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Since its founding in 1999, Tiny Ninja Theater has developed two distinct styles of performance: the Mainstage Productions and the Suitcase Shows.
The Tiny Ninja Mainstage is dedicated to grand spectacle on a tiny scale. The Mainstage Productions are longer pieces which present both the classics and new material developed by the company.
Be it an adaptation of an existing text or a wholly original work, a Mainstage Production is conceived as a stand-alone, evening-length work in which the ninjas (and/or other dime store actors) embody the characters and remain the focus of the audience's attention. Tiny Ninja Theater presents Macbeth, the first Mainstage Production, is a perfect example of the style. From the opening appearance of the Witches to Macduff's final lines, the audience experiences Shakespeare's text through the characters. The "director" remains in the background and only comes to the fore as a character within the play (in this case, as the Porter), and not as the manipulator of the plastic performers.
The second Tiny Ninja Theater Mainstage Production, Tiny Ninja Theater presents Romeo & Juliet, premiered at the 2002 Piccolo Spoleto Festival.
Tiny Ninja Theater Suitcase Shows should fit securely in the overhead compartment or under the seat in front of you.
These shows, as the name implies, emerge from the contents of two old suitcases found abandoned in the streets of New York. Unlike the Mainstage, Suitcase Shows focus on the dynamic between the manipulator and the manipulated. In these shows objects do not embody specific characters, instead representing archetypes or ideas. Suitcase Shows can be seen as a form of storytelling where the "actors" serve to help illustrate and comment on the story being told, rather than becoming characters therein.
When Hillary Clinton appears in Election 2000 as a classic Princess Leia action figure, the audience is not asked to believe in the embodiment of public figure by a plastic thespian, but rather treated to a momentary juxtaposition of two icons. Suitcase Shows, including A Brief History of DUMBO, Election 2000, The Effects of Nuclear War, and Shakespeare's Sonnets, tend to be short pieces performed as part of a larger evening of work.
Although a full-length Suitcase Show could be mounted, in this case brevity seems to be the soul of wit; the Suitcase is more spontaneous and well suited to addressing current issues and events.
Between the Mainstage and the Suitcase exists a third performance style as yet unexplored by the Tiny Ninja Theater company. Both "director" and "actor" can be given equal weight as characters -- as every ventriloquist act proves. It is this possibility, along with further Mainstage and Suitcase shows, that Tiny Ninja Theater plans to pursue in the years to come.
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