Handspring Puppet Company, Cape Town

However, Handspring had always felt the challenge of developing an adult audience for the theatre of puppets and therefore began at night to workshop plays for adults. The first step in this unmarked territory was Episodes of an Easter Rising in 1985, performed in Cape Town, Grahamstown and Johannesburg. They were astonished and delighted by the strong support the production received from adult audiences and the press. This set the arc for all their future theatre work. Exposure to international theatre for puppets at the 7th international Festival of Puppet Theatre in Charleville-Mezzieres in 1985 increased their resolve to work for adults.

Their first international success came in 1991 with Starbrites directed by Barney Simon, which toured to Europe and had a London season. In '92 they began work with the artist, William Kentridge. Their first collaboration, Woyzeck on the Highveld won many awards in South Africa and was highly acclaimed at festivals around the world. Since then, the company has collaborated with Kentridge on several other multi-media productions.

The rich theatre life that existed in Johannesburg in the late eighties and nineties gave Handspring many opportunities to work with top South African directors. Each provoked new and unexpected developments in the way they made and worked with puppets. However, some of the changes stemmed from the performers' interaction with the materials and the demands of the performance. For rod manipulators like Handspring, the weight of the puppet was an important criterion.

During the period of the children's plays this problem was solved largely through the use of polystyrene covered in layers of paper. However, Adrian (the master puppeteer and puppet maker) always found this to be an unsympathetic material.

• Grahamstown
• Theatre
• William Kentridge
• Kalk Bay
• Opera
• String Quartet
• Kentridge
• Handspring Puppet Company
• Handspring
• Puppeteers
• Shadow Puppets
• Rod Puppets
• Adrian Kohler
• Basil Jones
• Marionette
• String Puppet
• Bunraku
• Zarafa
• Confessions
• Oratorios
• Zeno at 4am
• Confessions of Zeno
• Il Ritorno D'Ulisse
• Ubu and The Truth Commission
• Ubu Roi
• Faustus
• Faustus in Africa
• Woyzeck on The Highveld
• Chimp Project
• Starbrites
• Tooth and Nail
• Carnival of The Bear
• A Midsummer Nights Dream
• Episodes of an Easter Rising
• Multi-Media Productions
• Charcoal Drawings
• Wood Carvers
• Wood Sculptors
• Performance Art Theatre
• Uitvoerendekunste-teater