"False Alligat-ions" at the Full Moon Puppet Show (Jan 2014)

It's my sewer alligator puppet show!



In False Alligations, Teddy the weird orphan boy discovers that there are alligators living in the city's sewers, but the authorities will not believe him.  When he goes into the sewers himself to investigate, he finds that things are not what they seem.

I wrote, directed and performed in False Alligations in January 2014 as part of the Full Moon Puppet Show, organized by Liz Schacterle, at Open Eye Figure Theatre in Minneapolis.

The January 25th performance featured Janet Skidmore as the narrator and playing guitar; Theo Goodell providing additional puppeteering and playing the toy xylophone; and Bob Helland on additional Guitar.  I performed Teddy, ran the projector, and was the puppeteer behind the alligator king.

Everybody had incredibly nice things to say about the show, and people liked it so much that we was invited to perform "False Alligations" again in September as part of the last Full Moon Puppet Show, during the Handmade Worlds Festival of Puppet Theatre, produced by The Puppeteers of America.  (This time with Janet Skidmore reprising her roles, and Francisco Benavides and Jane Marshall providing additional puppetry)

The year I was too busy to blog

Hey all,  Thomas Boguszewski here.

This site has been awfully silent since last November.  I've been doing a lot of fun stuff and telling nobody about it.  That's all going to change, though.

In the coming weeks I'll be catching up on lost time, and sharing stories about the projects I've worked on and experiences I've had in 2014.

Among them:

4 puppet shows
a book trailer
3 operas
3 conventions
1 film festival
1 delayed animated film
1 cancelled commercial
1 aborted installation piece

300 pages of comedy

a collection of incredible summer adventures...

and more!
stay tuned while I not only revitalize the stream of news stories, but redesign this blog as well!
Here's looking forward to a future where I take more of what's going on in my world and share it with others.

Comic Artists' Night at the Opera - Arabella

The Minnesota Opera generously invites artists and members of the press to dress rehearsals for each show that they premiere.  The Black Hat Collective and I arrive with pens, pencils and paintbrushes and make it out mission to interpret each show through cartoons and sketches.

In this 1932 opera by Ricard Strauss, a family is living far beyond their means in a fancy hotel (pictured).  Their credit has run out and they are in danger of getting kicked out, unless they can get their eldest daughter Arabella to marry somebody with money.

Unfortunately Arabella doesn't want to get married for money, she wants to fall in love.  Though she has a number of suitors, she does not have feelings for any of them.

However, Arabella's younger sister Zdenka (pictured) - who dresses as a boy and goes by the name "Zdenko" - has secretly fallen in love with Mateo (not pictured) - one of the men who pines after Arabella. Zdenka loves Mateo so much that she doesn't want him to be unhappy, so she tricks Mateo by writing him love letters and signing Arabella's name.  As a result, Mateo thinks Arabella is in love with him, when she is not.

Drawn Out Storytelling - Rebecca by Steve Zimmer - illustrated by Thomas Boguszewski

This is my second piece for Drawn Out Storytelling:  A live show based in Brooklyn, New York which combines live storytelling and live music with live illustration.

In this tale, performed at Drawn Out's "End of the World" show in June 2012, Steve Zimmer tells of his attempts to find love with a new neighbor.

Read the story in the form of an illustrated comic made with animated GIFs below:

Drawn Out Storytelling - "Good News vs. Bad News" by Erin Barker illustrated by Thomas Boguszewski

At the Minneapolis Indie Expo in Nov. 2011, I hooked up with Drawn Out Storytelling:  A live show based in Brooklyn, New York which combines live storytelling and live music with live illustration.

By February 2012 I was illustrating for them.  The title of the show was "I hate you" - The theme was about animosity within families, and the story was Good News Versus Bad News (also called "Love and Baseball") by Erin Barker. "  In it, a daughter has to deal with hate and love in her own family when she learns the truth about her mother’s pregnancy.  Read the story in comic form below.

New Year's Party 1200 Years in the Making Catches World by Surprise

  Chichen Itza, Yucután, Mexico - December 21, 2012. 
  Onlookers were shocked and terrified this morning when the Kukulcán pyramid at Chichen Itza began to rotate, spin, and open up like a gigantic puzzle box. For moments, the six tourists then visiting Chichen Itza feared that this event was a portent of the much-advertised 2012 apocalypse. Then the massive pyramid began to emit fireworks and confetti, as well as play catchy music using an intricate system of bells and whistles that had apparently been built inside.

Anna Bolena at the MN Opera

You know that I usually like to give you loads and loads of history and backstory whenever I go to an opera, but this time, all you need to know about Anne Boleyn, 2nd wife of Henry VIII, can be heard in this song:

"Young Anne Boleyn she was two, had a daughter, the best she could do.  I said she flirted with some other man, and off for the chop went dear Anne"

Sexy Henry!  Take me now!

 The 1830 opera Anna Bolena by Donizetti is ostensibly a portrayal of Anne Boleyn's life leading up to the day when Henry had her head chopped off, as he was wont to do.  Donizetti did four operas about Tudor England so I was excited for some history.

Then during the reception the speaker told us, "If you're a fan of Showtime's The Tudors, rest assured that we have a very sexy Henry for you!" And I sighed the collective sigh of a million historians crying out in terror, only to be suddenly silenced. [Link:  Sexy Henry's diet]

To read my write-up of the opera and see my lovely cartoons, keep read on under the cut.

Inside the Monkey Lab: A Story Collider Comic

Click here to read Inside the Monkey Lab
on the Story Collider website

This summer I got a small paid gig illustrating comic books for The Story Collider, a podcast and online magazine that collects audio stories about how science has effected people's lives. My second comic, Inside the Monkey Lab went online in October.

"Guy Schaffer wanted to understand the brain, but the only job he could find was in a monkey lab — a lab where a monkey attack led to a deeper set of crises."

Time and Pressure: A Story Collider Comic

This summer I got a small paid gig illustrating comic books for The Story Collider, a podcast and online magazine that collects audio stories about how science has effected people's lives, "From finding awe in Hubble images to visiting the doctor... Whether we wear a white lab coat or haven't seen a test tube since eighth grade"

My first comic, Time and Pressure, went online in May, and illustrates Rachel Bitney Wecht’s story of her struggle to woo a physicist—The Story Collider’s own Brian Wecht.

Click here to read Time and Pressure
on the Story Collider website

Nabucco at the Minnesota Opera

It's that time of year again for visiting The Minnesota Opera with my cartoonist friends at the Black Hat Collective.

Armed with our pens, paper, pencils, and paintbrushes, we got to enjoy some fine performance while making ourselves useful by bringing you all cartoons from the theatre!

This month's show is NABUCCO by Giuseppe Verdi
(click here for tickets)

The opera tells the story of King Nabucco (Nebuchadnezzar) from the bible, and the staging uses a stage-within-a-stage setup to draw parallels between the Assyrian oppression of the Jews and the Austrian oppression of Italy in Verdi's time.

To learn more about the plot, the set, the history, and my watercolor cartoons, click "read more"