Bride of Wildenstein, Panorama (Premiere)

The weird and tragic love story wildly reimagines tabloid accounts of the real-life “cat woman”, Jocelyn Wildenstein. As the protagonist’s marriage dissolves, she begins to reinvent herself through drastic measures. But biomedical and surgical procedures to become more feline only heighten her sense of estrangement and embolden her quest to find a fiercer sense of self.

Thursday,
January 28, 2010  
8 o’clock PM

Friday,
January 29, 2010  
8 o’clock PM

Saturday,
January 30, 2010  
8 o’clock PM

Sunday,
January 31, 2010  
8 o’clock PM

Drawing on the illustrious history of the Great Panorama Paintings and myriad popular entertainments of the 19th century, The Velaslavasay Panorama is an exhibition hall, theatre and garden dedicated to the production and presentation of unusual visual experiences on themes of landscape, immersion and illusion.

Automata is an arts organization dedicated to the creation, incubation, and presentation of experimental puppet theater, experimental film, and other contemporary art practices centered on ideas of artifice and performing objects.

Ibex Puppetry is an entertainment company dedicated to promoting the fine art of puppetry in all of its various mediums, nurturing work for a myriad of venues including stage, film, and gallery. 

Conceived + Performed by
Marsian De Lellis

Written by
Marsian De Lellis + P.J. McWhiskers

Music Composed + Performed by
Josh Senick

Lighting Design
Brandon Stirling Baker

Costumes design
Hunter Wells

Corset Design
Lee Frank Perez Vargas

Production Management
Tori Oakes

Stage Management
Sarah Yates

Sound Operation
Moira MacDonald

Marsian De Lellis

(Creator, Performer)  is an interdisciplinary artist and writer who constructs installations and time-based visual narratives that memorialize obsessional lives. Their work celebrates the stories of unconventional people whose private manias become public fodder for tabloids and reality television. Combining biographical material with their own autobiography becomes a means to channel their own personal struggles into something comprehensible. Through their practice, they investigate embodiment, desire, contemporary forms of animism, and neurodivergence.

P.J. McWhiskers

(Co-Writer) is a performance art entity who has for thirteen years been creating and collaborating in original works staged in Boston, Provincetown and New York City. At the age of seventeen P.J. joined the Massachusetts-based theatre company “The Gold Dust Orphans,” where she performed as a principal member for eight years. She is best known for curating the Provincetown based performance salon and booze fest KooK, co-writing and staring in Fun-time with Pea-pie and Jo-Jo and You Suck At Life and Everything Else, a sketch comedy karaoke show.

Derron Wood

(Director) is the Executive Artistic Director of Flock Theatre in New London, CT. He has brought a Flock company to the National Puppetry Conference since 1992, and oversees their integration with the guest artists selected to participate. Derron is a Connecticut Commission on the Arts Master Teaching Artist. He has developed numerous educational-based residencies for schools and museums.

Josh Senick

(Composer, Accompanist) is an L.A. based composer and sound designer who focuses on live theatrical work. Originally from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Josh attended Case Western Reserve University and the Cleveland Institute of Music in Cleveland, Ohio where he received a B.A. in Music and Theater in 2005. He received an M.F.A. in 2009 Arts in Theatrical Sound Design at CalArts.

Hunter Wells

(Costume Design) (Costume Designer, MFA CalArts 2010) Theater Credits: Funnyhouse of a Negro, dir. Michael Garcés (CalArts 2009), John Gabriel Borkman, dir. Maureen Husky (CalArts 2009), How to Disappear and Never be Found, dir. Lily Whitsett (CalArts 2008), Aesop’s Dreams, dir. Chris Cole (CalArts 2008). Film/Video Credits: The Way I Loved You, Music Video feat. Diana Shaginyan, dir. Darrell Rigby (AFI 2009), Love Me Dead, dir. James Connelly (AFI 2009), Matinee, dir. Michael Callahan (USC 2009), A Month and Some Days, dir. Lin Qiu (CalArts 2008).

Lee Frank Perez Vargas

(Costume Design) has worked as a designer since 1989. Lee has designed costume for eight theatre productions and three short films. Lee has a small studio in Los Feliz near Griffith Park wherefrom he creates and teaches his skills.

Brandon Stirling Baker

(Lighting Designer) is a lighting designer for Theatre, Dance and Performance. His designs have been produced at the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival, New York Toy Theatre Festival (GSW), New York Fringe Festival, REDCAT, Los Angeles Music Center, ACDFA Dance Festival, Santa Monica Museum of Art and many other venues. Brandon studied at the California Institute of the Arts and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow.

Sarah Marie Ibrahim

(Sound Effects, Vocal Coach) Sarah Marie Ibrahim is a graduate student in Experimental Sound Practices and Integrated Media at CalArts. Her works include vocally driven

Moira MacDonald

(Sound Operator) is currently pursuing her MFA in Puppetry at CalArts. She has worked with Janie Geiser, Susan Simpson, The Little Fakers, Basil Twist, Erik Sanko and Jessica Grindstaff. She most recently performed at The Velaslavasay Panorama in The Sparkly Winter Christmas Holiday Hanukkah Nogstyle Christmas Show, co-conceived with JP Parr.

Chase Woolner

(Puppet Builder) has been puppeteering since the age of five when he started performing in his elementary school and with Red Moon Puppet Theater in Chicago. In high school, he founded one of the nation’s few high school puppetry clubs, which is still going strong today with 137 alumni. Chase is currently pursuing his degree in puppetry at California Institute of the Arts (CalArts).

Alice Boehm

Byung Lee

Chi Kyung

Chris Barecca

Ellen McCartney

Greg Ballora

Heather Henson

Janie Geiser

Larry Seigel

Leslie Cararra-Rudolph

Lynn Jeffries

Lynn Rosenfeld

Marianne Kubik

Martin Robinson

Pam Arciero

Raphael Lopez Barantez

Richard Termine

Ron Binion

Robert Smythe

Steven Levine

Susan Simpson

Tyler Bunch

Vandy Wood

Z. Briggs