i

PETER GAFFNEY _________________________________________________________________________

CATALOG 2008-2015

THEORY & PRACTICE

_______________________________________________

Peter Gaffney is a puppet maker, theater director,

and multi-instrumentalist who teaches and performs

in Philadelphia and Munich. He also teaches

philosophy and theories of visual culture at The

Curtis Institute in Philadelphia.

Information about recent performances with links to

photos, videos and music can be found online at

http://www.neosequitur.com. Links to published work

and academic portfolio can be found online at

http://tinyurl.com/Gaffney-Academic.

ABOUT PETER GAFFNEY ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“I have worked in the American theater for over

twenty-five years and have had the fortune of working

with many brilliant artists. Peter is one of the two

genuine geniuses I have met. His work is of the highest

aesthetic standards; his craft is unquestioned; but more

importantly, he knows what he wants to do. His

intelligence is extraordinary, his vision is clear and his

ambition immense. These are, sadly,three things you

can’t say about many American theater artists.”

– John Clancy

John Clancy is an OBIE-Award winning theater director and

playwright, and founding Artistic Director of the New York

International Fringe Festival

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

“Philadelphia is already known as a physical theater hub

in the United States, and now our puppet arts

movement is growing. Imaginative creators like

Sebastienne Mundheim, Aaron Cromie and Peter

Gaffney are at the forefront of the charge.”

– Victor Fiorillo, Philadelphia Magazine

Victor Fiorillo is Arts & Entertainment Editor

for Philadelphia Magazine

Originally from the Pacific Northwest, Peter Gaffney is a composer, puppet maker, and theater director

who has lived, taught and performed in New York, Prague, London, Paris, Philadelphia and Munich. As

co-founder and director of Cabaret Red Light (2008–2011) and composer/music director on original

works at BRAT Productions (2012-2015), he has helped create more than thirty theatrical productions

with over 150 performances, chosen at times by TimeOut New York and Philadelphia’s City Paper as pick

of the week and “must see” performances. More recently, Peter created story, text and puppets for

Gesualdo in Heaven, depicting the life, crimes, and musical inventions of Renaissance composer Carlo

Gesualdo. As 2014 artist in residence at Leonrod-Haus für Kunst, he created Clown Death Peep Show, a

site-specific performance in a WWII-era barracks shower, and will be giving lectures and workshops on

his own “counter-puppetry” techniques as 2015 artist in residence at PLATFORM, a think tank for

contemporary art and culture in Munich, Germany (http://www.platform-muenchen.de/en). In 2016,

Peter’s work will be performed at the 10th International Puppet Days festival in İzmir, Turkey, and at

DOT in Istanbul (http://www.go-dot.org/?page_id=1727), where he is also working with artistic director

Murat Daltaban on an adaptation of Zargana (Needlefish), a novel by Hakan Günday. Peter has studied

puppetry, mask work and physical acting techniques with Pig Iron Theater (US), Divadlo Continuo (CZ)

and Rootless Root (GR/SK), and has led workshops on physical theater at Leonrod-Haus für Kunst (DE),

and seminars on theories of visual culture at Fidget Space (US).

A graduate of Stanford University (B.A., 1996) and University of Pennsylvania (M.A., 2000, Ph.D., 2006),

Peter also teaches philosophy, cinema and theories of visual culture, as well as French and Italian, and is

Assistant Professor at The Curtis Institute of Music. His edited volume on philosopher Gilles Deleuze,

The Force of the Virtual: Deleuze, Science and Philosophy (University of Minnesota Press, 2010) was

nominated for the Michelle Kendrick Book Award in 2011. See http://tinyurl.com/Gaffney-Academic.

You’ll find more about Peter at http://neosequitur.com, or click on one of the following links to go

directly to recordings of Peter’s recent music (http://neosequitur.com/music), a video of him on stage

(http://neosequitur.com/video) and a full portfolio (http://neosequitur.com/portfolio) that includes show-

by-show production details, original design work, photos and press.

2

FULL BODY PUPPETS

____________________________________________

Designed and built by Peter Gaffney, life-size

puppets await their cue in Gesualdo in Heaven, a

postdramatic puppet show about a composer

haunted by signs he does not understand, and by a

musical invention that will never redeem him.

Watch them make take the stage at

http://gesualdoinheaven.com/video.html.

2014-2015 / POSTDRAMATIC PUPPETRY

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

“COUNTER-PUPPETRY”

Whereas most puppetry emphasizes the artist’s ability to imbue matter

with meaning, recent puppets and techniques by Peter Gaffney revolve

around a medium that resists this role. In Gesualdo in Heaven puppets

are strapped limb-to-limb to the puppeteers, so that the puppeteer is

constrained to the movements of the puppet just as the puppet is subject

to the will of the puppeteer. This relationship becomes increasingly

strained over the course of the performance, to the point where we are

compelled at last to face the brutality underlying the struggle for artistic

control.

Heinrich von Kleist already touched on the possibility of a kind of

movement that is free from human control and consequently not

motivated by the psychology of the puppeteer. In “On the Marionette

Theater” he suggests that the true potential of puppetry lies not in the

cleverness or comprehensiveness of the mechanisms for controlling its

movement, but, on the contrary, in the presence and expressiveness of

an object at the moment it escapes human control. This speaks to the

general need to free human expressive forms from the (popular,

commercial) demand for aesthetic wholeness, together with the

ideological demand for meaning, by which they are typically made to

serve the interests of “control culture.” As Antonin Artaud writes in The

Theater and Its Double, we need to create new forms of theater “in order

to rescue it from its servitude to psychology and human interest.” The

aim of “counter-puppetry” is to seek out new impulses for movement in

real time, with the body and with objects, in combination with language,

images, sound and matter.

GESUALDO IN HEAVEN

Carlo Gesualdo may be best remembered as a triple murderer obsessed with

alchemy and the arcane, but he was also a pioneer of musical chromaticism,

and a major influence in the works of Wagner, Stravinsky, Schoenberg and

other key figures of modern music. Gesualdo in Heaven mixes life-size wooden

puppets with an original score inspired by his musical inventions to

investigate the insomnia, delirium, paranoia and genius of one of Western

music’s most troubling figures. The show features an original puppet design

paired with a technique inspired by Eastern expressive forms such as

bunraku, kabuki and noh theater, and explores the tension between an

expressive medium and our efforts to control it.

With story, text and puppets by Peter Gaffney, music by Ben Diamond,

puppetry by Jordi Wallen, Sarah Schol and Tabitha Allen, and directed by

Obie-Award winner John Clancy, Gesualdo in Heaven played to sold-out

audiences in Philadelphia, February 14–22, 2014, and has been selected by the

10th International Puppet Days festival in İzmir, Turkey, and 2016 season

programming at DOT Theater in Istanbul.

Video (Fidget Space, April 4, 2014): http://gesualdoinheaven.com/video.html

Brochure 2016: http://gesualdoinheaven.com/documents/GESUALDO_Brochure.pdf

Puppet design: http://gesualdoinheaven.com/documents/GESUALDO_Puppets.pdf

Photos of construction: http://tinyurl.com/gesualdo-design

Press release: http://gesualdoinheaven.com/documents/GESUALDO_PressRelease.pdf

Featured on WHYY's Newsworthy: http://tinyurl.com/gesualdo-whyy

Featured in Philadelphia Magazine: http://tinyurl.com/gesualdo-phillymag

Promotional video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HE1G7LpnWQA

Official website: http://gesualdoinheaven.com

4

Photo by Kate Raines

THE FUTURE ____________________________________________

Justin Rose performs the role of Karl, a down-and-out clown in a garbage dump whose

only distraction from the slow march of time is a machine that works in fits and starts and

the fading amusement of failed suicide. Always Coming Soon: The Future also features

performances by Jess Conda, Tabitha Allen, and Rob Cutler (also pictured here), and was

subject of a photography exhibit by Jauhien Sasnou at Painted Bride Art Center

(http://www.phillyvoice.com/painted-bride-revives-future-new-photo-exhibit).

2014-2015 / IN-YER-FACE CABARET

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

BRAT PRODUCTIONS

Peter Gaffney joined BRAT Productions (http://bratproductions.org) in 2012, working in

various roles (musician, music director, composer) for Jess Conda’s cabaret cycle Rock

and Awe and The Last Plot in Revenge by Brian Grace-Duff (page 13, below). In 2014, BRAT

used his concept album “The Experiment” as jumping off point for a devised theater

piece combining bouffon clown work with rock-and-roll musical theater. The result was

Always Coming Soon: The Future, an in-yer-face cabaret featuring a time machine in a

garbage dump that is home to three down-and-out clowns. Looking for a way to pass

the time, and motivated by a deep-rooted fear of solitude, they find an unsuspecting

passer-by and coax her into the machine with promises of a better life. Stand-and-deliver

cabaret songs mingle with the sounds of shifty vagabonds in the background hocking

their goods, in a musical described by theater critic Deb Miller of Phindie.com as “A

Toulouse-Lautrec painting come to life [with] time-warped reminiscences of 1931 Berlin

and a distinctly Parisian flavor of late 19th-century Montmartre.” Performing to sold out

audiences at Performance Garage, May 15-18, 2014, the original cast went on to mount

the show again in a co-production with Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia.

Video (Painted Bride Art Center, January 15, 2015): http://youtu.be/olqsa7QIbag

Brochure for 2016: http://tinyurl.com/future-brochure

Live recordings of music: https://soundcloud.com/the-future-musical/sets/live2015

Publicity & set design by Peter Gaffney: http://neosequitur.com/design

Interview with Peter Gaffney: http://tinyurl.com/future-interview

Featured on WHYY's Newsworthy: http://tinyurl.com/future-whyy

Reviewed by Deb Miller, Phindie.com: http://tinyurl.com/future-review

Photos of devising process & backstage, by Jauhien Sasnou: http://jauhiensasnou.com/the-future

The Future also featured set and publicity design

(right) by Peter Gaffney. See more designs at

http://neosequitur.com/design.

6

Photo by Johanna Austin

LEGEND OF THE RATMAN ____________________________________________________

With dance, music, puppetry and movement theater, Cabaret

Nutcracker combines the familiar Christmas story by E.T.A.

Hoffmann with Peter Gaffney's concept album "The Legend of the

Ratman" (https://soundcloud.com/legend-of-the-ratman/sets/live),

about a twentysomething forced to sign a contract with a

mysterious creature half-rat half-man, the bogeyman of adult life.

Pictured here are mechanical owl and ratman mask created by

Peter Gaffney. You can see pictures of their construction here:

http://tinyurl.com/nutcracker-design.

2015 / MOVEMENT THEATER

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

THE 200-YEAR OLD PARADOX

There is something suspicious about the Nutcracker story. Critics and

scholars have recently pointed out that the traditional holiday favorite is

thematically ambiguous, unsettlingly adult, at times even perverse. At

the heart of this ambiguity is the story of a child coming to terms with

the dangerous impulses of her body, but confronted with an adult world

that hides the body from view – or what is worse, claims to speak for the

body in the voice of Reason. Meanwhile, lurking in the wings, egging

her on, is a figure whose role is disturbingly avuncular, whose intentions

could not be less clear, and whose actions are thematically linked to the

blind will of animals and machines.

THE ORIGINAL GOTHIC CHRISTMAS STORY

The holiday classic that everybody knows as Balanchine’s Nutcracker

began as an 1816 story by Hoffmann called “The Nutcracker and the

Mouse King,” about the troubling visions of its protagonist Marie on

Christmas Eve. In later adaptations by Alexandre Dumas and Ivan

Vsevolozhsky, the conflation of fantasy and reality is in service of a

rather bland story about the joy of Christmas, presumably from a child’s

perspective. But the original tale strikes a darker tone. The fantastical

scenarios are not dream sequences but flights of delirium. What they

reveal is not the purity and innocence of youth but the precipitous

awakening of adulthood. Hoffmann inserts himself into the story as

Marie’s godfather, a Prospero-like figure who is at once an ally and a

traitor, winning her trust only to lead her deeper into the web of moral

problems that await her.

CABARET NUTCRACKER

Currently in production for December 2015, Cabaret Nutcracker confronts the

ambiguities of this popular Christmas ritual by staging them as such – that is,

as a story about the body as problematic locus of desire, movement and play,

especially as envisioned by French theater pedagogue Jacques Lecoq.

“Children gain their understanding of the world around them by miming it,”

he writes in Theater of Movement and Gesture. “They replay with their whole

body those aspects of life in which they will be called on to participate.” We

find the results of Lecoq’s teachings in nouveau cirque and clown work,

puppetry and dance – in a form of theater that begins with the body, its

impulses and rhythms, its place in the physical world. Drawing on these

performance styles, Cabaret Nutcracker aims to revive the Nutcracker tradition

by restoring its thematic complexity – but also by telling the story in a way

that speaks to the imminent danger of giving the body its own voice, of

listening to what the body has to say.

CREATIVE TEAM

The creators of Cabaret Nutcracker are an award-winning international team

representing a wide range of professional experience in puppetry and masks

(Peter Gaffney, USA), cirque nouveau (Compagnie Rasoterra, BE), music (Rolf

Lakaemper, DE), physical theater (María Sánchez Cortés, ES) and dance

(Sophia Mage, DK). For a complete resumé of the Cabaret Nutcracker team,

with links to recent work and reviews, please see the creative team dossier at

http://cabaretnutcracker.com/info/CN_Team.pdf.

Official website (under construction): http://cabaretnutcracker.com

Music by Rolf Lakaemper & P. Gaffney: http://cabaretnutcracker.com/music

8

THE RIDICULOUS MARTYR ______________________________________

Clown Death Peep Show is comprised of

short tragicomic performances exploring

the relationship between spectatorship,

performativity, the body and time. Watch

video of the segment “Anthem” here:

http://youtu.be/NOihz-NwLNw

2014 / SITE SPECIFIC

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

CLOWN DEATH PEEP SHOW

With influences that range from Antonin Artaud to Andy Kaufman, Clown Death

Peep Show is a site-specific work that explores the relationship between spectatorship,

performativity, the body and time, presenting short, physically demanding mini-

performances about a clown, a clock, and four cold walls. At intervals of ten minutes,

the audience is admitted in groups of three into a discrete viewing room with a

sliding shutter. The shutter goes up. The clown performs for ten minutes. The shutter

goes down. Inspired by the tension between demands for unmediated presence (of

the body, of the performer) and technologies that mediate presence (internet, visual

culture, social media), Clown Death Peep Show explores our contemporary

predicament through the figure of the clown, who is charged to satisfy our need for a

kind of “ridiculous martyr.”

Clown Death Peep Show was performed in 35 mini-performances, October 2–18, 2014,

in a WWII-era barracks shower at Leonrod-Haus für Kunst (Munich), and was made

possible by the generous support of Landeshauptstadt München Kulturreferat,

Bezirksausschuss 9 Neu- hausen/Nymphenburg, and DOKU e.V. München. The

performance was preceded in September, 2014, by a reading of Clown Manifesto

interrupted by the growing clamor of a clown horn and cartoon sound effects. The

complete text of the manifesto can be found at

http://neosequitur.com/CLOWN_Manifesto.pdf.

Official website: http://clowndeathpeepshow.com

Video: https://vimeo.com/134400560

The figure for Clown Death Peep Show was built

entirely out of discarded steel, wood, polystyrene

foam and other materials from a waste container at

Halle 6 in Munich, which donated workshop space to

the project. See photos of construction at

http://tinyurl.com/clowndeath-photos. 10

REPURPOSING FOR A GLOBAL THEATER

_________________________________________________

Rather than making costumes in one location and

distributing them (incurring prohibitively expensive

material and transportation costs), a digital package will

be distributed with patterns for repurposing/transforming

discarded plastic bags and bottles, polystyrene foam,

cardboard and paper products, etc. into Les Agents’

uniforms and tactical gear.

2016 / FLASH MOB

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

RECLAIMING THE PUBLIC SPHERE

The challenges of contemporary theater are often expressed in terms of

an aesthetic problem: how to get beyond the old-fashioned formula of

proscenium theater, with fourth-wall realism on one side and passive

audience on the other. In recent years, however, activists have been

turning to theatrical tactics – flash mobs, street puppets, pranksterism –

to create acts of civil disobedience. Perhaps the real challenge has

nothing to do with aesthetics, but with the material restrictions faced by

artists and activists alike in directly engaging the public sphere. Who has

the right to tell stories? How do mainstream narratives make use of the

spectacle to “generate” the authority of the storyteller, regardless of the

story?

Publicity image for Les Agents Provocateurs by Peter Gaffney.

As activists turn more and more to political theater, Les Agents Provocateurs

tells the story of a task force that uses those same tactics to win back popular

support for a culture of consumerist obedience. Dressed in riot gear, and

representing the abstract notion of the authorized use of force, they sing and

dance their way into the hearts and minds of the people. Written by Peter

Gaffney and directed by John Clancy, the “performance” will consist in a

series of flash-mob events performed simultaneously in various major cities

worldwide, culminating in a staged musical finale. The aim is to solicit

mainstream media coverage as a platform for telling a story about the

mechanisms of manufactured consent.

Whereas mainstream culture is sustained by high production value and

facilitated by technology, Les Agents Provocateurs is an experiment in the

power of live performance to democratize the spectacle. Rather than making

costumes in one location and distributing them (incurring prohibitively

expensive material and transportation costs), a digital package will be

distributed with patterns for repurposing/transforming discarded plastic bags

and bottles, polystyrene foam, cardboard and paper products, etc. into Les

Agents’ uniforms and tactical gear. Participating theater companies can then

acquire these materials at little or no cost and modify them according to the

design.

Other objectives of Les Agents Provocateurs include: (1) creating the

organizational structure for a worldwide coalition of artists and theater

companies; (2) extending the “stage” to mainstream channels of public

discourse (print, broadcast and internet media), in order to participate in

public discourse without commercial underwriting; and (3) developing long

term strategies for sustaining interest and narrative coherence over a variety

of events in a global transmedia theater experience. Check the official website

soon for more details: http://lesagentsprovocateurs.com.

12

THE LAST PLOT IN REVENGE ___________________________________________________

Award-winning Philadelphia actress Sarah Schol,

performing the opening number “A Song to Move

Through Time” (music by Peter Gaffney, lyrics by Brian

Grace-Duff and Peter Gaffney). You can listen to the

song online (http://tinyurl.com/REVENGE-Soundtrack), or

watch a video of the first half of the show (compiled by

James Stapleford) at http://tinyurl.com/revenge2013.

Video still by James Stapleford

2013 / LIVE CINEMA

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

THE LAST PLOT IN REVENGE

Written by Brian Grace-Duff and directed by OBIE-Award-winner John Clancy,

The Last Plot in Revenge presents a new twist on Brecht’s epic theater, invoking a

cinematic setting and then pulling the audience back and forth over the line

between gritty realism and self-reflexive melodrama.

Music composed by Peter Gaffney was inspired by contemporary folk and

cinematic Western music, but with darkly Victorian waltzes and melodramatic

songs. The soundtrack continues without breaks throughout the play, even during

spoken dialogue and fight sequences, underscoring the action or offsetting the

realism with counterpunctal rumbas.

Music: https://soundcloud.com/the-last-plot-in-revenge

Video (Act I only): http://tinyurl.com/revenge2013

“The music of Peter Gaffney transforms the theater into the old west and

helps flawlessly transition the scenes...The Last Plot in Revenge is sure to be a

new Philly Favorite for theater goers.”

— Molly Moon, Adventures with Molly

http://tinyurl.com/molly-revenge

“On a stage behind this bar is a live band of three dusty-looking

musicians...They will continue to provide a nearly unbroken accompaniment

to Brian Grace-Duff’s The Last Plot in Revenge...a risky, ambitious show. It

combines puppetry, dinner theater, and live music with a complex, richly

themed plot.”

— Julius Ferraro, Philly News

http://tinyurl.com/phillynews-revenge

14

A MODERN-DAY SPEAKEASY _______________________________________

During its three seasons and 80+

performances, Cabaret Red Light

(http://cabaretredlight.com) came

to the fore of the Philadelphia

cabaret scene, combining Brechtian

agitprop with original live music,

dark comedy, puppet theatre and

burlesque.

Photo by David Palumbo

2008-2011 / CABARET RED LIGHT

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Cabaret Red Light (http://cabaretredlight.com) was a 30+ member troupe

of Philadelphia’s most talented vaudeville performers, combining

Brechtian agitprop with original live music, dark comedy, puppet

theatre, dance and burlesque in the spirit of the decadent 1920s cabarets

and speakeasies. Under co-artistic director Peter Gaffney, the troupe

created more than 20 original productions and performed to sold out

audiences at Painted Bride Art Center, Adrienne Theater, Plays and

Players Theater, L’Etage, Chaplin’s Music Café, the Palace of Wonders in

Washington D.C. and PortSide New York. In their three seasons, they

were listed three times by Philadelphia’s City Paper as “Agenda Pick of

the Week,” by TimeOut New York‘s online entertainment guide as

“must-see,” and were the subject of an article in the New York Times

(http://tinyurl.com/nytimes-crl) and one-hour radio special on National Public

Radio affiliated WHYY (http://tinyurl.com/whyy-crl). Cabaret Red Light

closed its doors at the end of its 2011 season, following a run of seven

consecutive sold-out performances of its cabaret adaptation of Nutcracker

(more than 1400 tickets were sold, grossing over $25,000 at the box office).

Co-founding the company in 2008 with Anna Frangiosa, Peter Gaffney was

head writer, composer and music director for the troupe, and also created

publicity, graphic design, set pieces, props and masks. You will find samples

of Peter’s work for Cabaret Red Light at the links below.

NOVEMBER 2008 - JULY 2009

NOVEMBER 2009 - JANUARY 2010

MARCH - JUNE 2010

THE SEVEN DEADLY SINS

Inspired by Kurt Weill’s cabaret music by the same title, The Seven

Deadly Sins was a monthly cabaret series at L’Etage in Philadelphia,

featuring variety-style agitprop theater in a speakeasy setting.

Music: https://soundcloud.com/live-at-letage

THE TAKEOVER & OCCUPATION

Created as a co-production with Plays and Players theater, these shows

were based on the story of a cabaret that uses military force to take

over an established theater venue.

Music: https://soundcloud.com/the-takeover-occupation

THE EXPERIMENT

A sci-fi cabaret at L’Etage, with a time machine...

Music: https://soundcloud.com/the-experiment-musical

Photos: http://www.cabaretredlight.com/multimedia/2010_03-04_photos

Set design: http://tinyurl.com/experiment-photos

16

Co-produced by the venerable Plays

and Players Theater in Philadelphia

(http://www.playsandplayers.org),

Cabaret Red Light’s The Takeover

(right) presented a lavish Busby

Berkeley-style variety show telling

the story of the armed takeover of

a venerable theater.

MAY 2010 - SEPTEMBER 2011

JULY 2010

OCTOBER 2010

DECEMBER 2010 & 2011

THE SEVEN DEADLY SEAS

A series of shows aboard the Tall Ship Gazela, featuring real-life pirates Calico Jack, Mary Read and Anne

Bonny, as they contemplate the economic crisis, retirement and the derivatives market.

Music: https://soundcloud.com/the-seven-deadly-seas and https://soundcloud.com/man-from-orphan-island

Photos: http://www.cabaretredlight.com/multimedia/2010_05-16_photos

Website: http://cabaretredlight.com/sevenseas.

LUST

Created as a co-production with Plays and Players theater, these shows were based on the story of a

cabaret that uses military force to take over an established theater venue.

Music: https://soundcloud.com/the-takeover-occupation

LOOKING PRETTY & SAYING CUTE THINGS

Written by Anna Frangiosa with original music written by Peter Gaffney and arranged by Chris Aschman,

“Looking Pretty” follows the obscenity trials of cabaret legend Mae West.

Music: https://soundcloud.com/looking-pretty

Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6pBRLe9QKM

CABARET RED LIGHT’S NUTCRACKER

Cabaret Red Light's Nutcracker combined the familiar Christmas classic by E.T.A. Hoffmann with Peter

Gaffney's 2005 story "The Legend of the Ratman" about a twentysomething face to face with a creature

half-rat half-man, the bogeyman of adult life.

Music: https://soundcloud.com/cabaret-nutcracker

Photo montage by Peter Gaffney