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A colorful flock of fledgling actors
entertained crowds in Boston’s Harvard Square in the late 1980’s with
whimsical and compelling street theatre. The young actors were seeking ways
to perfect their craft and earn their place in the world of theatre.
Only a few years later Boston’s Flock Puppet
Theatre Company carried their street theater vignettes to Lincoln Center
Out of Doors as part of the Center’s tribute to the arts and artists of
the city of Boston. First Night Boston performances won a wider audience for
the young group - leading to their original production Home Street Home
at the Boston Center for the Arts’ Cyclorama Theatre. With this production
their concentration on avant-garde puppetry was formed as they realized the
unique ability of puppet theatre to document experience and communicate to
an audience.
An
invitation to bring Disgruntled Jerry’s Very Big Day to the Eugene
O’Neill Center’s Tribute to Margo Rose in 1992 marked a major transition
for the young company. This time their theme carried an anti-drug message
for children — but with “a strong frenetic energy, “a sense of loudness,
craziness, cymbals and crashes”, according to Flock’s Artistic Director,
Derron Wood. Its appeal to children was immediate, and led to extensive work
with students in schools, libraries, and special programs including one at
the Niantic Correctional State Prison for young people in Niantic,
Connecticut. Derron Wood became a Master Teaching Artist in the State of
Connecticut as part of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts program in
1998. Flock’s unique programs, developed in the following few years, include
themes on homelessness, youth violence, the environment (a residency
workshop with middle school students exploring their views on the
environmental problems in Long Island Sound) drugs and anti-social behavior.
The use of puppets allows students a sense of distance from the problems
discussed as well as allowing real intimacy when their personal experiences
are involved.
By 1994
Flock Theatre was settled in New London, Connecticut and opened the first of
a continuing series of Shakespearean productions. Comedy of Errors
was performed with masks, a few puppets and costumes created primarily from
found objects and donated materials. The play, filled with such broad humor
and outrageous mistaken identities, lead actors – and audience – along a
garden path of pleasure. This pleasure has grown through the years as Flock
and Shakespeare have flourished in the Arboretum and is now entering its
eleventh season.
Today, Flock Theatre
provides Residency Programs to schools through the Connecticut H.O.T.
Schools Program. Depending on the Residency subject, students work, in
collaboration with Flock Theatre artists to study a wide range of subjects
from history to science and even conflict resolution. In addition, Flock
Theatre’s work in the field of education expanded to offering theatre
classes via Flock Theatre’s Acting Institute, which opened its doors in 2003
and has continued to grow in both student numbers and class offerings.
In the late 90’s Flock
Theatre was invited to bring a group of performers to the National Puppetry
Conference at the Eugene O’Neil Theatre Center in Waterford, CT; a
relationship which is ongoing to this day.
Flock
Theatre’s commitment to the arts is as strong today as it was on the streets
of Boston over a decade ago. We continue to grow, and strive to make the
arts a living, breathing entity so that all in the region will be able to
experience for themselves the vibrancy and vitality of live theatre. |
