Bradford Clark

Courses (with undergraduate and graduate sections):

• History of Film Animation
• Scene Design
• Asian Theatre
• Drafting, Drawing and Graphics

Prof. Clark is also a member of the Asian Studies Advisory Board.

Institutions/Professional Companies with which Mr. Clark has worked:

• Center for Puppetry Arts
• Shaw University
• University of California, Santa Cruz
• Empire State Institute for the Performing Arts
• The Western Stage
• Stage One
• The Opera Company of Boston
• American Conservatory Theatre

Production or Film Credits:

Prof. Clark has designed over fifty scenic designs for professional and academic theatre productions (drama, dance, opera, puppetry) and costumes for several productions, as well. Companies include the Center for Puppetry Arts (Atlanta, GA), Stage One (Louisville, KY), Shakespeare Santa Cruz (Santa Cruz, CA), Tandy Beal and Company (Santa Cruz, CA), Cherry Creek Theatre (Mankato, MN), and the Russian Drama  Theatre (Chuboksary, Republic of Chuvashia, Russia).

As part of an International Research and Exchange Board (IREX) artist exchange program, he researched contemporary theatre design (including puppetry), and then served as a design assistant at the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, Russia from 1989-1990.

He has directed and designed for three productions of The Tempest (the most recently at BGSU) that were first conceptualized in collaboration with his teachers in Bali, Indonesia, maskmaker Ida Bagus Anom and musician Anak Agung Raka Cameng. In addition, he has written, directed and designed several original BGSU puppet productions: Monkey Storms Heaven, Pictures at an Exhibition, Frankenstein, and The Magnificent Baron Munchausen.

At Atlanta's Center for Puppetry Arts, the largest puppetry center in the United States, Clark served as curator for the newly expanded Worlds of Puppetry museum. As such, he helped conceptualize extensive galleries dedicated to both the Center's extensive global collection and the largest collection of Jim Henson's classic puppets in the United States. He curated and designed three special exhibitions, the third of which, Jim Henson: Wonders from his Workshop, opened in the fall of 2008, and curated a fourth, Jim Henson's Labyrinth: Journey to Goblin City.  Locally, he curated and designed the Cleveland Public Library's exhibition The World of Puppets: From Stage to Screen.

Research / Publications :

Prof. Clark has conducted both scholarly and practical research into the area of puppetry and masks. In additions to names mentioned above, he studied puppetry performance and construction with Francois Martin of the Tantamount Theatre and shadow puppet construction with Balinese dalang I Wayan Wija. In Japan, he trained in performance techniques with teachers from the 300-year old Imada Ningyo company (who draw from the same traditions used a the Bunraku-za in Osaka), and spent several summers studying traditional puppet carving from Makimoto Toshisuke.

With a strong emphasis in puppetry, he has visited collections, studied with or interviewed artists, and attended conferences, festivals and theatrical performances in India, Vietnam, Laos, Indonesia, Japan, China, Taiwan, the Czech Republic, Germany, Austria and France. In the summer of 2008, he joined three scholars in China over a seven-week period, traveling roughly 7,000 miles in the southern provinces to visit and document performances by both traditional and contemporary companies and performers. He has returned since then to continue their research.

Prof. Clark co-authored the chapter "Punch and Judy" in the Greenwood Press book Fools in Popular Culture and has published articles and book reviews in The Asian Theatre Journal, Puppetry International, Theatre Design & Technology, Puppetry Yearbook, and The Puppetry Journal.