The Creators of Richard 3.5 Light Ruminations on Murder
ERIC BASS (Co-creator and performer, Richard 3.5) Eric Bass has worked in the theater as a director, playwright, performer and mask and puppet maker. He was a member of Jean Erdman’s Theater of the Open Eye in New York City for five years, until he left in 1980 to create his first solo performance using puppets, Autumn Portraits, which was awarded a Diploma of Excellence in Pecs, Hungary and the First Prize Critics Award for Best Production at the International Puppetry Festival in Adelaide, Australia. In 1982, Mr. Bass founded Sandglass Theater in Munich, Germany, with his wife, Ines Zeller Bass. Mr. Bass conceived, designed and performed in all three of the Sandglass Heaven Trilogy productions: Sand, Invitations to Heaven and The Village Child, each of which earned a Citation of Excellence from the International Union of Puppeteers. As a director, Mr. Bass has worked in America, Australia, Poland, and Finland, as well as the United States. His staging of Bertolt Brecht’s Caucasian Chalk Circle was produced at the Helsinki City Theater, Canada’s Caravan Farm Theater and by Sandglass Theater for the Jim Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater in September 1996. His children’s play, In My Grandmother’s Purse, has been produced by theaters in the United States, Finland and Poland. In 1991, Mr. Bass was awarded the Figurentheater Prize of the City of Erlangen, Germany for his contributions to the field of puppet theater. In July 1997, Mr. Bass directed and performed in Never Been Anywhere, hailed by American Theatre as “one of the most definitively ‘American’ puppet shows”, filled with “characters that bite.” Never Been Anywhere was performed at the Henson Festival in New York in the Fall of ‘98 where it received an UNIMA Citation of Excellence. Mr. Bass conceived and performed in Sandglass’ One-Way Street, based on the life and work of Walter Benjamin and collaborated with Gemini Trapeze (formally of Cirque de Soleil) and Rob Mermin (formally of Circus Smirkus) on Between Sand and Stars, inspired by the texts of Antoine de Saint-Exupery. He collaborated with Bob Berky on Richard 3.5: Light Ruminations on Murder, and with theater company Sovanna Phum of Phnom Penh, Cambodia on The Story of the Dog . Mr. Bass is currently working on two new pieces: Bad Weather Ballads, and D-Generation (An Exultation of Larks). The latter piece explores non-linear story telling with people suffereing from dementia. Eric Bass taught theater and directing at Marlboro College from 1996-2002. He currently directs an intensive puppet theater training institute with the rest of the Sandglass company for three weeks during the summer at the University of Connecticut.
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BOB BERKY (Co-creator, performer Richard 3.5 and performer in Out of the Box) has performed as a solo artist at universities, theatres and theatre festivals throughout the world, including Hong Kong, Perth, Australia, London, Vancouver, Buenos Aires, Cologne, Amsterdam and Belfast. He has appeared at Dance Theatre Workshop, Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center and as a featured artist at The Brooklyn Academy of Music Next Wave Festival in “The Alchemedians” and “The Power Project”. “The Alchemedians”, with Mr. Berky and Michael Moschen, was produced off-Broadway and toured worldwide.Bob Berky directed movement and clowning for Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival's production of “Twelfth Night” at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park. He has also worked as movement coach for such performers as Donal Donaldson, Gregory Hines, Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer. Directing credits include “Glengarry Glen Ross”, “The Real Inspector Hound”, “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead”, “True West”, and “Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged”. Acting credits include Willy Loman in “Death of a Salesman”, Estragon in “Waiting for Godot”, Richard III, and Charlie in “Stones in His Pockets”. Mr. Berky, who initially studied French horn at the Eastman School of Music, also performs as clown/musician with symphony orchestras. His solo romps with symphonies include the Toronto Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic, Grand Teton Festival Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony, Corpus Christi Symphony, New Jersey Symphony, Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, among others.
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