Tucked away in an industrial part of Brooklyn is a magical workshop brimming with curiosities and sinister looking characters - I have a penchant for things like these.
This Monday I had the pleasure of visiting Julian Crouch's studio in
Brooklyn. I met Julian after a performance of
Birdheart in San Francisco
a few months ago. When I planned my trip to New York it had to include a
visit to the master puppet maker's studio. I realized that I had been
following his work for years without knowing it. I had been showing my
puppetry class images culled offline and from the New York Times, even using the soundtrack from
Shock Headed Peter, a production he worked on with the band the
Tiger Lillies.
Julian is currently working on a job for a production at
La Scala among other projects.
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| Works in progress. |
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| Julian near some of his creations. |
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| Some leftover heads from Birdheart with another painting as a backdrop. |
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| One of Julian's paintings. |
Julian uses a lot of natural materials in making his puppets from baskets, and bark to tree sap based glue and burlap and what appeared to be real teeth and bones.
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| Julian with a work in progress. |
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Helping out on a project was, puppeteer and
musician, Erik Sanko. Erik is also a puppeteer I've admired for making creepy, hoary marionettes. I've had a poster from his production
The Fortune Teller on my classroom wall for years from one of my favorite little theaters in NYC called the
HERE Theater.
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| With Erik Sanko |
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| With Julian and friend and fellow puppeteer, Andrea Lomanto. |
What a treat to discover two great puppeteers in one visit. I guess I got lucky. Scroll down for images of more puppets from past productions.
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