The Autonomous Playhouse engaged in many shows and puppet parades in 2011, including a May Day puppet show, a Fukushima-themed show at a Hiroshima remembrance ceremony held at a local Catholic Church in Hollywood (watch video here), a GMO themed show at a World Food Day rally, a Columbus Day puppet parade march on SOUTHCOM in Miami (pictured above), and numerous shows in support of Occupy Miami.
From its early days the Playhouse has included clown skills in its performances, including radical clowning at the 2011 Coconut Grove New Years Eve Parade as well as being worked into our stage shows.
2012 Expansion
The Playhouse expanded roster and activities significantly in 2012, and prepared for taking the show on the road as well as taking larger roles in protest actions in South Florida. This included a puppet review of International Workers' Day at the Occupy May First action in downtown Miami. We also prepared countless banners and flags for the occasion. Soon we held a final show and sharing in Fort Lauderdale as many puppetistas left on tour on our veggie oil-powered school bus for the summer. But leaving South Florida was only the beginning for the Playhouse...
Dual Tours in US & Ireland
While one band of Playhouse puppetistas toured Florida, Louisiana, and Texas (see write up here), another tour went through Dublin and other parts of Ireland. See our show at Rossport Solidarity Camp, County Sligo:
2012 Tampa RNC part 1
The Autonomous Playhouse's most ambitious project yet: culture jamming the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa, Florida. For 2 solid weeks we offered trainings in direct action, clown skills, and many other protest theater disciplines, and then on to the actions...the RNC also saw the premiere of our Dan the Pandarchist suit! See our RNC security culture show below and check out the next tab for tons more on our RNC activities.
Puppetistas took on the roles as educators starting with the summer of 2012 at the Food Not Bombs Free Skool in Taos, New Mexico. In this fertile progressive communuity, the Playhouse started workshops to train protesters in protest theater and learn new skills.
Homeless Apocalypse Tour
The Playhouse's first nation-wide tour took off in October of 2012, performing in New Mexico, Texas, Missouri, Georgia, and Florida -
including performing at one of the best annual puppet parades in the country at School of America Watch at Fort Benning, GA. Our homelessness and foreclosure centered show was a lot of fun...and if you like what you see, we're always looking to book more tours, so contact us!
Spring 2013
2013 saw more of what we do best, a sequel puppet parade march to SOUTHCOM in Miami, as well as the premiere of Flower & The Kingdom of Fort Lauderjail: a hard-hitting tale of homelessness in South Florida.
As half of the Playhouse continued doing shows in Miami, the other half traveled back to Taos to do puppetista workshops and shows at the FNB Free Skool. This lead to, among other things, the Playhouse creating puppet parades for March Against Monsanto in May in two places at once!
The Miami playhouse put on a number of performances including shows on security culture and a puppet tribute to Victor Jara. The Free Skool Playhouse also put on shows like the following in between classes:
