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The Mystic Paper Beasts have gained local and international renown for the creation of an extraordinary collection of ingenious masks - and for the whimsy and exuberance of their performances.
Each year the company creates several new works, including commissioned pieces and event specific work. The Beasts also revel in roving, interactive entertainment suitable for museums, festivals, libraries, schools, and parks.
Dashing through upwards of twenty-five characters per play are Dan Potter and Marya Ursin. The characters they embody are all distinguishable by the hand-made masks worn by the performers.
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Changes are rapid, the style is antic and playful, as the tales are spun through dancing, miming, chasing, or singing. They rarely sit still.
The stories are written and directed by Marya, the masks conceived as a joint venture, and then they are (usually) built by Dan. Both artists work on the painting of the masks and on costuming the Beasts. Occasionally guests and volunteers join the Beasts in their revelries, and Dan and Marya teach the secrets of the Beasts in mask-making and story-telling workshops.
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The writing process begins with a period of research, usually 6 months, sometimes a year or more, followed by a period of writing and rewriting.
With the written work completed, Marya goes to The Beasts barn and auditions the masks from the collection amassed over the many years of performances. Dan then goes to his studio and builds new masks as needed from images gathered by both Marya and Dan during the research period, supplementing the found materials with sketches and dreams of new possibilities.
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Recycled cardboard takes magical shape under Dan's skilled and nimble hands. He has developed a process that utilizes many found or discarded objects to create extraordinary creatures of the imagination to populate the worlds created by The Beasts.
With the completion of the masks and the texts, the rehearsal process is ready to begin. The play gets remolded, as do the masks, throughout the six-or-so-week rehearsal process. The play is then ready for its first showing. Throughout the life of the play, adjustments to masks and content continue as needed.
Marya and Dan engage local dancers and performers to expand their core troupe of two, often performing with four, sometimes with forty. Most frequently seen performers include Doug Moffat, Lissa van Dyke, Rosemary Gentile, George Clarke, Jean and Gary Williams, Robin Rice.
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The Beasts have performed in diverse locations in the past decade including:
- First Nights Boston, Hartford, New Haven, Worcester, Mystic, Westerly, Norwalk, others
- British Museum of Art at Yale
- Brooklyn, NYC, Children‰Ûªs Museum
- Williams College Museum of Art
- Norwalk Museum
- The Whitney Champion Museum
- Lyme Academy of Fine Arts
- Discovery Museum (Bridgeport)
- New Britain Museum of Modern Art
- Lyme Art Association
- RISD
- The Jewish Museum (NYC)
- The Rubin Museum (NYC)
- Peabody Museum
- Stamford Museum
- Parrish Museum (LI)
- Lyman Allen Museum (New London)
- Bruce Museum
- Mashantucket Pequot Museum
- Connecticut Historical Society
- Ct. Eagle Festival
- Rhinebeck Center for the Arts
- Firehouse Center for the Arts
- Hudson, Mass. Arts Alliance
- Center for the Arts in Natick
- Kortwright Center
- Westport Art Festival
- New Haven Festival of Arts and Ideas
- Musica Dolce
- Ct. Tellabration
- Norwich Day
- Middletown Day
- Hartford Day
- Earth Day (multiple venues)
- Sons of Italy
- Solstice, Carnivale, etc. celebrations
- Friends of Harkness
- Chestelm Medieval Festival
- Crosslands Quaker Retirement Center, Pa.
- Exploration Summer programs for the Gifted
- Conn. College Arts Camp
- Creative Music Camp
- Kidaround Downtown (NYC)
- Parks and Rec. (NYC)
- Marymount
- Riverfront Children's Center (New London)
- Multiple libraries, schools, festivals, private celebrations throughout New England, Washington DC area, , Pennsylvania, Colorado; and Scotland, Wales, England.
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