute puppet shows. SHODDY PUPPET COMPANY (Amy Kwasnicki, Bob Kamzelski, Jodi Netzer and Morgan F.P. Andrews) performed two pieces: Potato People used burlap sack costumes and actual potatoes to shed light on dietary colonialism, and The Luddites used a transformative cardboard landscape to detail the history of British sabateurs at the onset of the industrial revolution. Shoddy members also provided music for TWITCHY PUPPETS (then known as Short Attention Span Theatre) in The Ballad of Frankie & Johnny, told with puppets that were a hybrid of household objects and dead animals. PAUL & ANDY'S PUPPET WORLD (the folks who would later go on to start Firehouse Bicycles) performed a a series of shadow puppet vignettes about why they left New York City. Their scrim was mounted on a scaffolding platform, and the puppeteers' legs could be seen dangling down below it. THE INSURRECTION LANDSCAPERS visited from Glover, Vermont with an excerpt from a work in progress that featured a large wooden puppet that cried streamfuls of tears into a bucket, and SPIRAL Q PUPPET THEATER paraded giant puppets outside the event.

Most of the people who helped start Puppet Uprising have moved on to othe things. See what they're up to:

Visit First Person Arts here.
Visit Bilenky Cycle Works here.
Visit Illegitimate Art & Design here.
Visit Firhouse Bicycles here.
Visit Jodi Netzer here.

Spiral Q is still making giant puppets. See them here.
The CEC still hosts performance events. Vist them here.