6 Questions: Alice-Therese Gottschalk

Wunderkammer | Cabinet of Curiosities opens La MaMa's 2018 Puppet Festival this week with an alluring cabinet of marionettes and allow them to transport you to a place of pure wonder. All the way from Germany, puppeteers Alice Therese Gottschalk, Raphael Mürle, and Frank Soehnle, all disciples of the internationally-renowned master puppeteer Albrecht Roser, convene as a trio to challenge and intensify their puppeteering skills.

Alice Therese Gottschalk took time out of her busy rehearsal schedule to answer 6 Questions for La MaMa about this upcoming production:

1) Do you have a favorite puppet in your performance? 
I think all charters and styles of the puppet are so different and each character has its special wonders and surprised - so I can‘t say there is „the one.“ 

2) What is the history behind cabinets of curiosity? 
The origin of the show was our wish to develop the art form of string puppetry. All three of us are normally solo performers, we often work together with musician, actors, dancer, but seldom with other string puppeteers.

So it was a pleasure to develop puppets and discover movements together and with the permanent possibility to get a different outside view because we could see our puppets performed by other string puppeteers. I learned a lot from the other two during this process! The idea to make a show out of this research came later - first there was our curiosity. 

3) What's one thing you learned working with puppeteer Albrecht Roser? 
Just one? Mhm, to observe movement and to listen to the material, objects, puppets what stories they want to tell through their movement. 

4) Is there a universal connection between all things? 
In the show I would think the music of Bradley Kemp (NY) and the costumes of Evelyn Meersschaut (Belgium) are connecting elements and give the very different styles of our marionettes a strong frame. 

5) What draws you to work with marionettes? 
The art form of puppetry connects for me the fine and the performing arts. Through the way of construction of my own puppets I influence the performance. I can play with forms and movement and this is an deep and endless pool of possibilities and stories. String puppets especially are, for me, the most independent and surprising puppet form. 

6) What does working at La MaMa mean to you? 
To show our work at La MaMa gives us the possibility to present Wunderkammer in the US the first time, which hopefully will be an exciting experience. And looking through La MaMa's diverse and courageous program, I think Wunderkammer found the right place to be.

La MaMa presents

Wunderkammer | Cabinet of Curiosities
Part of the La MaMa Puppet Festival
Puppeteers: Alice-Therese Gottschalk, Raphael Mürle and Frank Soehnle
Music by Michael Wollny and Tamar Halperin

November 1st - November 3rd, 2018

$25 Adult Tickets; $20 Students/Seniors; $10 Tickets

Ellen Stewart Theatre
66 E 4th Street; Basement level
New York, NY 10003

For tickets and more information: CLICK HERE