"Friend's puppets are beautifully designed and animated."
-- NYTheatre.com

Ego deconstructs the creative process and the agony that an artist goes through.  Blending live performance with puppetry, it is a story of the infinate possibilities that make up the final presentation of art.  Set pieces range from the cardboard cut-outs to intricate stage environments, while the puppets vary from naive sock puppets to masterfully crafted bunraku.

Ego follows a puppeteer dissatisfied with the state of his art, who is on the cusp of completing his latest theater piece.  Stumbling through the theater world with a handful of loyal troupe members, he continually creates mediocre puppet shows for minimal audiences, employing a series of gimmicks to tell stories with watered down human conditions. 

As the last few nights of his current piece come to an end, his thoughts drift to his next show, hoping it wil be the breakthrough masterpiece he craves.  As he trudges through the creative process, inner conversations convince him that in order to create the exceptional show he desires, an alteration must be made to the way he controls both his puppets and his fellow actors.  As his search for perfection intensifies, so too does the artist's self-assurance, tempting him to transcend to a higher level of control.

Ego explores this double-edged sword of self assurance and how it effects the surrounding environment.  As it grows, how does the notion of a "finished" piece mutate amidst the brain waves of the talented.  Every artist is egotistical, whether they want to admit it or not.  But not every artist can control it this demon.

MORE INFO:  www.dmfriend.com

Check out video clips of David's work:

-- Ego comes to an epiphany as as rants about the failings of puppetry. 

--A one minute teaser for “Moonfishing,” a film about a fisherman journeying out to sea to replensish his town’s source of light and hope.

--A man must contend with an incorrigible fate and the hell he is put through in The Typist.

Art is far more interesting when one knows the story behind the finished piece. To include with it the troubles and tribulations of the creative process, the cutting room floor scraps, and the variations of sketches created decades before the oil painting hung on the museum wall. 

Puppets have a wonderful way of taking the horrendous or unspeakable acts of humanity and rendering them acceptable.  Fornication, fighting, death... all seem to affect the audience less than their original splendor when performed with a fabric and clay symbolization of man. 

Is the puppet show an audience's release of trepidation toward these typically faux-pas acts? Can a facsimile of man convey the deepest darkest yearnings of mankind without making one giggle in denial? Or should we just sit back and make fun of the efforts of puppeteers to realize the human condition in a serious manner?

David Michael Friend is a freelance art director and illustrator for television, film and childrens' books.  As part of the puppet community for over a decade, he has helped bring forth Drama of Works' Doctor Faustus, The Ballad of Phineas P. Gage, Curiouser and Curiouser and the Carnival of Samhain as well as his own pieces Lunatic, The Bident of Angels, and The Typist. Friend has recently completed his first short film, "Moonfishing", as part of Heather Henson's Hand Made Puppet Dreams. His books include the JT Petty's The Squampkin Patch: A Nasselrogt Adventure and Clemency Pogue: The Scrivener Bees, as well as his graphic novel Daniel and the Great Bearded One.





Stuart Cudlitz is an artist and writer who lives and works in Greenwich Village. He is an exhibiting artist and published illustrator, writer and composer who has many screen credits for both commercial and independent films. His main occupation is creating these artworks and other independent and experimental productions. He is currently writing a book on the relationships between the legacy of traditional art methodology and digital media creation. Cudlitz teaches at Parsons and The School of Visual Arts in MFA and BFA programs with emphasis on techniques in visual thinking, interdisciplinary and traditional arts and narrative techniques across all media.  (www.stuartink.com)