Theater

Laurie O'Brien

Princess Grace Award:
Theater Scholarship, Puppetry Arts, 2007, Faberge Award

Laurie O’Brien’s puppetry career evolved from her experience making masks in a small theater La Comedie Italienne in Paris.  After building puppets for many years, she formed a small puppet troupe in San Francisco that held performances in her garage.  In 2004, she created, directed and performed the puppet trilogy “Three” at the New York Fringe Festival.   She is in her final year pursuing a graduate degree at CalArts as a Puppetry student. She is dedicated to advancing puppetry as a contemporary art form by mixing performance with animation and live video.  Recently, she integrated puppetry with animation in an adaptation of Richard Brautigan’s In Watermelon Sugar and created a walk-through installation-performance called Pandora’s Box.  She is currently working on an adaptation inspired by Kafka’s The Castle using live video, animation, and performers.