Mervyn Millar
Puppetry - Winner 2010
Mervyn Millar is a theatre director and puppetry specialist. He has directed productions at theatres including the National Theatre (Cottesloe), Battersea Arts Centre, Theatre Royal Plymouth and has toured internationally with his company, wireframe.
Like a lot of puppet makers, he initially learnt by making what he needed for his own shows. With further training at the London School of Puppetry, and by working with more experienced puppeteers including Sue Buckmaster, Steve Tiplady and Handspring, he began to refine his technique and craftsmanship and work as a collaborator with other directors and designers.
He has been Associate Puppetry Director on War Horse for the National Theatre in its London, New York and Toronto productions, and has been part of the creative team from the first workshops, including appearing in the show for the first two seasons. From 2012 he will be the Artistic Director of Handspring UK.
His collaboration with Kazuko Hohki and Andy Cox, Evidence for the Existence of Borrowers, won a Total Theatre Award and a Herald Angel Award. He is the author of The Horse’s Mouth, about the development process of War Horse, and The Journey of The Tall Horse, documenting a collaboration between two African puppet companies. Both books are published by Oberon Books.
Millar describes working in theatre as storytelling; puppetry allows imaginative leaps that both liberate and define that form of storytelling and bring its ‘liveness’ to the surface. In recent years, a lot of Millar’s work has been in training performers and finding languages to communicate techniques of puppeteering.
In his Fellowship year Millar designed and developed a live animation technique using a rotating lightbox, set into a table with clear panes above it, which relays live video feed from above, creating a layered space for storytelling that accommodates, silhouettes, found images, text and close-up camera work. This technique was partly developed in a workshop period with theatre artist Chris Goode.