Cycling Oriented Puppet Squad
Volunteering
Night of Dread: Volunteers Wanted!
Sep 22nd
September is whistling past and preparations for this year’s Night of Dread are underway! We have some exciting plans in place for this year’s event and we need your help to bring it all together. This will be the 12th annual yearly festival of facing our fears, to be held on October 29th 2011. We are holding open workshops through September and October, and you’re invited: build a mask, puppet, or shrine, or help us build the effigy of the Year’s Great Fear! OR if you are interested in helping us on the Night itself, WE WANT YOU! Please read below for a variety of volunteer roles we are looking to fill.
Email outreach_claypaper@bell.net to get involved!
Workshop Schedule: (at the Field House and/or Rink House)
Saturday, September 24th —-12 – 4PM
Thursday, September 29th—–5 – 9PM
Friday, September 30th———5 – 9PM
Monday, October 3rd———–5 – 9PM
Tuesday, October 4th————5 – 9PM
October 5th – 28th:
Wednesday – Friday 5 – 9PM
Saturday and Sunday 11AM – 7PM
Wednesday & Thursday September 26 & 27: Volunteer Orientation 6:30pm, Dufferin Grove Park
SATURDAY OCTOBER 29th – NIGHT of DREAD!
VOLUNTEER POSITIONS:
- Technical assistants for sound, lighting, set and stage management
- Puppeteers
- Masked Paraders
- Parade marshals
- Money Catchers (truly important for Clay & Paper Theatre)
- Bread Givers
- Clean Up Crew (everyone’s favorite people)
Join us for the twelfth annual Night of Dread, Clay & Paper Theatre’s invitation to the community to parade our private and collective fears through the darkened streets of Toronto. The hour-long procession returns to Dufferin Grove Park for an evening of ceremonial festivities that compel us to call on, mock and banish the fears that unite and divide us in these tumultuous times.
Night of Dread is an unforgettable evening of pageantry, music and masquerade incorporating towering puppets, stilt dancers, fire-spinners and fearful masks in a daring exploration of dread.This much-beloved community celebration incorporates international folk and theatrical traditions, drawing inspiration from festivals of death and remembrance around the world. Come dance in the streets with our city’s finest musicians, puppeteers, dancers and stilt walkers; together we’ll laugh at our fears, waltz with death, eat the bread of the dead, and remember those who have gone from our midst.
Clay & Paper has many costumes and puppets available for the public to wear in the parade; come early to the Dufferin Rink House to avoid disappointment!
4 PM: Parade begins assembling at Dufferin Grove
6 PM: Parade departs
Dress Code: Black & white and dreadful all over
Pay-What-You-Can/ $10 Suggested Donation
The Pedaler’s Wager: Now Playing!
Jul 27th
The Pedaler’s Wager, Clay & Paper Theatre’s brand new show for 2011, is now playing in Dufferin Grove Park, and more! This show features the CYCLOPS troupe with a host of supporting pedalers and cycling-oriented puppets, props, and sets. This is our second week of performances and the show is only getting better; it plays until August 14, so get yourself to the park for 7pm on a Wednesday through Sunday, or 2pm on a Friday. Now here is an exciting bit; bring your bike on Saturday & Sunday afternoons for the Mobile Matinees. Starting at 2, audience members will see Part 1 in Dufferin Grove Park, then bike to Fred Hamilton Park with the cast for Part 3, and finally to Trinity-Bellwoods Park for Part 3.
Additionally this year in the last two weeks of the run we’ll be integrating accessibility tools for those with low vision or hearing or blindness/deafness. Please join us for this unique and fun use of our public parks! All shows are Pay What You Can. We strive to be accessible to all; and we need your support.
Caitie Graham & Maria Wodzinska with puppets in The Pedaler's Wager
Mobile Matinee Route Map for The Pedaler's Wager
Call for Volunteers – Summer Show!
Jun 30th
Greetings friends!
Our summer show, “The Pedaler’s Wager”, is a few weeks away from opening and so we’re sending out the word to our friends and neighbours. It’s going to be an exciting four week run and we’d like to invite you to be a part of it by helping us make it a success.
We’ve got volunteer opportunities coming up during the run of the show at Dufferin Grove Park. We’re presently looking for the ever important FOH volunteers as well as parade coordinators to help guide our audience members between acts during our mobile matinees.
If you have two hours to spare, we’d love to have you spend it with us!
Schedule
- Audience Relations & Publicity Assistants: July 20 – August 14: Wednesday – Sunday at 7pm - and – Friday – Sunday at 2pm. Volunteers who generally act as front of house – welcoming and inviting passersby and audience members. You’ll learn about the show and the theatre company and be at our FOH table. Other responsibilities include set-up and take down of FOH table, handing out programs, collecting donations, etc…
- Parade Co-ordination Animators: July 23 – August 14: Mobile Matinees on Saturdays & Sundays at 2pm. Volunteers during our mobile matinees who act as Parade Co-ordination Animators will help guide our audience members between acts. The show will begin in Dufferin Grove Park and then travel to Fred Hamilton Park and finally finishing at Trinity Bellwood’s. It’s a great opportunity to bring your bike!
Rehearsals as well as our performances happen at Dufferin Grove Park near the Field house, that’s the small brick building adjacent to the soccer field
CONTACT INFO: Marek Wojcik Community Outreach Coordinator416.708.3332 mw.claypaper@gmail.com
Coming Soon: The Pedaler’s Wager
Jun 30th
Hear ye Hear ye! In a few short weeks we will be presenting our new feature-length summer show, The Pedaler’s Wager. We’ve been working with the intensity of a one-eyed puppeteering monster, creating the puppets and ingenious bicycle-based theatrical elements this show calls for.
Irena working on the River
Development for The Pedaler's Wager
CYCLOPS troupe: Ellen, Anna, Maria, & Rebecca
Amira here. I’m excited to share with you these photos from our development process. Right now we are in the midst of implementing the action, music and imagery into a narrative, the story David Anderson (Artistic Director) and I have been developing since February. Our amazing Cyclops troupe joined on May 2, and our team of five fantastic students joined us Mid-June. It is highly visual, with a lot of unique puppetry, and it’s going to be really fun. Please enjoy and come to the show if you can!
July 20 – August 14 in Dufferin Grove Park & More
Weds – Sun 7pm & Friday 2pm
Weekend Mobile Matinees, 2pm:
Part 1 Dufferin Grove Park
Part 2 Fred Hamilton Park
Part 3 Trinity-Bellwoods Park
PWYC Suggested $10
Volunteers Wanted
Everybody Making "Baron Boots" Faces (with 3 of our student team)
Work In Progress: Lady Grabsome
Work In Progress: River/Ghost
The Pedaler's Wager: Route Map
Needed: Bike Parts
May 24th
CYCLOPS is very excited to be working with Musical Inventor Nuno Cristo for our upcoming show The Pedaler’s Wager. Nuno is helping us to build instruments from bike parts to create the musical score, and we could use your help.
We are in need of bike parts; frames, bells, horns, wheels are all capable of being transformed! Keep your eyes peeled for that abandoned bike frame in the streets of Toronto. Drop us a line on facebook or twitter if you see a perfect treasure just waiting to be reincarnated into a musical star!
We are especially in need of bike bells. Lots and lots of bike bells. If you have any kicking around that you’d like to see in our show, we welcome donations.
Thank you!
Puppets & Props Nights
May 14th
Interested in volunteering with Cyclops and Clay & Paper Theatre? We have begun the process of building the giant puppets for our upcoming summer show: you too can help out! We are building armatures right now and pretty soon we’ll need help with a whole lot of paper mache!
Please contact us at 416 708 3332 or clayandpaper@sympatico.ca to get involved.
Check out this page for updates on our process – finally, a chance to see behind the veil! These things don’t just magically appear, but rather are produced by a lot of hard work by a lot of good people.
Baron Boots' Head: the Beginning
David instructs Irena and Jerry on his armature technique learned at Dragon Dance Theatre last winter.
Naila & Melissa paper mache-ing foam "bones"
Matt has been building "Otto" the monster baby.