THE PLASTIC BAG STORE
Created, written, designed and directed by
ROBIN FROHARDT*
In collaboration with the Puppetry ensemble:
NICK LEHANE, ADMIRAL GREY*, ROWAN MAGEE, ANDY MANJUCK, EMMA WISEMAN
Original music by
FREDDI PRICE
Sound Designer
CHAD RAINES
Technical Director
JEREMY LYDIC
Co-Produced by
ROBIN FROHARDT and POMEGRANATE ARTS
POMEGRANATE ARTS
Linda Brumbach, Executive Producer
Alisa E. Regas, Associate Producer
General Manager
RACHEL KATWAN
Filmed Elements
Director of Photography: ROB KOLODNY
Producer: CAITLIN MAE BURKE
*appears in live immersive installation
The Plastic Bag Store was commissioned by Times Square Arts with generous support provided by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; the National Endowment for the Arts; public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council. Additional commissioning support has been provided by Carolina Performing Arts, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It was developed with support from: MANA Contemporary, The Made in NY Women’s Film, TV & Theatre Fund by the City of New York Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment in association with The New York Foundation for the Arts; Olson Kundig; The Jim Henson Foundation; and is sponsored, in part, by the Greater New York Arts Development Fund of the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, administered by Brooklyn Arts Council (BAC). The Plastic Bag Store film segments were commissioned by the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA with additional support by the Adelaide Festival. The Plastic Bag Store is a project of Creative Capital.
The Plastic Bag Store gives special thanks to Paul Lazar and Morgan Jenness for dramaturgical and directorial consultation.
The Plastic Bag Store would not be possible without the generous support of Mark Siffin, CEO of Maefield Development and owner of 20 Times Square.
PRODUCTION STAFF:
Associate Production Manager: Erik Saxvik
Sound Engineer: Chad Raines
Originating Puppetry Lighting Designer: Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew
Associate Lighting Designer: Tsubasa Kamei
Stage Manager: Erica Zippel Schnitzer
Production Assistant: Tyler Gunther*
SCENIC CONSTRUCTION: Silovsky Studios, Lydic! Design and Production
PROPS CONSTRUCTION SUPPORT: Admiral Grey, Tyler Gunther
ILLUSTRATIONS, GRAPHICS and COSTUME DESIGN SUPPORT: Tyler Gunther
Instagram: @pomegranatearts
Facebook: www.facebook.com/pomegranatearts
Robin Frohardt is an award-winning artist, puppet designer, and director living in Brooklyn, NY. Frohardt’s performance and puppetry-based work has been presented at St. Ann’s Warehouse and HERE in New York City, as well as national venues including the Pittsburgh International Festival of Firsts and the NEXTNOW Festival in Maryland. Her films have been screened at the Telluride Film Festival, Maritime Film Festival, and the Parish Museum. Her original play The Pigeoning, which debuted in 2013 and was hailed by the New York Times as “a tender, fantastical symphony of the imagination,” continues to tour in the US and abroad, and has been translated into German, Greek, Arabic and Turkish. She has received a Creative Capital Award and a DisTil Fellowship from Carolina Performing Arts for The Plastic Bag Store; has been the recipient of Made In NY Woman’s Fund Grant Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and MacDowell Colony Fellowship; and was the first artist in Residence at Olson Kundig, a renowned design and architecture firm in Seattle. In addition to directing her own work, Frohardt’s puppetry and props have also appeared in TV shows such as Orange is the New Black and 30 Rock as well as Radio City Music Hall’s Spring Spectacular.
Paul Lazar (Directorial Consultant) is a founding member, along with Annie-B Parson, of Big Dance Theater. He has co-directed and acted in works for Big Dance since 1991, including commissions from the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Walker Art Center, Jacob’s Pillow, Dance Theater Workshop, Classic Stage Company and Japan Society. Outside of Big Dance, Paul directed Elephant Room at St. Ann’s Warehouse, and Young Jean Lee’s Obie Award winning, We’re Gonna Die. He also directed Bodycast: An Artist Lecture by Suzanne Bocanegra, featuring Frances McDormand, for the 2014 BAM Next Wave Festival. His one-person dance/theatre piece, Cage Shuffle, premiered at the American Realness Festival in 2017 and has toured nationally and internationally. He acts in plays, movies, TV and teaches at N.Y.U.
freddi price (Composer) is a multi-disciplinary performing and recording artist, musician, multi-instrumentalist, band leader, composer, actor, and voiceover artist. Over the years he has collaborated, composed, and performed with bands, artists, and stage productions on both US coasts in addition to touring in the US and Europe with his talents and music having been featured by the likes of David Byrne, Eric Burdon, Ann Magnuson among many others on stage and on recordings. His compositions, performances, and voice have accompanied theater productions in San Francisco and New York. For his original music for Robin Frohardt’s previous NYC puppet theater piece, The Pigeoning, he was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music in a Play. Besides providing music for theater and some commercial work, fp also performs on many instruments and voice in a variety of forms and genres, from solo to large groups, blues to rock and soul, brass band and cabaret.
Chad Raines (Sound Designer) is a Sound Designer and Composer from Dallas, TX. For theater he has collaborated with Rachel Chavkin, Lileana Blain-Cruz, Robert Woodruff and many others. As a performer he has shared the stage with David Byrne, Amanda Palmer, White Denim, Weasel Walter, Ra Ra Riot, Quintron and Miss Pussycat, and many others. At the moment he performs with the bands Holy Hell and The Simple Pleasure.
Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew (Lighting Designer) is a designer for theatre, opera, dance, music performances and installation. Her designs have been seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM), Rose Theater Jazz at Lincoln Center, Baryshnikov Arts Center (BAC), HERE Arts Center, St. Ann's Warehouse, La Mama ETC, The Kitchen, ArtsEmerson, Manhattan School of Music, Joyce SOHO, Bard Music Festival, REDCAT, Highways Performance Space, and internationally at Havana, Prague, Lima, Edinburgh, Tokyo, Graz Austria and Bloemfontein South Africa. Jeanette received the Bel Geddes Design Enhancement award for her lighting and projection design for Ludic Proxy. She was the recipient of the 2009-2011 NEA/TCG Career Development Program and was the 2006 Gilbert Hemsley Jr. lighting internship. Jeanette currently teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and advises at Barnard College.
Erica Zippel Schnitzer (Stage Manager) is a Brooklyn-based theater maker. Select credits include The Recipe (The Momentary), Only Human (Off-Broadway), Playdate (Dixon Place), What The Constitution Means to Me (NYTW), Mile Long Opera (The Office Arts), Black Light (The Public), and Celebrate Brooklyn! Music Festival, The Miseducation of the Black Womyn (The Tang Art Museum). Erica is a founding member of 3DaysPrior Productions and Four Person Phantom. For upcoming projects visit ericaschnitzer.com.
Caitlin Mae Burke (Producer, filmed segments) is an Emmy-winning producer. An inaugural inductee into DOC NYC’s 40 Under 40 and alumna of Berlinale Talents, Caitlin’s award-winning films have received accolades at top-tier festivals including Sundance, Berlinale, and Tribeca Film Festival and have been broadcast across the US and around the world. Her work has screened at MoMa, The Museum of the Moving Image, and in movie theaters internationally. Caitlin's non-film projects include producing the Webby-nominated podcast OTHER MEN NEED HELP. She is the supervising producer at IF/Then Shorts, a fund and mentorship program for short documentaries via Field of Vision.
Robert Kolodny (Director of Photography, filmed segments) is an Emmy Award winning Director and Cinematographer. He has contributed cinematography to film works by David Byrne, The Safdie Brothers, Laura Poitras and Robert Greene; for projects that have screened at the Sundance Film Festival and the Criterion Channel. Robert has created and publicly displayed site-specific video installations that have been shown on exhibition at The Brooklyn Museum, Museum of Fine Art Boston and the Lehmann Maupin Gallery. His short film FLY ON OUT was screened at the Court Métrage at the Festival de Cannes. He garnered a Vimeo Staff Pick for his short ALLO ALLO.
Admiral Grey (Performer, Props) is a multidisciplinary artist who has presented original and collaborative theatrical works as a performer, writer, deviser, director, composer, designer, and puppeteer at LaMama, University Settlement, The New Ohio, SoHo Rep, HERE, Rubulad, Dixon Place, Irving Plaza, Judson Memorial Church, and many others. She has created modern theatrical performances with The Nerve Tank, The Drunkard's Wife, Psychic Readings, Sister Sylvester, and Snake In The Boot Collective, as well as solo performative work. As a vocalist, bassist and keyboardist she has toured with her bands nationally and internationally, as well as performed at NYC venues Saint Vitus, The Bowery Electric, Trans Pecos, Death By Audio, Northsix, Glasslands Gallery, Rockwood Music Hall, Silent Barn, and Baby’s All Right. Currently she is a Puppet Lab artist debuting new work at St. Ann's Warehouse this June and is vocalist and bassist for the new band Holy Hell.
Tyler Gunther (Performer, Props, Production Assistant), originally from Arkansas, moved to New York after attending grad school for Costume Design at the University of Maryland. He has designed costumes for theatre, opera and dance and has assisted designers at The Santa Fe Opera and Liceau Opera in Barcelona. Tyler has also worked as a studio assistant for artists Robin Frohardt and Duke Riley. When not building medieval pageant wagons he also freelances as an illustrator.
Nick Lehane (Performer) Select puppeteer credits: Robin Frohardt’s The Pigeoning (HERE); Petrushka (Giants Are Small, NY Philharmonic, Barbican Centre); Islamic Solidarity Games Opening Ceremonies (Baku, Azerbaijan); Doug Fitch’s El Retablo de Maese Pedro (American Symphony Orchestra, Bard SummerScape); Little Red Fish (NYC Children’s Theater/Puppet Kitchen); Pip’s Island; James Ortiz’s The Little Mermaid; “Lore” (Amazon). Select puppet design: PigPen Theatre Co.’s The Tale of Desperereaux (Old Globe, Berkley Rep) and The Phantom Folktales (Virgin Atlantic); Douglas Carter Beane and Lewis Flinn’s Hood (Asolo Rep, dir. Mark Brokaw). Select acting: This Is Our Youth (Broadway); The Old Man and the Old Moon (PigPen); Fidelis (The Public); The Electric Baby (Two River); Set in the Living Room... (TRE). Lehane’s puppet play Chimpanzee premiered at HERE Arts Center through the Dream Music Puppetry Program and has toured to the World Puppet Theater Festival (Charleville-Mézières), Casteliers (Montreal), and the London International Mime Festival at The Barbican Centre.
Rowan Magee (Performer) is a puppeteer from Troy, NY, and a curator for the Object Movement Festival, a winter residency and spring showcase of experimental puppet artists in NYC. He has puppeteered on international tours with Phantom Limb Company, Robin Frohardt, Nick Lehane, and Dan Hurlin, and in New York City for American Opera Projects, Trusty Sidekick, Chris Green, Spencer Lott, and the National Theater in the 2018 Tony Award winning Broadway revival of Angels in America. This summer Rowan performed the reference puppet for the titular character in the upcoming feature film Clifford the Big Red Dog, in theaters fall 2020. He has designed puppets for The Dalton School, St Mark's School, and Lincoln Center Education, received a Jim Henson Foundation Grant for his marionette show No 1 Chinese, and teaches for CO/LAB, Marquis Studios, and Story Pirates.
Andy Manjuck (Performer) is a Brooklyn-based puppeteer, director, and voiceover artist. Recent work: Puppetry: Chimpanzee (Nick Lehane); The Pigeoning (Robin Frohardt); Made in China; Baby Universe; Saga (Wakka Wakka); UAE 48th National Day (Betty Productions) Petrushka (NY Philharmonic Orchestra, Giants Are Small), VO: Adam Ruins Everything (TruTV); Unavowed (Wadjet Eye Games); Whispers of a Machine (Clifftop Games); MooseTube (GoNoodle). Andy is the Co-Artistic Director of the theater company Eat Drink Tell Your Friends whose show, Lectures, recently had a residency at the Jim Henson Carriage House. He is also a company member of the award-winning Wakka Wakka. His new puppet play, Bill's 44th, a recipient of a Henson Foundation Production Grant, is currently in development. It is part of Puppet Lab at St. Ann's Warehouse this June, and will be performed at the New York State Puppetry Festival before premiering at Dixon Place this October. www.andymanjuck.com
Emma Wiseman (Performer) is a multidisciplinary theatermaker with a particular interest in puppets and objects. She has been a resident artist with Mabou Mines and the Puppet Lab at St. Ann’s Warehouse, and her original and collaborative works of performance have been seen at venues including St. Ann’s Warehouse, Dixon Place, the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival, Abrons Arts Center, CATCH performance series, and the INSITU Dance Festival. As a performer, Emma has worked with David Neumann, Jeanette Yew, Megan Murtha, Dan Hurlin, and dance/music collective The Space We Make. Emma has toured internationally with Robin Frohardt’s The Pigeoning and Nick Lehane’s Chimpanzee. She served as lead puppeteer for the Emmy-nominated “Animated Life”, a New York Times Op-Doc series created by Sweet Fern Productions, and has worked on puppet videos for the World Wildlife Fund, singer-songwriter Nellen Dryden, and the band Mipso. Emmawiseman.me
Pomegranate Arts (Co-Producer, General Manager)
For the past twenty years, Pomegranate Arts has worked in close collaboration with a small group of contemporary artists and arts institutions to bring bold and ambitious artistic ideas to fruition. Founder and Director Linda Brumbach, along with Managing Director Alisa E. Regas produced the Olivier Award-winning revival of Einstein on the Beach, the multi-award winning production of Taylor Mac’s A 24-Decade History of Popular Music and the North American tour of Phelim McDermott and Julian Crouch’s Shockheaded Peter featuring The Tiger Lillies. Since it’s inception, Pomegranate Arts has produced over 30 major new performing arts productions and tours for Philip Glass, Laurie Anderson, Lucinda Childs, Dan Zanes, London’s Improbable, Sankai Juku, Batsheva, and Bassem Youssef and collaborated on new productions with the Kronos Quartet, Leonard Cohen, Robert Wilson, and Frank Gehry. Pomegranate Arts hopes to continue to build a community of institutions and individuals that are inspired by the artists who help bring beauty and truth into the world, ask important questions, and take bold risks.
POMEGRANATE ARTS
www.pomegranatearts.com
Founder and Director: Linda Brumbach
Managing Director Creative: Alisa E. Regas
Managing Director, Operations: Kaleb Kilkenny
General Manager: Rachel Katwan
Production Manager: Jeremy Lydic