Paper Puppet Opera is primarily the solo project of Juliana Brandon, but occasionally includes other musicians and puppeteers for bigger productions. All puppets and sets are designed and created by Juliana Brandon.

​A solo show can include shadow puppets or other types of two dimensional puppets, either all in black or in full color. Crankies are often used as a moving backdrop. You can read more about crankies here.  Juliana sings solo to electronic backing tracks (often arranged by herself, but also occasionally by others) while puppeteering at the same time. These are short shows of no longer than 30 minutes. Juliana has a small portable puppet theater that she can take on tour or bring to your event. These shows are best for an audience of around 30 people.

The group shows are presented on a bigger shadow puppet screen, include live singers and instrumentalists, and as many as four puppeteers. These shows are best for an audience of up to 200 people.

Either way, you're getting a truly unique experience which blends shadow puppetry and music in a way that runs the gamut from whimsical comedy to movingly abstract tragedy.

Our test run of Mozart's The Goose of Cairo in August, 2015 was a huge success, so we really went for it and put on a full opera in a much larger venue. In September 2016 we put on the long forgotten opera The Isle of Merlin by Gluck with much improved technique and technology. In 2018 and 2019 we presented Schubert's epic song cycle Winterreise, a departure from comedy to tragedy which proved to be an enormously successful experiment.  A collaboration with Seattle Bach Choir for all six of Bach's motets is upcoming for whenever live performances will be allowed again. Juliana is also planning to create a solo show for each of Bach's solo soprano cantatas. This will be an ongoing project over the course of the next several years.

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Personnel

Photo by ArtPunk Photography

Juliana Brandon is the founder of Paper Puppet Opera, designing and creating the puppets herself. She is also a soprano opera clown  known for her operatic renditions of pop songs and as Seattle’s own “human theremin.” She is the founder of Operadisiac, a surrealist opera vaudeville/burlesque troupe. She was also a frequent soloist with The Seattle Bach Choir, and has performed with Opera Jupiter; Octava Chamber Orchestra; Pure Cirkus; Zappa Early Renaissance Orchestra; and puppet master, Brian Kooser. 

Juliana is also a visual artist specializing in colored pencil drawings on decorative papers and doilies, with an occasional foray into larger media. She was chosen to design Basstronaut for The Museum of Flight's Astronauts on the Town in 2015. You can see more of her artwork here.

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Isle of Merlin Cast

Pierrot: Ben Grover
Scapin/Le Notaire: David Hoffman
Le Philosophe/Le Chevalier/Hanif/flute: Nathan Shiu
La Candeur/Merlin/Zerbin: Ian Loney
Argentine: Melissa Young
Diamantine/Hippocratine: Juliana Brandon

Keyboards: Peter Nelson-King
Flute/ukulele/turkey baster: Karen Luke-Fildes
More flute: Nathan Shiu
Cello: Ellen Jeanne Kilcup
Banjo: Nina deWolf

Puppeteers:
Daniel Maret, Katherine Klang, Monica Barroga, Sara Girganoff

​Super titles: Layne Benofsky