Newman's Commedia Mask Company

Web Links of Interest

Performance Mask Makers and Teachers

• 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

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.
• Victor Reese is a Native Tsimsian Mask carver and story teller based in the Gulf Islands in BC, Canada, no web page but he can be emailed: sharon@cablelan.net.

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: A 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 

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: www.dellarte.com. Joan Schirle, Director of Dell'Arte International, will join Newman in Ubud, Bali in February/March 2009 to lead a Study Abroad Program. This program was co founded by Joan and Newman in 1996 and includes Balinese mask carving and masked dance with Ida Bagus Alit, 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.

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