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Insomnia: A Dark and Stormy Night...
Choose a dark and stormy night. Add a teaspoon of bad conscience, an ounce of guilt, a pinch of regret, a dollop of confused thoughts sprinkled with anxiety (don’t forget a cup and a half of humor), then shake well: welcome to the realm of Insomnia.
During the night, we are expected to sleep, but sometimes we don't. What happens? Through music, movement, language, theatre, puppets, and objects, Insomnia evokes the struggle we have when we are facing ourselves.
Loren Kahn and Isabelle Kessler of Loren Kahn Puppet & Object Theatre present their brand new production developed for children ages 9-13. With an insomniac, an actress, and a puppeteer on stage, the play includes both objects and puppets to tell a story about insomnia and thoughts which surface to the consciousness during a sleepless night.
Audience maximum: 40 children (ages 12+). Running time: approximately 35 minutes, followed by a 10-15 minute discussion session.
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String
A Dance & Object Show for young children
Key, the character, is waiting, her back to the audience playing cat’s cradle. Opening herself to the stage, she discovers the red winding rope, symbol of life to be tamed. Following the rope, Key finds the large bundle and unpacks seven brown paper bags. Each bag holds another emotion, the seventh, the bag of dreams and future, will be opened ... tomorrow.
The set is a metaphor for a blank page: a natural canvas back drop (6’x 9’); a slightly bigger canvas on the floor; upon it a brilliant red rope leading to a huge canvas bundle.
String is a show where Marie Margaret Moore, actress and dancer, and Isabelle Kessler, director and writer, have woven three expressions: dance, theatre and object theatre. Their goal is for children to explore the emotions and power of imagination. To reach this goal they decided to take the path of simplicity: very few objects, a very simple setting, no music tracks, no lights effects, just a human being curious about her feelings, from fear to joy.
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It's Time
A character, dressed all in gray, arrives in her workshop. In this quiet gray nest, color is born, feather by feather. A yellow feather: the sunrise? A blue feather: storm of blue sky? Story fragments create a bird, then an egg -- what color will it be? Simplicity and tranquility are explored in this performance, which was created for the age when each moment is a discovery and magic is in the emotions.
It's Time is a new object theatre production for the very young performed by Isabelle Kessler. It is the American cousin of Qui dit gris, a French show created by Therese Angebault and Isabelle Kessler.
Audience maximum: 40 children (ages 2-5) plus any comfortable number of adults. Running time: approx. 35 minutes
See a video of Its Time on Vimeo! 
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Billy Goat Ballad
Cornebique, a billy goat and big fan of the blues, hits the road, to forget an unrequited love. He finds himself, unexpectedly, in charge of a tiny dormouse, an animal of which he has never heard! Flesh, Weasel, special agent, is on their trail. He means to capture this last remaining male dormouse and reunite him with the sole remaining female, in order to create the world’s biggest corporate food supply for ... weasels.
Adapted from La Ballade de Cornebique by French author Jean Claude Mourlevat.
The set is constructed of a big box, 7 feet long, 6 feet high, and 4 feet deep. A wide window has shutters which magically open and close on universes as different as a sweetheart rendezvous, a desert and a labyrinthian palace.
Billy Goat Ballad is intended for families and elementary school-age audiences. Audience maximum: 100. Running time: 65 minutes.
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What a Choice!
A one-woman object theatre performance for adults. Bernadette Barbotine is in an inflatable life boat atop saw horses. Her lighthouse is a glass of water - is it half full or half empty? Is it better to belong to the idiotic optimists or to the boring pessimists? What a choice!
Audience maximum: 200. Darkness required. 70-minute performance.
We are pleased to let you know that we have a 9 minute (edited) video of this piece online! Click the right bottom thumbnail above, or click the link below to download.
You may also request a longer (22 minute) DVD of this video! Please contact us by emailing us at info@lorenkahnpuppet.com.
Click to download video of What a Choice (114MB)
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Isabelle Kessler as Bernadette Barbotine in My Island for a Boat
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My Island for a Boat
A play about choices in life. Bernadette Barbotine stands on a high stool, begging for a boat to get her out of an uncomfortable situation. In her suitcase are objects which help her - metaphorically - with her struggle.
An offshoot of "What a Choice" created especially for middle-school audiences.
Maximum audience: 60. Running time: Approximately 30 minutes, followed by an open discussion with students about the show, Object Theatre, and European theatre.
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Natalia
A Jewish grandmother, teller of tales, riddles and dreams, a vignette. For ages 6 - adult Can be paired with Put a Light On or Floppo. Audience maximum 100. Intimate setting preferable.
Running time: 15-30 minutes.
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Floppo
A very broad version of The Frog Prince, performed from an ambulating stage with hand puppets and live music. Some Spanish dialogue. For ages 4 - adult. Audience maximum 100. Intimate setting preferable.
Running time: approx. 30 minutes.
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right bottom: Click the photo to view VIDEO of "Peek a Boo"
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Peek-a-boo!
Peek-a-boo! is an object play for toddlers, preschoolers, and adults. Eleven little moments of life punctuated by the song of a disobedient cuckoo clock.
Can be performed in English, French, or German. Audience maximum: 40 children plus any comfortable number of adults.
Running time: approx. 35-40 minutes.
Watch a (condensed) version of this piece by clicking the thumbnail above lower right. You may also request a DVD of this video! Please contact us by emailing us at info@lorenkahnpuppet.com.
email us to request a DVD
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left top: From "Put a Light On"
right top: Click the photo to view EDITED VIDEO of this piece.
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Put a Light On
An object theater play for adults, teens and family audiences. Using very few words to provoke thought and laughter, a puppeteer and a musician ask: what really makes us tick? Audience maximum 100. Can be paired with Natalia.
Running time: approx. 30 minutes.
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