Hosted by Morgan F.P. Andrews & Lydia Stein
Curated by Morgan F.P. Andrews
Poster by Bob Kamzelski

Rachel Diamond plays the accordion
while a puppet dances on her head

Puppet Uprising's ended its second fruitful year with a cabaret of 13 very short puppet shows. Many of the performances offered commentary on the Bush Administration's response to the then recent attacks on the the Pentagon and World Trade Center.

Beth Nixon came from Providence for the second time with her episodic serial, "Three Thoughts on Pelicans," which told of her real and imagined relationship to this majestic bird through a series of songs, speeches, poems and puppets. Jen and Milan Marvelous enacted a rocking chair remake of "There's a Hole in the Bucket," and a giant heart was dissected to the music of Godspeed You Black Emperor by a member of the Brass Lung Brass Band.

Beth Ferguson (of Bikes Across Borders, The Puppetual Motion Cycle Circus, and The Beehive Collective) performed a luminescent shadow puppet show called "Water" with music performed by the West Philadelphia Bicycle Orchestra, and Rachel Diamond made a puppet dance on her head while she played the accorsion. Morgan F.P. Andrews and Lydia Stein co-hosted presenting a series of "Cardboard Capers" (quick little puppet shows made out of cardboard) that audience members chose from a menu. In the second half of the show, these became "Cardboard Classics"—2-minute versions of Little House of the Prairie, The Grapes of Wrath, Walden & Civil Disobedience. The cabaret ended with the large-ensemble cantastoria (musical painted banner performance) "In Light of Recent Events," in which the fear instilled in us by our government is likened to the arrival of a cold winter. "We are told not to worry."

Visit Beth Nixon here.
Lydia Stein plays in this band.
Milan Marvelous runs this music shop.
Read an interview with Beth Ferguson here and find out about Bikes Across Borders and Beehive Collective here and here.