While film and comics have transcended their representational beginnings, artists have yet to embrace the puppet's narrative potential. Enno Podehl and Theater im Wind's late 20th century play with puppets, Hermann, offers a framework for using narrative theory to understand that puppetry, by its very nature, manipulates time, space and narrative logic and can evolve from simple representations of the real world to evoking perceptions of the metaphysical world that engage the imagination of the audience. I want participants to understand that in order for puppetry to truly become an art form it needs to understand and embrace the concepts of storytelling as they have been defined and refined in other art forms, such as literature, drama, film and comics.
Robert Smythe is a playwright, director and choreographer. As the founder and Artistic Director of Mum Puppettheatre in Philadelphia, he has written, directed and performed over 20 original productions using puppets, masks and human actors. These works have received many honors, including 13 of Philadelphia's Barrymore Awards for Excellence in Theater. Considered one of the foremost puppet artists in the United States, he is widely acknowledged to have changed perceptions about puppetry and theater throughout America. According to the Philadelphia City Paper, his work is responsible for the "Philadelphia theater renaissance that continues to this day,"
Robert Smythe has received solo performance fellowships from the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. He has won three Citations of Excellence from the American Center for Union Internationale de la Marionnette, and has directed and created work for Goodspeed Musicals, the Arden Theater, the Wilma Theater, and the Minneapolis Children's Theater. He has created four original concert works with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and has performed throughout Japan, Europe, North and Central America and the United States. He is the Director of Emerging Artists for the International Puppetry Conference at the Tony Award-winning Eugene O'Neill Theater Center, and as of today's performance he is 30 days away from graduating with his MFA in Playwrighting from Temple University. While still a graduate student, Philadelphia Magazine named him "Best Professor" in their 2010 annual "Best of Philadelphia" issue.
