Epidermis Circus

A spicy puppet cabaret, hosted by a sassy grandma who keeps trying to steal the show. This beautifully twisted variety show is performed by Ingrid Hansen, who also puppeteers for Jim Henson Company’s Fraggle Rock. Watch behind-the-scenes as Hansen performs a live puppet film, animating cheeky vignettes in the palm of her hand and projecting them onto a huge screen. “Both live and magnified on screen, in cunningly angled cameras and mirrors, we see Hansen create characters from her own hands, fingers, tongue, in a saucy and jostling vaudeville of ‘stars’. NUTTY, INGENIOUS, MESMERIZING.” - 12th Night.

Tiny stories emerge that celebrate the hilarious impossibility of being alive and having a body: these fragile bags of meat and bone, carry us from place to place and allow us to laugh and snort and feel. SNAFU’s work has been compared to Wes Anderson and David Lynch, yet “hilarious, absurd and profoundly human,” (the Star Phoenix Newspaper.)

SPICY, FOR AGE 14+.

Warning: Cartoonish sexual content, curse words, puppet suicide. Dark lighting, loud music, and surprises.

“Utterly magical, insanely inventive, wickedly funny, BEAUTIFULLY TWISTED, and occasionally erotic! ★★★★★” - Free Press.

“Surpassing the world of the weird, the zany antics of Epidermis Circus live in a universe of absolutely absurd. CRITIC’S CHOICE NYC. ★★★★★” - Jaycie Buben, All About Solo NY

An “enormously entertaining, one-hour madcap vaudeville show. It is chock full of riotous, naughty, and mystifying vignettes using her bare hands, her face, her mouth, tiny toys, and a doll’s head. Hansen's hands-in-motion have the kind of presence that is often attributed to the greatest stage performers, and their movement, combined with her skill for vocalization, establishes colorful characters playing out their scenarios -- transfixing the audience, and creating pin-drop silence interspersed with spontaneous bursts of laughter.” - Culture Catch NYC

Directed by Britt Small (premiere director of Ride the Cyclone,) with costumes by JIMBO (winner of RuPaul’s Drag Race,) performed by Ingrid Hansen (puppeteer for The Jim Henson Company’s Fraggle Rock and Sesame.)

“5 STARS. Imagine Shari Lewis possessed by David Lynch” - Free Press.

“GENIUS PHYSICAL COMEDY!” - Entertainment World.

WINNER - Ed Fringe HoldOver Award

"Immensely funny, creative, uproarious and surprising...Her physicality is impeccable."

- The Star Phoenix

“Unbelievably funny.” - PLANK Magazine

“Unbelievably charismatic.”  - The Charlebois Post

“An amazingly versatile physical comedian with a knack for bringing inanimate objects to life.” ​- The Montreal Gazette​

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Hot off a tour to the most prestigious puppet festival in Montreal, Danish-Canadian puppeteer Ingrid Hansen tours her spicy puppetry cabaret after shooting 2 seasons of Fraggle Rock with the Jim Henson Company. She spent a year traipsing through Brooklyn’s parks puppeteering a big orange monster on Sesame’s new Emmy-Award-Winning series ‘Helpsters,’ alongside human actors Andrea Martin, John Oliver, Terry Crews, and Margaret Cho. At home in Victoria, Canada, Ingrid also co-creates puppet theatre with the “big kids” inside federal prisons.

SHOW CREDITS

Produced by SNAFU Society of Unexpected Spectacles

Co-Created & Directed by Britt Small

Co-Created & Performed by Ingrid Hansen

Co-Produced by, and with creative contributions from, Kathleen Greenfield

Costume Design by JIMBO The Drag Clown (James Insell)

Additional puppetry coaching & jokes from

Mike Petersen, Rod Peter Jr, Anand Rajaram & Victor Dolhai

Epidermis Circus was created with support from the Capital Regional District Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.  Early development of Epidermis Circus was also supported by the National Arts Centre's #CanadaPerforms initiative, and the OAC’s Theatre Creators Reserve as recommended by the Puppetmongers.