Meredith Garniss Interview

I do so digg an interview where I am the answer to the question. The interviewer was Pagan Kennedy and the interviewee was Meredith Garniss, painter, puppeteer, engineer and head honcho of Willoughby & Baltic, an automata and art gallery and marionette theatre where I performed this past July and where the ill-fated production of Macbeth rehearsed.

In the Ideas Section of The Boston Sunday Globe, Kennedy asks Garniss:

I hear you also became the home to one of the world's only "talking mimes."

To which Garniss responds:

The talking mime [who] performed in the gallery this summer was Ian Thal. He's multitalented and does mime, dance, poetry, and puppetry. I think it's OK if the mime talks as long as he leaves the audience speechless.

Garniss has a lot to say about running an art space, combining engineering with art, and working with artists of many media.

I already covered the issue of "talking mimes" with my students in Gloucester but I take issue with the idea that I am "one of the world's only"-- there are plenty of mimes whose work is against the stereotype-- and most of us are chatterboxes off-stage.

Willoughby & Baltic is hosting the Dorkbot Haunted Parlor this Halloween week at 195g Elm Street, Somerville, MA in Davis Square.