On October 1st, 2009, I was the recipient of a Third Quarter 2009 ARC (Artist Resource for Completion) Grant from the Durfee Foundation for performances Bride of Wildenstein – The Musical at the Velaslavaysay Panorama.
In Bride of Wildenstein – The Musical, an aging socialite grows fur and claws to recapture the attention of her philandering game hunter husband. (more)
Durfee ARC funds enabled me to hire master puppet builder Greg Ballora, to improve upon the mechanics of several existing puppets and purchase materials necessary for this upgrade. Ballora who specializes in taking puppets that have strong visual design, and improving their internal mechanical structures, by creating elegant, practically effortless, mechanisms, has built puppets for film and television, including Team America and Spiderman II as well as for local theatre artists, Janie Geiser and Leslie Carrara-Rudolph. Durfee funds also helped me to improve the sound quality with wireless microphones.
The Durfee Foundation is a family foundation that seeks to adhere to the values of their founders, Dorothy Durfee Avery and R. Stanton Avery, by rewarding individual initiative and leadership. The majority of their grant making focuses on the Los Angeles region, where the foundation’s history lies, and where funding needs are great.
Bride of Wildenstein was developed at CalArts and the National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center with funding from The Durfee Foundation and Ibex Puppetry.
