Baltimore Theatre Project And Questfest 2010 Present Sandglass Theater In All Weather BalladsAll Weather Ballads is a visual theater piece incorporating original ballads by Eric Bass with music by Keith Murphy. The five-song cycle portrays the stages of life through metaphors of the northern rural experience, when we are stuck in the mud, lost in the aroma of harvest fruit, or reflected in the frozen membrane of an icy lake. It is about a sense of place and those moments when we look both forward and backward in time. All Weather Ballads is a performance of dry humor, ironic poignancy, and elemental cursing.
Concept and Ballad texts by Eric Bass
Originally Directed by Rich van Schouwen
Restaged by Eric Bass and the company
Performed by Eric Bass, Ines Zeller Bass, Nick Keil
Music Composed by Keith Murphy
Puppets Designed and Built by Ines Zeller Bass, Matt Brooks
All Weather Ballads is being presented in conjunction with Questfest 2010, an international visual theatre festival produced by Quest Arts for Everyone in partnership with Gallaudet University in Washington and Theatre Project and Creative Alliance in Baltimore. Returning to the Baltimore/Washington area March 1-14, 2010, the two-week long festival includes performances, master classes, workshops, and artist residencies in venues and schools throughout the area.
Having featured Sebastienne Mundheim and White Box Theater's Sea of Birds as part of the Questfest 2010 pre-festival schedule, Theatre Project is presenting Sandglass Theatre's All Weather Ballads (March 4 - 14) and facilitating a residency with Naoko Maeshiba (in conjunction with her Questfest performance of Paraffin at Gallaudet) with MICA students. All three events illuminate Theatre Project's participation as a key partner of Questfest 2010. For more information about these events and the full schedule of Questfest 2010, go to
www.questfest.org.
About Sandglass Theater:Sandglass Theatre moved to Putney, Vermont in 1986. The company continued to operate solely as a touring company until 1995, when the Basses bought the former S.L. Davis barn, a former livery stable in the heart of Putney Village. The 60-seat barn theater now hosts the Sandglass repertoire of pieces for adult audiences, pieces for children, a guest artist series, and special events and workshops related to the varied arts of theater and puppetry. Sandglass productions have toured worldwide to theaters and festivals in Europe, America, Israel, Australia and Japan. Eric Bass' solo production Autumn Portraits (1980) was awarded the Citation of Excellence from the Union Internationale de la Marionnette, the Diploma of Excellence from Pecs, Hungary, and the First Prize Critics Award for Best Production at the International Puppetry Festival in Adelaide, Australia. Other Sandglass productions haveearned the company five more Citations of Excellence. Sandglass productions have appeared at the Brooklyn Academy of Music's Next Wave Festival, and the Jim Henson Festival at the Joseph Papp Public Theater. In 1991, Eric Bass received the Figurentheater Prize of the City of Erlangen, Germany, for his artistic contributions to the field of puppet theater. Sandglass Theater also produces works for young audiences, under the Artistic Direction of Ines Zeller Bass. The Box Show toured in France, Spain, Finland, Israel and Japan. Other pieces for children have included Ines' hand puppet theater, Punschi, as well as Isidor's Cheek, which won Sandglass a Citation of Excellence for a Children's work in 1999. Sandglass has created over 20 productions. Among the company's collaborations are The Story of the Dog (with Sovanna Phum company from Cambodia), Between Sand and Stars (with Gemini Trapeze) and Richard 3.5 (with Bob Berky). Sandglass produces a bi-annual festival of international puppet theater, Puppets in the Green Mountains. The 7th edition of the festival will take place in September 2010. The company teaches an intensive training workshop for three weeks in July at the University of Connecticut.
Date: March 4 - 14, 2010
Performance: March 4, 5, 6, 11, 12, 13 at 8 pm; and, March 7 and 14 at 3 pm.
A post-show dialogue will follow two performances led by local facilitators: Sunday, March 7 (matinee) and Saturday, March 13. These dialogues will be interpreted for deaf and hearing impaired audience members.
Location: Baltimore Theatre Project
Tickets are $20 general admission, $15 seniors and artists, and $10 for students. Tickets are available at
www.missiontix.com or by calling the box office at 410-752-8558.
