Trudi Cohen

interviewed by Katharine Matthias

Katharine Matthias: You recently curated Great Small Works’ “Isolating Together: International Toy Theater Festival” starting this past April. What have been your guiding principles for curating this theater festival in a virtual setting? 

Trudi Cohen: Between 1993 and 2013, Great Small Works presented ten International Toy Theater Festivals in New York City. The festivals included curated programs of Toy Theater plays, mostly for adults and some for family audiences, an extensive exhibit of Toy Theater-inspired visual art, workshops, symposia and – twice – an opening day Greatest Smallest Parade with miniature rolling floats and live brass band. We stopped doing these festivals primarily for financial reasons, since we could not find sufficient funding to support them. Still, they are always in the back of my mind…how can we do a festival again? After attending several puppet festivals last year, I really wanted to find a way. And then, as soon as the pandemic’s isolation hit, I had the idea of inviting previous festival participants to create something in response to our shared situation. The guiding principles: completely open process where everyone who wanted to show something was included, encouraging people to keep the shows under three minutes and to embrace the characteristics of traditional Toy Theater, and doing it in a way which would create the least amount of stress for everyone.

KM: The festival has continued into the month of July, with recent performances occurring on July 16 and July 19. How has the festival evolved and changed over the months of the pandemic? Has your curation of the festival changed over the past few months in quarantine?

TC: No, the curation did not change. We were very aware, though, that the 5th and 6th evenings of the festival would have a different focus from the earlier ones, because of the death of George Floyd and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement. Since the great majority of the shows were created specifically for the festival, they very much reflected what was on people’s minds. So for a lot of the shows, the subject matter shifted from isolation, togetherness and community to racial justice and police reform.

KM: You have also produced ten International Toy Theater Festivals starting in the 90s with Great Small Works. What captivates you about Toy Theater, and what do you think allows it to translate so well onto the cyber-stage? 

TC: Yes, I have loved Toy Theater for decades. It has become a significant part of Great Small Works’ programs. Here is some language from our website about how we came to it as a form, and how we’ve engaged with it over the years:

https://greatsmallworks.org/archive/festivals-spaghetti/index.html

I guess I’ll just add… the five essential things about Toy Theater which we put into a goofy song we teach at our workshops and festivals are: it’s got an arch (proscenium), it’s miniature, it’s made out of paper, it is flat, and you can do it yourself. So, it’s the idea that by creating a frame, both the visual frame of the Toy Theater stage and the framing of a set period of time, you have the essence of theater. I often tell this story, but in a workshop we once gave, a young girl and her father made a theater in the shape of a tooth and made an interior scene which they called “Yesterday my friend Rachel pulled out her tooth.” Well, that framing of the picture and the moment for me was a perfect piece of theater.

I love Toy Theater because you can tell stories which are grand, or stories about walking to the grocery store; you can present deep complicated ideas or just show a simple picture; you can create elaborate sets and lighting and soundtracks or you can use a cardboard box, paper puppets and your live voice. Whatever you do, the show-making and the story-telling are entirely within your means. And everyone has a story to tell. Offering tools for people to tell their stories, with a form that does not require them to be “performers,” creates an environment where incredible jewels can emerge.

It was certainly the case with this “Isolating Together” festival. Without imposing any curatorial choices at all, the contributions were completely uplifting, and marvelously varied.

KM: How have you navigated some of the challenges of being virtual?  What have you discovered and learned through the virtual international theater festival? What practical advice do you have for leaders and producers of virtual festivals? 

TC: Well, this is an entirely new universe and we share the challenges faced by all theater and puppet artists. The need for reflecting on our common situation has been apparent since the pandemic began in early March. The need for puppeteers to have a place where their work could be shown was also apparent.

The technical learning curve was steep. It took lots of advice and experimenting.

Somehow, fortuitously, we anticipated that Toy Theater would adapt to the online medium. We had no idea how well… that was a happy outcome. I have always valued the intimacy… and consequent impracticality… of Toy Theater, and felt it could not be replicated for large audiences. But here was a discovery, a revelation for me -- It turns out we were proposing a form with which you could make a show in isolation on your kitchen table, the frame of the Toy Theater proscenium fit well in the frame of the personal digital screen, and hundreds of audience members could have an intimate viewing experience at the same time. Amazing.

I think what has been important for me is to be true within the virtual sphere to the DIY aesthetic of much of our puppet work. That means that technical glitches are ok and forgiven, and that what’s genuinely compelling is the live spirit of the broadcasts, and the heart with which all the shows were made. You don’t have to edit together a perfect video which seamlessly goes from one show to another; the imperfections, the spunk of a live MC who can acknowledge and cover for technical mistakes, those are things which make audiences feel part of the experience. It is important to us to create community with our theater projects, to bring people into our world, to invent contexts where people’s work can be shown. My advice would be to find technical solutions which don’t cover up the humanity in the work.

KM: Have your performers found it easy to move to online performance? Did your performers have needs that were different for online performance that they do not have when you are producing the live festival?

TC: The transition seemed to be remarkably smooth for the artists. The form, of course, is a simple one. There was a mix of live performances and pre-recorded performances, and each presented different things to learn. We needed to work with the live performers, to check their connections and lighting and sound. But I think fitting the shows into the frame was completely straightforward.

 There were many needs presented by live performance that we did not have. No concerns about setting up and striking multiple shows in a space; no lighting; no house management; no travel; etc.

KM: You have also reached a wide audience through your virtual theater festival, and you and John Bell have recently participated in a bilingual conversation in Spanish and English with Títeres Resistiendo al Coronavirus and a bilingual workshop in English and French about Great Small Works and Toy Theater with AQM (Association québécoise des marionnettistes). How has the international aspect of “Isolating Together: International Toy Theater Festival” expanded and changed how Great Small Works has interacted with artists and audiences? Has the accessibility of online theater changed who has interacted with your work? 

TC: I guess one plus side of the pandemic has been the realization that we can engage people from many distant places through use of the internet. I mean, that option has been available for a while now, but being forced to use it makes us better understand those possibilities. Yes, we had performers from places as diverse as Singapore, Mexico, Germany, and all across the U.S. I would say that, regarding performers, we have been building this international network for decades, but it has always been challenging to bring these artists together. The cost of transportation and housing, the difficulties of scheduling…removing those barriers made it possible for everyone to participate, and that was quite joyous.

I’m not sure to what extent we expanded the audience. I suspect the majority of viewers were people in the Northeast. (We have no data to support this.) However, it was indeed exciting to be invited to speak to puppeteers in Quebec, and across Canada, and to puppeteers across Latin America. I think the discovery that at least one form of puppetry lends itself so well to digital transmission was compelling for many puppeteers.

KM: What platforms and technologies did you experiment with while creating and curating the Virtual Toy Theater Festival? 

TC: We actually ended up with the first thing we tried. We used a Zoom webinar to run the show, and streamed it to Facebook Live. It took some experimenting to understand how to use these platforms for our needs, and how to divide the broadcasting tasks. We had 4 distinct roles – one person, kind of the technical director, who was the Zoom “host” and spotlighted the different sources; one person (me) who had all the pre-recorded shows downloaded on a hard drive and shared them to the Zoom session; one person (or multiple people) as live MC, announcing all the shows; and one person monitoring the Facebook chat room.

KM: What have you learned about yourself as an artist through the festival? 

 TC: I think I’ve learned to trust my artistic sensibilities and to be true to them in whatever new context we’re discovering.

I certainly learned that Toy Theater works in the online medium.

I have been learning over recent years that my artistic contribution to the world could be the creation of contexts in which artists can create and be seen. Discovering the possibilities of this online festival was a lovely affirmation of that role, an unexpected extension of the live festivals we’ve done.

KM: After we can come together in-person, would you still keep this kind of virtual work going? Do you think your work with this virtual production will change how Great Small Works will engage with audiences in the future?

TC: The Great Small Works company has been struggling for years because we no longer live in the same city. This project – and the separation imposed by the pandemic -- opened some new visions for us about how to work together remotely. 

I do like the online programs we’ve been doing. But I’m not sure to what extent we’d want to continue them once we can be doing in-person shows. Everyone is missing that so much…performers, for sure. But I also think that audiences are tired of watching screens, and what was the thrill of joining a community of online watchers will no longer be at all attractive.