Episode 7: Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew

“Actors are Meat Puppets”

Photo: Hunter Canning

Jeanette (she/her) thinks puppetry is a tool for community building, and to explore really abstract landscape storytelling. 

Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew is a puppetry artist who devises, directs and designs interdisciplinary productions that experiment with and challenge the concept of puppetry.  Her project with the Target Margin Lab, Act 4 of The Iceman Cometh was described by the New York Times as “consistently inventive”.  Her immersive production, Are They Edible? premiered at La MaMa to sold-out houses and was similarly called “bold” and “inventive”.  Additionally, her toy theater production of The Butcher Men was invited to the 2006 Prague Quadrennial and her digital puppetry adaptation of the Book of Genesis, MILK, was part of the Labapalooza 2007 presented at St. Ann’s Warehouse (NYC).  Jeanette has received grants from The Jim Henson Foundation, Queens Council on the Arts, Urban Artist Initiative and was the recipient of the NEA/TCG Career Development Program.  Harnessing her experiences as a lighting and projection designer for normal scaled beings, Jeanette also designs for contemporary puppetry performances within an interdisciplinary context. Some of her designs are: Shank’s Mare, Frankenstein (Mortal Toys), Invisible Glass, Saint Plays (various puppetry adaptations), and various productions within Erik Ehn’s commemorative cycle Soulographie: Our Genocides at La Mama ETC.  Jeanette is based in NYC. More at http://jeanetteyew.com and https://vimeo.com/jeanetteyew