Ko'olau

The Club
September 18 - October 5, 2008
Friday & Saturday 10:00pm
Sunday 5:30pm
*Opens Thursday 9/18 at 10pm

Tickets $18
purchase tickets online

Based on a true story of Kauai, Hawaii
Designed and directed by Tom Lee
Music by Yukio Tsuji and Bill Ruyle
Pesented by La MaMa In association with Yara Arts Group

"Ko'olau," designed and directed by Tom Lee (www.tomleeprojects.com), is an intimate and inventive puppet performance based on a now-legendary story of Hawai'i in the 1890s. The title character, Kaluaiko'olau (hereafter Ko'olau), hides with his wife and son in the Kalalau Valley of Kauai as he tries to elude the sheriff's men and escape deportation to a leper colony. The story captures both a fundamental struggle for personal freedom and the triumph of unconditional love in the most difficult circumstances. Tom Lee addresses these powerful themes with puppetry that evokes the poetry of the Hawaiian language and the natural environment of the islands. His production utilizes raw, handcarved puppets in the kuruma ningyo style (wheeled puppet theater of Japan--unusual to see in New York) and live shadow and video projection inspired by Hawaiian woodcut carving.

L to R: Yoko Myoi and Piilani puppet
Photo by David Soll

Puppeteers: Matt Acheson, Marina Celander, Frankie Cordero, Takemi Kitamura, Yoko Myoi
Live shadow projection by Miranda Hardy & Tom Lee
Costumes by Kanako Hiyama
Assistant designer Nao Otaka

This production was developed at the Rhodopi International Theater Collective, Smolyan, Bulgaria, and the Chocolate Factory Theater, L.I.C., Queens. Generous support provided by the Jim Henson Foundation, The TCG/ITI Travel Grant Program and Yara Arts Group

This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs

La MaMa Puppet series Festival Part II

Ko'olau is part of The La MaMa Puppet Series Festival Part II, which also features multicultural works from Hawaii, Colombia and Japan. All the productions are brimming with international art forms. The series contains "Ko'olau", "Room To Panic" a new work created by Federico Restrepo and Denise Greber of LOCO7 (www.loco7.org) and the final episode in a three-part theatrical work depicting, in movement and visual theater, the experience of immigration to America, with music by Elizabeth Swados (October 4 thru 19) and "The Doll Sisters" (Ningyo Shimai), directed by Setsu Asakura, the most noted stage designer of contemporary Japan (October 23 to November 2).

Purchase two shows and receive $3 discount each show.
Or purchase all three shows and receive $5 discount each show!!