The Spinner (Extended)

“Before you were born, a thread was spun for you…”

In Greek mythology, three Fates are responsible for spinning a thread for each human life, determining when we’re born and when we die. Our thirty-minute shadow play, The Spinner, reimagines the Fates as ungodly factory wardens who’ve outsourced their cruel work to mortal garment workers in a 19th-century textile mill. We follow a pregnant spinner, Blue, who has reason to believe she’s cut her own child’s fate line too short. In a desperate race against time and fate itself, Blue knots her child’s fate thread to her own—without knowing the consequences. Told through a mixture of overhead projector shadow puppetry and shadow mask and featuring an original folk music score by Jared Engel, The Spinner unstitches the lengths we will go to make our fate our own. 

Previously a 16-minute play told exclusively through overhead projector shadow puppetry, The Spinner was developed into a longer piece thanks to a 2024 Workshop Grant from the Jim Henson Foundation, a Puppetry at the Carriage House (PATCH) Residency, and support from The Peg Santvoord Foundation. We’ve performed the piece at venues and events such as the 2024 La MaMa Puppet Festival, the Puppet Showplace Theater (Brookline, PA), and Brick Aux.

Photos by Walls Trimble