ADULT WORK

Theatre designer, puppeteer, live art performer.

I make puppets of all types: hand, rod, string, bunraku theatre style, shadow. I have made for theatre, TV, large and small scale.

I am a working designer and performer. I specialise in work where the design is part of a collaborative visual/physical realisation of a piece of work and is the result of a close devising process with the production team.

Work as puppet-maker and director includes The Plug commissioned by the Little Angel Marionette Theatre - text and design by Caroline Astell-Burt - a fantasy drama for a very young audience with spoken word and shadow puppets, bassoon and word setting by composer Andrew Watson. The Ghost of Grassington street theatre, text and design Caroline Astell-Burt with scratch band and giant puppets for any age audience.

Antigone Legend

(for adult audience)

designed and directed by Caroline Astell-Burt commissioned by Institute for Contemporary Arts, London text by Bertolt Brecht production for piano, soprano, shadow puppets (composer Frederic Rzewski)

“Visually provocative.” Daily Telegraph
“The puppetry was fluid and imaginative” Financial Times.

Mary Magdalene Becomes a Virgin

(Designer Caroline Astell-Burt)

for adult audience- cabaret-style music and sculpture with text by Sara Maitland:

“Besides the magical quality of the soft-sculpted figure itself and the work of the operators, the levels the work created were the most exciting- fine risk-taking work.”
Lesley Ferris , co-editor Music Theatre Dance.

Warchild

National Youth Music Theatre (composer Richard Taylor)

“The mermaid symbol of Warsaw is beautifully evoked in the puppet designs of Caroline Astell-Burt.”
The Times.

Solo work

Using everyday objects, puppets, cutouts, mannikins, dolls and role play setting the work outside our own historical period, through surrogate practices I have been exploring different aspects of a woman's life and experience: The Apple Dance is part of a duo in terms of ideas it looks at girlhood, loss, Pieta Peepshow depicts a woman struggling with the death of her child and her memories of marriage and faith.

Ms Demeanor and Miss Creant Take Their Revenge

I recently created a character 'Ms Demeanor' who I am using to explore and challenge ideas and preconceptions. - in which playing the role of Ms Demeanor (a woman wearing a large white crinoline dress) I incorporate dolls, mannikins, cutouts, in an action involving lovers, infidelity, breakfast and death. It is a parody on romantic historical novels.

Holiday in Babylon

which is about the beach, birth and ketchup. A show set in a time of war when we eat our own children.

Talking to Strangers being lost and dead in the 18th Century - originally part of a commission for the Foundling Museum.

Free Bingo

(Theatre for One)