Newman's Commedia Mask Company

Web Links of Interest

Performance Mask Makers and Teachers

• The International Mask Arts & Culture Organization (IMACO) promoting mask art activities all over the world: www.worldmask.org
• Julie Goell: Commedia Dell'Arte Workshops: julie@juliegoell.com
• Stanley Allan Sherman  is a New York City based Leather Commedia Mask Maker  who also specializes in Wrestling Masks; www.maskarts.com, and  teaches Commedia Dell'Arte in true Commedia fashion through his Roving Classical Commedia University* (*Totally Unaccredited) www.commediau.com.
• Bruce Marrs (the guy who played Godzilla in the Hollywood movie) makes excellent neoprene commedia masks and teaches maskmaking at Dell'Arte International in Blue Lake CA USA (check out their summer workshops): www.marzillamask.com. Bruce was my mime teacher (he studied at Ecole Marceau and Ecole Decroux in France).
• Zarco Guerrero is an Arizona based mask artists and perhaps the best carver of performance quality wooden masks in the US: zarco@zarkmask.com 
• Jeff Semmerling makes neoprene and leather masks and teaches and facillitates mask making workshops in the Chicago area: www.maskartists.com
• Eric Bornstein: mask making classes, mask performances and fabulous custom masks and costumes in the Boston MA area; www.behindthemask.org
  

Neoprene Mask Makers

• Todd Espeland: www.czuppa.com
• Johnathan Becker: www.theater-masks.com
• Craig Jacobrown makes neoprene and Latex commedia
  masks. He is based in Washington State: www.themaskery.com
• David Knezz is a great neoprene character mask maker working in the Chicago area dknezz@hotmail.com

Maskmaker/Performers

The following maskmakers are also mask performers:

• Rob Faust: www.faustwork.com
• Larry Hunt: www.masque-hunt.org
• Todd Espeland and Bruce Marrs (addresses above).

Outside the USA

• In Sweden: Torbjorn Alstrom makes exquisite commedia and performance masks from leather and wood: www.artmask.com.
• In the Netherlands: Joe Dieffenbacher makes great neoprene and Papier mache masks and also performs: www.nakupelle.com.
• In Australia: www.makeascene.com.au for training programs and all things Commedia.
• In Italy: Donato Sartori; Leather Commedia Dell'Arte Masks and Mask Making Seminario: www.sartorimaskmuseum.it/eng/index.htm
• Also in Italy: Antonio Fava; Commedia Dell'Arte Leather Masks and the International School of Commedia Dell'Arte and Comic Acting. www.commediabyfava.it/home_inglese.htm

The cast of "The Servant of Two Masters" University of Portland in Oregon production, directed by Michael O'Neill.  Mago Hunt Theatre  2009.

About Commedia Dell'Arte

Judith Chaffee's  Commedia dell'Arte website gives an excellent overview of this genre , with resources, annotated bibliography, links, and workshop information: www.commedia-dell-arte.com

Bibliography:

Commedia Dell'Arte Handbook for Troupes‎‎ by John Rudlin, Olly Crick - Performing Arts - 2001 - 251 pages. A companion to John Rudlin's best-selling Commedia dell'Arte: A Handbook for Actors, this bookcovers both the history and professional practice of commedia dell'arte...

The Commedia Dell'Arte: A study in Italian Popular Theatre by Winifred Smith

Commedia Dell'Arte: An Actor's Handbook - by John Rudlin - 293 pages

The Triumph of Pierrot: The Commedia Dell'Arte - by John C Swan - 340 pages

The Italian Comedy: The Improvisation, Scenarios, Lives, Attributes by Pierre Louis Duchartre, Randolph T. Weaver

The Art of Commedia: A Study in the Commedia Dell'Arte, 1560-1620 ‎
by M. A. Katritzky

Mask Improvisation for Actor Training and Performance, The Compelling Image
By Sears A. Eldredge.

Dell'Arte International

Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre teaches Mask Performance, Commedia Dell'Arte and Maskmaking as part of its Physical Theatre Studies and MFA program in Northern California. Joan Schirle, Director of Dell'Arte International leads a Study Abroad Program each winter in Bali. This program was co founded by Joan and Newman in 1996 and includes Balinese mask carving  with Ida Bagus Oka, Balinese dance with Ni Ayu Artatik,  Mask Performance as Ritual and Kecak with Ida Bagus Anom, Shadow Puppetry (Wayang Kulit) with I Wayan Mardika, Voice work with Amsterdam based Jodi Gilbert and East/West comparative mask studies with Joan Schirle.

For information about physical theatre studies at Dell'Arte, including summer workshops and the winter Study Abroad Program, go to: www.dellarte.com

If you are a mask maker, mask performer or teach in the realm of mask arts and would like to be linked on this website feel free to send your info to Newman: commediamask@gmail.com