Did I Make The Tardigrade?!?? 🧬🐻‍❄️🧪

NATURE

I will complete my trilogy of Hansel and Gretel stage adaptations of fascinating visuals with this piece. I made several posts about the Royal New Zealand Ballet's adaptation and its homages to Germanic cinema (and obscure carnival traditions). I reblogged something about the Hänsel and Gretel concert of Lindemann-Tägtren and its disturbing, horrifying but also darkly clownesque visuals... And now I bring you the San Diego Opera adaptation of the famed Hansel and Gretel opera, with quite impressive puppetry!

I will copy-paste here the content of an article by Beth Accomando, which can be read in its original form here.

It’s not every day that an opera singer gets to bring a cannibalistic witch to life.

"I lure children into the forest and I cook them into gingerbread cakes and then I eat them. It's delightful," said tenor Joel Sorensen.

But what’s not so delightful is having to wear a big puppetry rig to create a larger-than-life witch onstage.

"I am a puppet," Sorensen explained. "The witch is a puppet, a very large puppet. And I have a colleague, Iain [Gunn], behind me. He bears the bulk of the weight on his back. So I'm basically working with a puppet while trying to sing and convey a character. It's a real challenge."

The challenge for director Brenna Corner in bringing Engelbert Humperdinck's "Hansel and Gretel" to the San Diego Opera stage was how do you bring a fairy tale to life?

"One of the things that I think is really tricky about 'Hansel and Gretel' is size. How do you make two grown-ups look like they're kids and two other grown-ups look like they're adults? And then someone else looks sort of even bigger and more powerful. And quite frankly, the best way I could figure out how to do that was puppets," Corner said.

So anything that was not human became a puppet. Like the witch.

"It's different in that it's not my physicality. So, because I'm manipulating her hands, her arms, and I'm working in tandem with [Gunn] so I can't move as quickly as I might normally or as sharply but facially and vocally, I'm trying to do the same things that I would do if I were performing it without a puppet," Sorensen said.

Now if you are thinking of puppets as something you put on your hand, think again. Imagine actors completely enveloped in layers of fabric with a large sculpted head or face high above their shoulders and an arm span that exceeds 10 feet.

"We had to really kind of blow up the notion of what a puppet is in order to successfully encompass the fusion of opera and puppetry," said Judd Palmer of Old Trout Puppet Workshop in Calgary. "Our inspiration was classic 19th century children's book illustrators like Arthur Rackham or N.C. Wyeth. We wanted the whole thing to feel like it comes out of a book and it becomes the illustrations coming to life like a pop up book."

Palmer designed the puppets for a production in Canada and Iain Gunn of Animal Cracker Conspiracy here in San Diego is now the puppeteer working with Sorensen to play the Witch onstage.

"I get to live inside this character that I'm helping to bring alive," Gunn said. "But she has her own voice standing right in front of me. I don't know how to describe it, but I feel like I am transported inside this imagination. It's like I'm in the 'Time Bandits' or something like that where … we're doing something magical and it's a magical character and the only reason it's alive is because we're in there giving it our all. So it's pretty cool."

The puppets engage the audience in a unique way.

"It's this agreement that the audience makes with the performers," Corner explains. "That we agree not to see the person who's obviously a person and instead we agree to look at what is fabric and some PVC pipe and a plaster-like face, right? But we agree to do that. So what's extraordinary to me about puppetry is that as an audience, we're continually investing our imagination in seeing the thing that the performers want us to see and then as the performers keep investing in that then all of a sudden they go away. They don't exist there anymore and it becomes something else kind of magical."

By not trying to fool the audience and instead asking them to play along in this game of make-believe, the audience becomes a co-conspirator.

Palmer pointed out, "You can see the puppeteer right there in a ridiculous outfit. They're sweating and panting from having to run across the stage and they're waving the puppet around. It lets us all in on the joke in a way but also in the kind of the dream. It makes it evident to everybody in the audience that they are going to have to invest imaginatively in this in the same way as the people on stage are."

It's recommended that you bring a child-like sense of imagination to this show.

"That joy that you had when you were a kid," Corner said. "And you could imagine what would happen if a stick was suddenly a giant scary monster. I think that's what you want to bring to this production because that's what this production creates is the sense of wonder and joy and mystery that's inherent in being a kid."

And inherent in a story that begins with the magical possibilities of once upon a time…

San Diego Opera’s production of Engelbert Humperdick’s "Hansel and Gretel" opens Saturday and will have three additional performances through Feb. 16 at San Diego Civic Theatre.

I'm taking Dirge mini golfing so I can nix him onsite & bury him beneath a pintsized windmill. Who's this Mr Dirge you ask!?? Why's Faustina losing 10000ml of blood (& is OK enough to ask for a sugar cookie)!!? Who's Roger Tallarico (& why do I want to kill him)?! SEE EP2 TO FIND OUT!!!! ☝️👹💙💖 ⛳️ 📸 🩻🧁🦊

JAM 02 - HAIL TO THE QUEEN, BABY! - PART 2 is NOW LIVE on SPOTIFY, APPLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE, AND PODBEAN!

Missing an arm and running out of time, Faustina needs to think fast to defeat Drill-Bitch. Meanwhile, Mr. Dirge puts a diabolical plan in place. Either way, something terrible is about to happen to the KILLJAM Queen…

FIND ALL OUR FEEDS HERE, CUTIES! 💙

Cast Includes: @machetebisexual as Faustina Fetamine, @amtrax as Mr. Dirge, @jonnywaistcoat as Dr. Yuzna, Tiana Camacho as Mara, Sami Chen as Geeno, @starplanes as Lola, Josh Rubino as Roger Tallarico, @holographicgoblinking as Jesse Bazooka, Gus Zagarella as Randy Macaque, @spaceboymb as Foot Freak, and @cannibalmukbang as Drill-Bitch!

Transcript / Content Warnings In The Show Notes!

KINGMAKER EP29 LIVE REACT.... The trio may be teenytiny but my excitement is anything BUT!!!!!!

YOU KNOW THE DRILL MOTHERFUCKERS ITS @kingmakerpod KINGMAKER NATTTTTTT(ion) TIME...... How do I type out "Kingmaker Nat". If I was saying it verbally it'd be like "Kingmaker Naysh". Kingmaker Nat just sounds like Im saying Kingmaker Gnat (which, I suppose applies in this particular instance, because the trio are the size of gnats...... somewhat)..... BUT I DIGRESS. SPOILERS FOR THE KINGMAKER HISTORIES EP29 BELOW – THIS ONE ENTERS INTO MY ALLTIME FAV EPISODE SLOTS

“Telesphore tried to kill me once and all” “(sighs fondly) I did.” I love gay people

The sound design in every ep is rlly fantastic but this one particularly has my head in a grip for some reason….. In a very tight skull clench… So so good. Like for example the beard itching & the unfolding of blueprints, ITS SO IMMERSIVE – & off-topic but on topic, I missed these 3 dipshits. I love the juxt between the last ep (being so gravely serious and frightening) and this one (which primarily follows the main 3’s schemes once more)…. Kingmaker never misses….. (Unlike a certain ice mage from the last episode)……

SHORTSTACK EISEN!!!!!!!!!! (& TINY TELESPHORE. “TELESTWO. TELESTHREE.”)

“EISEN: Oh, aye, absolutely. I’ve made three prototypes from this design, and I’ve never had a single fatality…. I mean, of course, I’ve never tested it on a living subject either. | COLETTE AND TELESPHORE: WHAT? | EISEN: Brace yourselves!” THE TRIO IS SO QUIPY IN THIS EP… AGAIN THE VOICE ACTING GOES FUCKING METAL. Also “At last, Telsie, my love, we can see… eye to eye.” “I hate this.” The back-and-forths between all the charas are fucking brilliant. I love how this ep is paced dialogue-wise so soo dearly

Piggybacking off the last bulletpoint – ITS NOT JUST THE TRIO, ITS EVERYONE. IT’S EVERYONE WHO’S QUIPY & GIVING SUPREME PERFORMANCES (what’s new) BUT FOR REAL!!!!! Oh my god this ep is hitting so fucking hard I love these charas so much. The dialogue is great and the performances take it to the next level. They live and breathe…. they live & breathe…… As always Addison is killing it as my fav murder matriarch….. and Ben Rowe as Crowley. I love how hes got a magical Jack Horner-esque collection of freaky items. Is somebody gonna match my freak Is Is somebody gonna match my freak (Ariadne + Aleister, initials carved not on a tree but into someone’s corpse)

THE BONEDRINKER SHREWS 👹

“Did you drop this (paper) in a glass of water? Why does it look like that?” “A woman should be entitled to a few secrets” I wouldn’t be telling people about my naked paper eating pre-rat transformation habits either (only true kingmaker fans will understand this sentence). Good call girl

“Of course, god forbid a woman do anything without being called mad in those days.” “So she was sane?” “Oh no. Ha! No, not at all.” AMAZING DELIVERY BY ADDISON.

I love these two horrifically-evil-bodytwisting people flirting it up and then, from them, immediately shifting to a scene of three teensy people running from bonedrinking shrews & quipping abt how tiny they are. Oh how I love you kingmaker so so much. I need to make a sticker that says “Only In Kingmaker”, and when people ask, “What’s Only In Kingmaker. What do you mean”, I will tell them “You just have to listen. You just have to listen to it to be in-the-know… in on the lore….. the Teleslore....."

Stop me from saying this every 2 sentences (I WILL NEVER STOP!!!!!!) but this episode and specifically the performances are SUPREME!!!!!! Holy fuck EVERY EP BUILDS ON EACH OTHER, IT JUST KEEPS GETTING BETTER & BETTER. Everyone is embodying their characters on such a supreme level Oh my god. They’ve always been so genuine but u can tell everyone has just clicked into their roles like a snug glove. And this ep specifically is SO FUN, like a condensed adventure movie in the style of like….. Jumanji or the-like – I know that’s an odd comparison but I hope u readers understand what I mean; it’s so visual….. I can see it. & I LOVE the trio hearing Crowley and Ariadne thru the walls. And lastly (I’ll stop dumping paragraphs soon, IM SORRY IM JUST SO EXCITED BY THIS EP) but I think the og charas in this (i.e. the main trio & even Ariadne) are hitting so much harder because last EP was so geniusly written as to NOT HAVE THEM IN IT. Is genuisly a word. Fuck you I dont care AND despite being so much lighter than the last ep tone-wise, the story still fucking flows so well.... it doesn’t feel like it’s grinding to a halt just to engage in hijinks again AT ALL. SUPREME BALANCE. I love kingmaker so much Im going to explode into shrapnel for the 10000th TIME!!!

Colette’s “NO, EW, PUT IT BACK ON!!!!!” and Telesphore’s “Do you think if I jumped off this bookcase it would kill me” during the sex scene where Ariadne LITERALLY FUCKING STEALS CROWLEY’S HEART MADE ME LAUGH ALOUD “OUT OF ALL THE ROOMS THEY COULD’VE DONE THIS IN, UNBELIEVABLE MAN” EISEN’S REACTION IMFUCKIGN CRYING

THE TRANSCRIPT’S DIRECTION OF ARIADNE “(shaping out of the dom headspace)” HELPPP CROWLEY’S DELIVERY ON “STOP IT IM BEING SERIOUS” TOO. OK IMDONE I AM PHYSICALLY FUCKING LAUGHING ALOUD

“Were we just robbed by mice?” “No. Socialists” CALLBACK TO MY FAV LINE “Worse. Royalists”

ANTICHRISTMAS

GORILLA ARIADNE

THIS IS MY FAVORITE EPISODE EVER I SEE TINY LITTLE MINI PEOPLE AND I LOSE MY SHIT. THIS CHASE SCENE IS INCREDIBLE FROM THE WRITING TO PRODUCTION TO EVERYTHING INBETWEEN

27:58 THE SCOTTISH MUSIC SWELL HAD ME LOSING MY FUCKING SHIT W/ EISEN. FUCK OFFFFFF BEST FUCKING EPISODE CLIMAX EVER. THE MUSIC & THE SFX HAVE ME GRIPPING MY SKULL

I need a whimsical bonedrinker shrew pet NOW!!!!

“Who were those tiny people, and follow up question, are forearms supposed to bend in this direction” THE DELIVERIES IN THIS EP ARE OFF THE CHARTS and Colette’s little “Ohh fancy!” too, so cute

Gonna start referring to the Titanic as the Gigantic and when people ask me where I got that from, I’m just gonna say “Eisen”. Hold on Wait a minute Are you fucking telling me Eisen caused the FUCKING TITANIC

I LOOOOVE LOVE LOOOOVE ARIADNEY AND CROWLEY AS A DUO – this last scene rocks, but WHAT. THE. FUCK. CHORONZON IS FUCKING LIZ!?!?!?!?! I DIDNT EVEN RECOGNIZE HER HOLYFUCKING SHIT LIZ!??!?! LIZ!??!?!?!?!?!??! THIS IS THE COOLEST VOICE I THINK IVE HEARD IN ANYTHING *EVER* FUCK OFF. FUCK RIGHT OFF I LOVE YOU LIZ. I AM UR BIGGEST FAN LIZ.

FUCK OFFFFFFFFFF ANOTHER KINGMAKER EPIC EPISODE IMGONNA SHIT EXPLODE AND DIE 10000 TIMES AND THEN RESURRECT AND DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN. FUCKOFF

KILLJAM EP4 IS HERE EVERYONE (smiles at you) Killjam EP4 is here...... (holds onto your shoulders)..... Are you going to listen?? Are you??? (YOU ARE)

THIS ONE IS GONNA BLOW UR MIND..... (Perhaps literally???)

🧑‍🦰💥

JAM 04 - TAKE ME TO CHURCH! - is NOW LIVE on SPOTIFY, APPLE PODCASTS, YOUTUBE, AND PODBEAN!

Bleeding to death after her Outlaw Jam with Mother Hysteria, Faustina’s going to need to make a tough choice if she wants to survive.

That is, if the Hyenas don’t get her first…

FIND ALL OUR FEEDS HERE, CUTIES! 💙

Cast Includes: @machetebisexual as Faustina Fuckin’ Fetamine, Josh Rubino as Roger Tallarico, Graham Rowat as The Begger, Tiana Camacho as Mara Nacht, Jack Hawkins as Head Hyena, Jamie Douglas as Hyena Jerry, @cannibalmukbang as The MediBooth, @doctorloup as Rig, Alex Bui as Orville, Chelsea Rebecca as Mother Hysteria, Gus Zagarella as Randy Macaque, @holographicgoblinking as Jesse Bazooka, and @reignoftiramizu as Bellamy Pink.

Transcript / Content Warning In The Show Notes!

I MUST KNOW…ARE YOU GONNA BE AT ANY OF THE BFDI X II MEETUPS THIS YEAR

HEYO!!! AND NO UNFORTUNATELY :^[ I herniated my disc at my job – I considered going to the NYC event (since it's closest to me), but I wasn't able to make it cause of my back injury. I'd be interested going next year tho, and if I'm able to attend any, it would most definitely be the NYC one :^D

LOVE YOUR USERNAME BTW. Springy is there in (evil demonic) spirit. Thanks for asking :,^]

Plush based on Nerds candy in blue, red, green, purple.

What's happening in the Season 3 premiere tomorrow? Wrong answers only.

Hey so in Romania there are in fact a ton of bears and they just walk down the road like they don’t give a fuck

HOLY FUCK IVE JUST LISTENED TO KILLJAM XXX AND IT IS SO GOOOOOD YOU GUYS!

Faustina IS SO FUNNY AND AMAZING AND SO COOL AND NOOOOOOOOO WHY DO ALL THE CHARACTERS HATE HER SO MUCH SHE HAS HAD SUCH A BAD TIME I JUST WANT TO GIVE HER A HUG AND THE STRAWBERRY MILKSHAKE THAT SHE NEVER GOT TO HAVE AND TELL HER THAT SHE IS LOVED- like, perfect sense of humour, especially for this site

Bellamy Pink- my guy’s voice he sounds young I absolutely LOVE how he is ready to throw hands (aka bring out his SUPER COOL MASSIVE GUN) for breaking his (one) business card, what a legend

The commentators: I LOVE THEM YOUR HONOUR- Jesse is so enthusiastic and Randy is sooo out of pocket it’s hilarious

Mara: You know what, we’ll see how it goes but she genuinely appears to care for Faustina, although she needs to see how shitty the company was treating Faustina as that was genuinely messed up

And Jonathan Sims is there?!?! And he gets some very funny lines!!!

I am sooooo going to be quoting things from this show- if you are a fan of Helluva Boss you will LOVE this unapologetically queer sci-fi violent comedy!!!