Lavaeu
Pandemic Collective
April 2019
Puppet Designer and Puppeteer
Katy Williams Design in partnership with Pandemic Collective brought Laveau to life in 2019. Pandemic Collective received an envelope in the mail with no return address and no name. When they opened the envelope, they found a script titled Laveau penned by an unnamed writer, written on old paper with a typewriter. In the tale, Brigitte, a woman in New Orleans, is searching for her estranged mother when she begins having vivid nightmares about the bayou. As the nightmares become more surreal, a voodoo-esque magic bleeds into her life, blurring the line between dreams and reality. This surreal, spooky, and beautiful piece featured live shadow puppetry designed by Katy Williams Design.
The puppets were both front and back facing shadow puppets. One puppeteer was behind the custom screen using flashlights to create sets and moods, while Katy puppeteered throughout the entire show from the audience Katy was located in the middle of the audience, surrounded by puppets, textured objects, and flashlights. From the house, Katy was able to layer both styles of puppetry to create a surreal experience Denver audiences had never experienced.
Puppets were hand carved from cardboard and card stock. Most of the textures were found around local thrift shops. We used high beam hunting flashlights that had multiple colors.
Certain effects such as double exposure, mirrors, and forced perspective were used to achieve a nightmare-like state of wonder.
PRESS:
"Half the fun is watching Katy Williams conjuring the Bayou world of the play kneeling at a table about 4 feet in front of the stage. She has created dozens of tiny cut-out set pieces in miniature such as grasslands and trees and crickets that she then projects onto a screen up to sizes larger than life using no more than a tiny flashlight – often stuck in her mouth. She complements the storytelling using her hands to make a man-eating snake as well as everyday thrift-store buys such as jars, glass plates and a bamboo pattern she turns into a full-fledged prison." - John Moore Theatre Coverage
Onstage Colorado - "I took the pre-show email’s advice and sat next to Williams’s table, which was covered in her many cutouts as well as various colored flashlights, translucent plastic, glass jars and other things that look cool or creepy when you shine a light through them. I watched her strap on knee pads in preparation for the show, hold flashlights in her mouth when both hands were busy and otherwise work almost nonstop as the action continued on the stage just a few feet away." - Alex Miller Onstage Colorado
"When local non-profit horror theatre company Pandemic Collective received a mysterious unnamed script in the mail last year, they knew they had to bring the creative piece to the stage. Featuring both live actors and beautiful shadow puppetry designed by Katy Williams, the eerie story follows a New Orleans woman named Bridgette, who begins having horrible nightmares while searching for her estranged mother. But thanks to some Voodoo magic, the lines between dream and reality quickly become blurred. The plot of this performance isn’t the only thing that’s spooky: The sender of the secretive script has yet to be identified." - 5280 Events