PUPPET SAMPLES AND REVIEWS
"Dan Butterworth is a superb artist whose program is both entertaining and esthetically wonderful. People of every age are enthralled with his skill and talent."
-'ARTS EXPERIMENT', Tifton, Georgia/ Syd Blackmarr, Director
DAN AND HIS ENTOURAGE
"The highest compliment that I can pay Dan Butterworth is that the younger audience loved the puppets and the adults were blown away by the show. That is exactly how we get families to come back to visit our programs. Dan is extremely professional, courteous, and highly entertaining. That is refreshing in a performance."
- STATEN ISLAND MUSEUM, NY/ Alan Edstrom, Special Events Coordinator
SHADOW PUPPETS BEHIND THE SCENES
THE SHADOW SHOW
THE PUPPETS DANCE
" Dan Butterworth has the unusual ability to entertain adults as well as children.. ..All were enchanted by the Harlequin, who one moment would lope despairingly across the floor, the next moment would be peering mischievously around the puppeteer's legs."
- THE STANDARD, Hong Kong
"We can highly recommend Dan Butterworth and his Marionettes as a technically and artistically brilliant production."
- UNIVERSITY of SOUTH CAROLINA, Beaufort, SC
"The CARNAVAL is a delightful theater experience that transforms into a visual and musical extravaganza of enchanting family entertainment."
- THE REED WHIPPLE CULTURAL CENTER, Las Vegas, NV
"Sometimes it's hard to get students to go to our activities, but last Saturday night we had and excellent turnout! I was extremely excited. Because it was unusual, so well organized and professional, and with such incredible attention to detail, it made the performance delightfully entertaining."
- WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY, Winston Salem, NC/ Shelleigh McVicker, Student Activities
"The puppeteers coaxed movement out of those puppets I had never dreamed possible, moving and dancing with such delicate, sometimes hilarious, sometimes poignant motion. Within minutes the puppets had such personalities that they seemed more like friends than inanimate objects made of wood and string.
A favorite skit was two wooden puppets stripped down to the essentials: just arms and legs, and hands and feet, with a hook where the head might someday be and the shoulders attached to the hips by rope. They danced a most tender lovers' dance. The simplicity of form freeing up the puppets to expose the true graceful nature of their movement."
-PONTINE THEATER/ Portsmouth, NH. The Hampton Union
"Highly unusual, artistic and riveting. I was extremely pleased with a performance I'll never forget."
- THE WEST BETH THEATER, New York City, NY/ Claudia Catavia, Director
"There are moments in the theater when you realize, with a rush of gratitude, that a work of art is unfolding before you. Time is the invisible master of the theater so the apprehension of art does not hit you all at once (as in painting or sculpture). Instead, you are gradually sucked into another world and finally become the willing victim of a stranger's imagination. When this happens it does not matter that the content be profound or simple-the power of art sweeps all before it. A triumph of art was witnessed during a performance of Dan Butterworth and his Marionettes. It was an evening of pure delight: of enchantment.
Dan has fashioned each marionette and each performs according to his desire. He does not make himself scarce behind the wings, but accompanies each marionette onto the stage. A peculiar thing happens-as the marionettes begin to move, to dance, to prance, Dan disappears, he has set a spell upon the audience, sitting on their heads, crawling onto their laps, sashaying up and down the aisles: the whim of an invisible force called Dan Butterworth!"
- THE BOSTON VISUAL ARTS UNION
EMAIL US AT:butterworth1@mindspring.com
BUTTERWORTH PRODUCTIONS COPYRIGHT 2003
