Drew Colby
He began with glove puppets and marionettes at the age of 12, gradually becoming interested in exploring what the everyday object could say. His first professional work was at the Playhouse Puppet Company in Durban, South Africa (1995–1998). His work spanned traditional double-bridge, long-string marionette shows, open stage bunraku-style puppetry, and performances with mixed styles of puppetry, acting, mask-work and dance. From this experience he developed work over the next three years using open-stage short-string marionettes and rod puppets, culminating in a performance of at the 1999 International Festival of Marionette Art, Prague.
notably with Steve Tiplady on (2002–2003), out of which grew his fascination with everyday objects. During this time he created his first work with hand shadows, , which was presented at the Battersea Arts Centre, the Norwich Puppet Theatre and the Little Angel Theatre in 2003, in addition to other prominent venues and festivals in London and throughout the UK. He subsequently began to explore ‘instant puppetry’, in which there are no pre-made puppets, simply objects that come to life. This process naturally led to hand-shadow work, creating theatre out of almost nothing — perhaps the ultimate instant puppetry.
to travel to Azerbaijan and work with the Georgian hand-shadow theatre Budrugana Gagra. He has performed in venues and at festivals in the UK, South Africa, Namibia, Uganda, Kenya, Egypt, Turkey, Czech Republic, France, Austria, Germany, Finland, Canada, Chile, Romania, Israel and India, and has created shadow sequences for B&Q, Nintendo, Lodotra, Suso, Sainsburys, the BBC and Channel 4.