The Artist in Residence is an invited artist who comes to the O’Neill Puppetry Conference to develop a new work. The artists often bring their own ensembles to help create the work, or they can solicit participants to work in the project. They are supported and encouraged by the staff and the entire conference. They also have the option to perform part of the work in the Final Performances or to have it seen by conference members only.

Some of the artists have been Ron Binion, Marc Weiner, Bonnie Remsberg, Richard Termine, and Heather Henson.

This year we are pleased to have Ulysses Jones as our Artist in Residence.

Robert’s Étude

For the past two years, Ulysses Jones and Megan McNerney, working together as Puppet Odyssey Productions, have been developing two parallel projects: one, a study of Meyerhold’s system of biomechanics and its potential for application to puppetry; and the other, the search for a fitting means of telling a specific, true story of the life and death of one man, Robert “Woody” Woodward. Robert’s Étude is the nexus of these two lines of thought and an experiment in both.

The late director Vsevolod Meyerhold’s biomechanics is a system of training for actors based in physical work. In our study we have come to believe that biomechanics and the philosophies behind it are an apt lens through which to approach puppetry. We now propose that biomechanical exercises will be an excellent basis for precise, conscious, effective puppet manipulation. In the development of Robert’s Étude, we will seek ways to integrate biomechanical work with puppetry both in the training of puppeteers and in the performance itself.

Robert’s story, on which this piece is based, is complex. In brief, on December 2, 2001 a man ran into a church and begged onlookers for political asylum. Police ran in after him. The man, Robert Woodward, pointed a small knife at his own eye, at which point the police officers shot him a number of times. He was taken to a nearby hospital where he died from the wounds. The background of the situation is unknown, and certain specifics are unexplained. What is known is that Robert’s violent death stands in sharp contrast to his gentle nature in life. “Woody,” as he was known to friends, was a dedicated pacifist and environmentalist who weighed carefully the consequences of his every action. We see many possibilites for the telling of this story, and speculation about the details and the politics is tempting. However, we wish to honor Robert’s life rather than to dwell on the circumstances of his death. We feel that at its deepest, distilled core, this is a story of someone who gave to others over and over, in many forms, throughout his life, but when he asked for help could not obtain it. Whatever the events of that day, this is the theme we take from the story and which we feel is worth communicating to others in dramatic form.

In this iteration of this project, we will attempt to apply biomechanical principles to puppetry and puppetry to Robert’s story. This will involve the development of a sequence of movements, much like a biomechanical étude, for a humanoid, tabletop-style puppet, and the presentation of variations on that étude to construct a dramatic arc. This piece thus serves several purposes for us. One is to extract from a personal story a universal, essential theme and to relate it to an audience. Another is to continue our exploration in applying biomechanics to puppet performance by integrating its principles directly into a composition for a three-person, tabletop-style rod puppet. Finally, by developing and presenting this piece at the O’Neill Puppetry Conference, we hope to test the validity of both of these ideas as means for creating strong, well-crafted puppetry pieces that connect and resonate with an audience.

Ulysses Jones - Ulysses Jones is a puppet designer, builder, and performer. While studying for his MFA in puppetry at the University of Connecticut he designed and built puppets for the world premier of William Gibson’s Jonah’s Dream. In 2006 he was an emerging artist at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Center’s National Puppetry Conference. He has studied puppetry at the Sandglass Summer Institute. For the last two years he has been working to incorporate Meyerhold’s system of biomechanics into a codified method for performing and teaching puppetry. Ulysses is pleased to be invited back this summer as the Artist in Residence at the National Puppetry Conference. Ulysses has created puppets for such shows as Go Diego, Go!, Thomas and Friends Live! On stage, and most recently on Broadway for Patti Lupone’s Gypsy.