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Ronnie Burkett
Ronnie Burkett has been captivated
by puppetry since the age of seven, when he opened the World Book Encyclopedia
to “Puppets.” He began touring his puppet shows at the age of fourteen
and has been on the road ever since. Ronnie has received numerous awards
in Canadian theatre as a playwright, actor and designer for his work
with Theatre of Marionettes, including the Herbert Whittaker Drama Bench
Award for Outstanding Contribution to Canadian Theatre, and international
recognition including a Village Voice OBIE Award in New York for Off
Broadway Theatre. From his peers, Ronnie has received three Citations
for Excellence in the Art of Puppetry from The American Center of the
Union Internationale de la Marionnette and the President’s Award from
The Puppeteers of America. Recognized as one of the world’s foremost
theatre artists, his work has created an unprecedented adult audience
for puppet theatre, and continuously plays to great critical and public
acclaim in Canada, the U.K., Australia, Germany, Austria, Sweden and
elsewhere. 10 DAYS ON EARTH is the tenth production from
Theatre of Marionettes. When not wiggling dollies in front of strangers,
Ronnie lives in Toronto.
“These puppets are built
and designed and exist solely to be those characters. It’s a whole
kind of weird chemistry magic thing that goes on, because I don’t
really make them come alive. I do the voice and I move them around,
but the audience has to suspend their disbelief. And when they do THAT,
that’s when the character comes alive. And the audience doesn’t
know they’re doing that, but they’re actually giving those things
breath when they admit and get over the fact that these things don’t
breathe and they don’t think. But I can always tell that moment in
the show when the audience goes to that place.”
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