The Mudlark Public Theatre

About the Theatre

Established in 2009, The Mudlark Public Theatre is a black box performance space that presents notable work in independent theatre, puppetry, music, dance, film, poetry and more. Laboratory style residencies, educational workshops in the arts, and community aid projects are a regular part of the annual calendar. Historically, a “ mudlark” was a term used to describe the urchins who combed the gutters of  Dickensian-era London looking for dropped treasure, subsisting on the miraculous discarded by the wayside. Located in New Orleans upper 9th ward, The Mudlark is a home for the inquisitive, founded on the principles that storytelling is fundamental and that every story deserves a voice. On the site of what was once a corner store, The Mudlark is a crossroads of experience and expression which serves to provide accessible creative space to artists, patrons, teachers and scholars, and to engage the life of its communities, locally and abroad.

          The Mudlark Public Theatre is also the home-base of the space's resident company, The Mudlark Puppeteers and The New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival. Established in 2012, The New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival is a five day celebration of excellence in puppetry.  The New Orleans Giant Puppet Fest hosts local, national, and international artists, with all-ages friendly and adult only performances, presented daily until late-night across multiple venues. As a company, the Mudlark Puppeteers specialize in puppet theatre that is innovative and unconventional, presenting original and little-told stories of heroic misfits and wayward love. The Mudlarks have a developing repertory of object-based works in a variety of scales. Mudlark work explores history and human experience through a lens of fable, waging a playful but determined battle for alternative modes of being. Mudlarks imagine hope in the form of new stories, reimagining the dispossessed as emerging heroes. The New Orleans Giant Puppet Festival invites this prospect to the world.

www.neworleansgiantpuppetfest.com

Founder/ Artistic Director- Pandora Andrea Gastelum