Puppetry of Objects and Ideas

We create multilingual devised works featuring puppets and humans that highlight themes of social & environmental justice.

Cenicienta: A Bilingual Cinderella Story tackles culture, heritage, and the power of language. Belinda is a modern Mexican-American girl who dreams of becoming a poet like her hero Gary Soto. Ignored by her stepfamily and left alone in the basement to prepare for the party upstairs, Belinda uses her imagination and considerable sense of self to re-enact the story of Cinderella through Object Theater (puppetry with everyday objects). She makes discoveries about her own capacity and self-worth as a person, artist, and member of her familia.

Climate Connections/ Walkabout Refugee Puppets is an ongoing project by Glass Half Full Theatre to create walkabout performances featuring climate refugee stories. Representing people from all over the globe whose lives have been affected by climate change, these puppet characters interact with people on the street to create instant, private theatrical moments in order to broaden participants understanding of the human impacts of Climate Change.

Don Quixote de La Redo spotlights the hallmarks of Glass Half Full Theatre’s Lecoq-based approach to performance: wry humor and inventive use of actor as scenery and puppeteer as character, with Beckett-esque use of physical language and shifts in scale between tiny puppets, human actors, and large-scale puppets. The show explores the modern realities and imagined consequences of life in the borderlands between two cultures whose fortunes have shifted.

Drawdown at The Global Arena demostrates solutions for climate change as WWE-style wrestlers battle one another for limited funding and support. Cheer for your favorite: “Alternative Energy,” “Carbon Capture,” “Mad Cow,” “Rubberman,” and “The Resourcerer.” Can they overlook their differences and band together to defeat their arch nemesis, Mz. Extinction?

FupDuck is an original puppetry performance for Adults and Also Children who Already Know the F Word, accompanied by live Old Time Americana Music by The White Ghost Shivers. FupDuck is an adaptation of the novela Fup, by Jim Dodge, an anti-authoritarian fable about life, death, whiskey, ducks, and the untamed spirit of the West.

Handmade Bikini Fashion Show- The Unmentionables

Once There Were Six Seasons invites audiences to travel the globe and explore the impact of climate change on cultures. Puppeteers recreate our rapidly changing planet using recycled objects and textiles, from string and paper to recycled Styrofoam packing shapes, as rainclouds and river valleys, farmland and icebergs, diamond mine workers, polar bears, and islands sinking into the sea.

Petra and the Wolf introduces the mischievous but fearless Petra, the granddaughter of the fabled Peter. When a wolf threatens her home and animal friends, her adventures become a showcase of bravery and compassion. Audiences walk away from this stunning piece of visual and musical storytelling with a new sense of empathy for the animals that share our earth. Featuring live original music by Mother Falcon.

Polly Mermaid: Apocalypse Wow: When rogue particle physicist Dr. Deborah Degudere tries to “solve” Earth’s garbage disposal problem by zapping plastic into outer space, she accidently zaps Polly Mermaid, a mutant mermaid from a future time of sentient plastic, into her lab. Deborah and Polly save each other (and all of humanity) from themselves in this adult sci-fi eco-fable.

Simple Sundries takes a darkly comic look at the commodification of culture in Austin, Texas and the displacement of people and animals to feed Austin’s “progress.”

The Austin Puppet Incident is an annual two day festival featuring live acts of puppetry for adult audiences since 2011 in Austin, Texas. The Incident is a joint venture of Glass Half Full Theatre and Trouble Puppet Theatre Company.

Yamel Cucuy Thirteen year-old Yamel, an undocumented immigrant in hiding, navigates a treacherous emotional and sociopolitical landscape through interaction with the folkloric spirits of her cultural heritage.

The Missionary Position: Pleasure Journeys for the Intrepid Lady Explorer is a Queer and Feminist comedic lecture series packed with physical comedy. Amelia Weatherbeaten and Eleanor Dangerbottom are Victorian-era Lady Explorers and Spokeswomen for Hartman’s Hygienic Towelettes for Ladies, the first commercially available menstrual products for women. They travel around the world at the turn of the 19th century, hocking their products and lecturing hilariously on topics of interest to the Society of Learned Ladies, Where Ladies Share Knowledge with Ladies. Part Sideshow, part Geographical Salon, these ladies offer a seat at their table but you won’t stay in it for long.

The Orchid Flotilla is a tiny floating island of refuse, upon which a solitary woman scrounges for survival in a not-so-distant future. The orchids she tends become a metaphor for her own capacity for resilience and adaptation. Lurking below the water and eventually joining her on the craft are other characters in both human and object form. A visual theatre performance about the human capacity to overcome ecological disaster. Mature audiences only.

Trash Talks with Polly Mermaid featuring Polly and her friend, Basurana, who used comedy and optimism to counter global environmental dilemmas.