Trouble Puppet Theater Company has been creating innovative
puppet theater in Austin since 2004. While producing original
shows for adult audiences, the company has also created
puppets for a variety of Austin theater groups, performed
opening acts for several full-length plays, and provided classes
and family workshops for Lifeworks, Second Youth Theater,
Scottish Rite Children’s Theater, Salvage Vanguard’s summer
theater camp, and the City of Austin’s Totally Cool/Totally Art
program.
Trouble Puppet was started by Connor Hopkins, who moved to
Austin in 1997 and discovered puppetry that same year.
Working as a carpenter and house painter, he built puppets and
sets in his kitchen, and performed at bars, warehouses, and
benefits for small non-profits and community groups. By the
time he produced the 2004 May Day Celebration in Zilker Park,
Hopkins knew he needed to expand the operation, and
established Trouble Puppet Theater to start building a core of
artists and performers capable of pulling off the larger, more
theatrical shows he was devising.
Since then, Trouble Puppet has created more than a dozen
original shows, most recently Frankenstein: A Trouble Puppet
Show in October 2008, The Cosmic Clock, commissioned by
First Night Austin 2009, The Gunpowder Plot: or, How I
Became A Catholic Suicide Bomber in September 2007, The
Cruel Circus from December 2007 to March 2008, and The Case
of the Haymarket Riot in May 2008, which was also featured in
the Fusebox Festival. Connor Hopkins now works in theater
full time, as Artistic Director of Trouble Puppet and as a
freelance scenic designer. He is a company member of Rude
Mechanicals, was nominated for an Austin Critic’s Table Award
for design for Voices Underwater. In 2007 and 2008 Hopkins
won scholarships to the prestigious Eugene O’Neill Theater
Center’s National Puppetry Conference and participated in
Master Classes and ensemble projects with some of the most
acclaimed puppet makers and performers in the country,
including Jim Kroupa, Pam Arciero, Martin Robinson, Robert
Smythe, Philip Huber, Paul Mesner, and others.
puppet theater in Austin since 2004. While producing original
shows for adult audiences, the company has also created
puppets for a variety of Austin theater groups, performed
opening acts for several full-length plays, and provided classes
and family workshops for Lifeworks, Second Youth Theater,
Scottish Rite Children’s Theater, Salvage Vanguard’s summer
theater camp, and the City of Austin’s Totally Cool/Totally Art
program.
Trouble Puppet was started by Connor Hopkins, who moved to
Austin in 1997 and discovered puppetry that same year.
Working as a carpenter and house painter, he built puppets and
sets in his kitchen, and performed at bars, warehouses, and
benefits for small non-profits and community groups. By the
time he produced the 2004 May Day Celebration in Zilker Park,
Hopkins knew he needed to expand the operation, and
established Trouble Puppet Theater to start building a core of
artists and performers capable of pulling off the larger, more
theatrical shows he was devising.
Since then, Trouble Puppet has created more than a dozen
original shows, most recently Frankenstein: A Trouble Puppet
Show in October 2008, The Cosmic Clock, commissioned by
First Night Austin 2009, The Gunpowder Plot: or, How I
Became A Catholic Suicide Bomber in September 2007, The
Cruel Circus from December 2007 to March 2008, and The Case
of the Haymarket Riot in May 2008, which was also featured in
the Fusebox Festival. Connor Hopkins now works in theater
full time, as Artistic Director of Trouble Puppet and as a
freelance scenic designer. He is a company member of Rude
Mechanicals, was nominated for an Austin Critic’s Table Award
for design for Voices Underwater. In 2007 and 2008 Hopkins
won scholarships to the prestigious Eugene O’Neill Theater
Center’s National Puppetry Conference and participated in
Master Classes and ensemble projects with some of the most
acclaimed puppet makers and performers in the country,
including Jim Kroupa, Pam Arciero, Martin Robinson, Robert
Smythe, Philip Huber, Paul Mesner, and others.
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