CMU School of Drama


Thursday, February 16, 2023

Alex & Olmsted: two people at play with the infinite possibilities of puppets

DC Theater Arts: For Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas, there’s nothing juvenile about puppetry. With their creative out-of-the-box approach, the founders and sole members of the eponymous Alex & Olmsted puppet theater company use puppets as a vehicle for telling all-ages stories on both stage and screen. They define the essence of puppetry simply as “storytelling using objects,” and their works deal with human frailties, relationships, quests, the stuff of life — both tragic and comic.

1 comment:

Cyril Neff said...

Puppetry is such an interesting field of storytelling, because it allows for the audience to take on a different representation of characters, atmosphere, and other elements of visual storytelling. Especially with types of puppetry such as shadow puppetry, we as an audience are able to broaden our understanding of physicality and normalcy through imagery that expands beyond our daily understanding of life, even through the simplest changes such as the realistic factors of a humanoid figure. It is one of the few mediums that allows us to warp our view of normalcy through physicality, and play on the more cartoonish art-styles available to us. It is also just a generally useful medium to begin branching out into different artistic mediums and material choices. Puppetry can go from 3d to 2d, paper to fabric, the choices you can make in puppetry are truly wide. I find that to be the best part of puppetry; it allows for you to explore as an artist, and discover new ways of expressing creativity.