Robin Frohardt

Last updated
Robin Frohardt
Known forpuppet design, playwright
Movement social practice art, environmentalism
Website http://www.robinfrohardt.com

Robin Frohardt is an American playwright, puppet designer, visual artist, and director based in Brooklyn, NY. [1]

Contents

Career

Frohardt constructs her sets for films and plays completely from cardboard. [2] She also uses plastic, [3] wood, [4] cloth, [5] and other recycled materials [6] to make puppets and installations. Some of her puppets are realistic people [7] while other objects take abstract forms. [8] Frohardt uses Bunraku-style puppetry, most notably in her show The Pigeoning. [9] Bunraku is a traditional Japanese form of performance that involves puppeteers, chanters, and musicians. [10]

Environmentalism is the primary theme in Frohardt’s work, specifically in Bag Movie, [2] The Plastic Bag Store, [11] and Dumpster Monster, [6] which all focus on the prevalence and permanence of human waste. [3]

Work

Major exhibitions

The Plastic Bag Store [11] is an installation in the form of a fully stocked grocery store. [3] Created to look realistic, all products are hand crafted from single-use plastic. [12] This exhibition transformed into a three act live puppet performance at night [3] with original music by Freddi Price. [13] The theme is that humans can never really throw away trash. [3] She tells the journey of plastic waste, [12] and criticizes mass consumption. [3] The Plastic Bag Store was awarded the Creative Capital Award in 2016 [12] and before COVID-19 was scheduled to reappear in March 2020 in Times Square. [3]

The Pigeoning [14] is a puppet show that debuted at HERE Arts Center in 2013 [15] about an obsessively clean office worker who believes that pigeons are plotting against him. [16] It won the Arlyn Award [17] in 2014 for Outstanding Design in Puppet Theater [18] and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award for Best Music in a Play for its original music by Freddi Price. [13] Dumpster Monster is a 10-minute puppet performance including audience participation centered around a creature constructed entirely of trash that explodes from a dumpster. [6] It debuted in 2015 at The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center. [19]

Collaborations

Frohardt created puppets for Anna Fitch and Banker White’s documentary film Heaven Through the Backdoor. [20] She designed the sets for Nick Jones’s play Jollyship the Whizbang. [21] [22] She worked on the additional set pieces for a theater piece on the subway [23] titled IRT: A Tragedy in Three Stations [24] [25] by Jeff Stark. She designed the snack bar and ticket booth [26] for Jeff Stark and Todd Chandler’s installation Empire Drive-In. [4] She was a puppet designer for the play Salt of the Earth [27] [5] by Zvi Sahar. [28] Frodardt worked with Dream Community [29] as a director and creator of floats, costumes, and puppets in the Dream Parade [30] in Taipei, Taiwan. She designed puppets [8] for the New York and Norway based puppet company Wakka Wakka. [31]

Other experience

Along with other artists Kirk Lombard, Freddi Price, Ben Burke, Jesse Roadkill, Duskin Drum, and Caryl Keintz, Frohardt founded Apocalypse Puppet Theater [32] which ran from 2005 to 2010. The artists built puppets and wrote plays for the mobile theater that ran out of a wagon pulled by bikes. [32] Frohardt worked with the Cardboard Institute of Technology [33] from 2008 to 2012 to make cardboard installations. [34]

Awards and honors

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References

  1. ↑ "Robin Frohardt". Creative Capital. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  2. 1 2 "Robin Frohardt". Bag Movie. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Times Square Arts: The Plastic Bag Store". arts.timessquarenyc.org. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  4. 1 2 "Empire Drive-In". Empire Drive-In. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  5. 1 2 "Robin Frohardt". Salt of the Earth. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  6. 1 2 3 Apr 21st 2019 - 12pm, Ruth Nerhaugen |. "'Dumpster Monster' brings garbage to life". RiverTowns. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  7. ↑ "Robin Frohardt". Heaven Through the Backdoor. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  8. 1 2 "Robin Frohardt". Wakka Wakka. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  9. ↑ "Plotting Pigeons: Juniata Presents Robin Frohardt's "The Pigeoning"". Gale OneFile.
  10. ↑ "Bunraku", Wikipedia, 2020-07-29, retrieved 2020-09-22
  11. 1 2 "Plastic Bag Store". Plastic Bag Store. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  12. 1 2 3 "The Plastic Bag Store". Creative Capital. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  13. 1 2 "Freddi Price | Jumping into the vat…" . Retrieved 2020-09-21.
  14. ↑ "Theater". The New York Times. 2014-08-15. pp. C15. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  15. ↑ "Robin Frohardt". The Pigeoning. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  16. ↑ Collins-Hughes, Laura (2014-08-16). "A Puppet Who Just Wants to Eat His Sandwich". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  17. ↑ "Arlyn Award for Outstanding Design in Puppet Theatre". arlynaward.org. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  18. ↑ "The 2014 ARLYN AWARD". Puppetry Journal. 65 (3): 25. Spring 2014.
  19. ↑ "Robin Frohardt". Dumpster Monster. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  20. ↑ "Heaven Through The Backdoor". Mirabel Pictures. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  21. ↑ Genzlinger, Neil (2008-07-20). "Seafaring Puppets Rock on a Trip to Party Island". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  22. ↑ "Nick Jones | Jollyship the Whiz-Bang". www.thewhizbang.org. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  23. ↑ "irt". www.nyc.subwaytheater.com. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  24. ↑ Mallozzi, Vincent M. (2009-02-01). "In the Subway, Moving Theater, in More Ways Than One". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  25. ↑ "Robin Frohardt". IRT. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  26. ↑ "Robin Frohardt". Empire Drive In. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  27. ↑ "Salt of the Earth". PUPPETCINEMA, ITIM ENSEMBLE. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  28. ↑ "PUPPETCINEMA, ITIM ENSEMBLE". PUPPETCINEMA, ITIM ENSEMBLE. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  29. ↑ "Robin Frohardt". Dream Community. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  30. ↑ "Top 4 Taiwan Parades to Check Out This Year". Taiwan Tour - Loci Amica Travel Inc. 2019-09-23. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  31. ↑ "Wakka Wakka Productions" . Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  32. 1 2 "Robin Frohardt". Apocalypse Puppet Theater. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  33. ↑ "Cardboard Institute of Technology". Exploratorium. 2011-02-02. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
  34. ↑ "Robin Frohardt". Cardboard Institute of Technology. Retrieved 2020-09-22.
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