CLIENT – Puppetmongers
CLIENT – Puppetmongers (by Jennifer Radford)
The Company: Multi-award-winning Puppetmongers Theatre was established by the sister and brother Co-Artistic Director team of Ann Powell and David Powell. Since the inception of Puppetmongers in 1974, they have been dedicated to new play development and to maintaining their repertoire of original shows. Puppetmongers has performed throughout Canada and the US, as well as in the UK, France, Belgium, Germany and Iran.
I was contracted by the General Manager of Puppetmongers to create marketing materials for remounts of two of the company’s most beloved works, The Miller And His Wife (postcards) and Tea At The Palace (posters).
I was provided with a small number of publicity and archival shots of the puppets and the sets from each production. My brief was to create compelling advertising assets from this limited imagery. The design style for the two shows were to feel related to each other as they were part of the same season of shows.
The Miller And His Wife
For the Miller And his Wife, I placed the puppet-Miller family portrait into an ornate frame; the Miller broke the proverbial 4th wall, legs casually extending over the bench created by the frame. The angled frame is intended to communictae the comic and eccentric nature of the characters and story. Gold text to comtinue the vibe of the ornate frame.
The Miller and His Wife, populated with a heart-warming cast of eccentric puppet caricatures, is a witty English situation comedy about power, bullying and trickery. The play has been recognized as an outstanding production with a Citation of Excellence in the Art of Puppetry f rom l’Union International de la Marionette, USA.
Tea At The Palace
Tea At the Palace, set in old Russia, and playing at Christmastime, needed to reflect both the season it was playing in and the flavour of the production itself. I cropped a variety of elements from the production photography to create a collage that feels both contemporary and vintage. The red and gold colours reflect both western yuletide and old Slavic design.
Rich in magical surprises and mechanical ingenuity, inventive puppetry and exuberant folk music, Tea at the Palace is a sumptuous retelling of two stories told in old Russia about justice, humanity and compassion.