Sponsor Type
Foundation
Country
United States
Grant Type
Artistic/Exhibit/Collection
 Contact Info
Phone
212.439.7504
Email
info@hensonfoundation.org
Address
37-18 Northern Blvd., Suite 400, Long Island City, NY 11101
Last modified on 2023-12-29 03:59:54
Description
About the Foundation Since its inception, the Foundation has awarded more than 1000 grants to more than 400 American puppet artists for the creation and development of innovative live puppet theater. Past grant recipients include MacArthur Fellow Julie Taymor, director of the Broadway smash The Lion King; Roman Paska, whose dramatic interpretation of Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata was a hit at the 1994 Henson Festival; Ralph Lee, whose production A Popol Vuh Story was also presented at the 1994 Henson Festival and went on to tour New York City public schools; MacArthur Fellow Lee Breuer’s company Mabou Mines, whose production Peter Wendy was featured at the 1996 Spoleto Festival USA and the 1996 Henson Festival, followed by a month-long run at New York’s New Victory Theater; Rome Prize recipient Dan Hurlin, Doris Duke Award recipient Janie Geiser, and MacArthur Fellow and Doris Duke Performing Artist Award Recipient Basil Twist, whose production Symphonie Fantastique had an acclaimed year-long run in New York. The Jim Henson Foundation was founded in 1982 by Muppets creator Jim Henson to promote and develop the art of puppetry in the United States. Since 1992, Cheryl Henson has been the President of the Foundation. Cheryl grew up attending puppet festivals, as well as building and performing puppets. She is a dedicated advocate for puppetry and is the primary funder of the activities of the Foundation. As the only grant-making institution with a mission to promote puppetry in the United States, the Jim Henson Foundation has become a major advocate and resource for puppet artists. The Jim Henson Foundation Collection of Puppet Theater in the Theater on Film and Tape Archive of the New York Public Library for Performing Arts provides a permanent home for Henson International Festival performances, enhancing awareness and understanding of the field among theater students and professionals, the primary users of the archives. Puppet Happenings provides information on puppet performances and activities in the greater New York area, along with events involving the Foundation’s grant recipients throughout the country. From 1992-2000, the Foundation produced the largest international festival of puppet theater in the United States. The festival was started as a collaboration between Jim and Cheryl Henson. After Jim’s passing in 1990, work on the festival continued in honor of Jim’s memory and love of puppetry. The biennial the festival was Executive Produced by Cheryl Henson, who, together with Producing Director Leslee Asch and Associate Producer Anne Dennin, brought the very best puppetry from all over the world to New York for a celebration of innovative object theater, promoting puppet artists to theater presenters, funding sources, journalists and audiences nationwide. The Festival garnered increased attention for contemporary puppet theater in general, enabling puppet artists throughout the United States to reach a wider audience. The Festival won both the Drama Desk and the Obie Award and received coverage from prestigious sources including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Vanity Fair, CBS Sunday Morning, Good Morning America, and National Public Radio. You can learn more about our past festivals in our Henson Festival Archive section and in the book Out of the Shadows: The Henson Festivals and Their Impact on Contemporary Puppet Theater by Leslee Asch. From 2011-2014, the Foundation presented Puppets on Film, an annual festival with BAMcinematek at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Curated by Lindsey “Z” Briggs and Cheryl Henson, this festival brought together a range of new and classic puppet films and documentaries as well as compilations of short puppet films including films produced by Hand Made Puppet Dreams. From 2017-2021, The Foundation collaborated with Yale Child Study Center on the first clinical research study on how children on the autism spectrum look at puppets. A paper on the study was published on August 4th 2021 in the journal of The International Society for Autism Research. While the study was underway, Z Briggs developed the workshop Making Connections Through Puppetry to teach educators how to utilize puppets when working with kids with ASD. In 2019, the Foundation mounted the exhibition American Puppet Theater Today: The Photography of Richard Termine at the Festival Mondial in Charleville-Meziere, France. The exhibition was remounted in September 2021 at The LaMama Galleria with an additional section dedicated to Puppetry During the Pandemic featuring Richard’s photographs of resilient New York artists performing and collaborating during the Covid crisis. The Foundation’s primary activity is supporting American puppet artists through our grants including individual Artist Grants, Presenter’s Grants to New York City theaters, as well as residencies at the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center and the Carriage House, and the Allelu Award travel grant.
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The Jim Henson Foundation awards grants each year for the creation of innovative new works of...
Added on 2024-01-28T21:36:43Z
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