Symphonie Fantastique

Feature film for adult and teen audiences, 13 years +

🎟️  Tickets for March 5th at 9 p.m.

The show you had in mind is sold out? Try your luck at the door!
Arrive early. If reserved tickets are cancelled at the last minute, we will gladly to put them up for sale.

 

Symphonie Fantastique is the film version of the ground-breaking show of the same name that revealed a truly unique artist with a limitless imagination when it opened in New York in 1998.

Symphonie Fantastique is a one-of-a-kind underwater marvel combining the magic of puppetry with the powerful suggestions of music, dance, and abstract art. Symphonie Fantastique is an intimate show set to the five movements of Hector Berlioz’s nineteenth-century classical composition of the same name.

Symphonie Fantastique is performed entirely in a specially constructed water tank. The puppeteers manipulate feathers, glitter, plastics, vinyl, mirrors, slides, dyes, black light, overhead projections, air bubbles, and latex fishing lures to deliver a concert of forms, shapes and moving colours.

The show was performed Off-Broadway to sell-out audiences for several months in 2018 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of its original opening. The video footage was shot during this series of exceptional performances.

 

                  True Magic … it is like listening to music with your eyes.

                 – Ben Brantley, The New York Times

 

The film’s world premiere took place in 2019 at the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes in Charleville-Mézières, France. This is Basil Twist’s first feature film.

 

Running time: 54 minutes

Release: 2019

 

Video

Photos

Photos: Richard Termine

Company

Basil Twist is originally from San Francisco, though he has adopted New York as his home. A third-generation puppeteer, he is the only American to have graduated from the prestigious École supérieure nationale des arts de la marionnette in Charleville-Mézières, France.

Basil Twist’s aesthetic is like no other, and regardless of the types of puppets used or the scale of the shows, the establishment of a dialogue with music is always at the very heart of his approach.

He has taught at leading universities in the United States, including Princeton, Stanford, Duke, New York University Rhode Island School of Design, and Brown. His work has received a number of awards: Obie, Drama Desk Awards, UNIMA Awards, Bessie Awards, a New York Innovative Theatre Award, and a Henry Hewes Award. He has been honoured with a MacArthur, the “Rome Prize” from The American Academy in Rome, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. His productions have received valuable support from the Jim Henson Foundation.

 

Credits

Creator: Basil Twist

Pianist: Christopher O’Riley

Puppeteers: Kate Brehm, Ben Elling, Andy Gaukel, Jonothon Lyons, Rachel Shane, Lake Simons, and Patrick Newton

Lighting design: Andrew Hill