Who is Richard Termine?

Answer 1

Richard Termine was born in the early to mid 1950's and grew up in Middletown, Connecticut. His first interest in puppetry began when he was around 10 or 11 years old when a puppet production came to his elementary school and performed "Rigoletto" using marionettes. After seeing this his interest in puppetry began. He went to the library and took out books about marionettes and how to build them. He also received puppets for Christmas which added to his interest. Consequently, the performance of "Rigoletto" foreshadows his future at the University of Connecticut when Frank Ballard was his advisor on this production.

As a teenager, Termine started staging his own puppet shows. He was a junior in high-school when he met Carol Tompson, a student of Frank Ballard's at UConn, and she told Termine about the puppetry program. In the summer of 1970, the Puppeteers of America Festival was held at UConn at the Storrs campus. Carol Spinney directed The Love of Three Oranges and Termine was asked to help out by filling in for someone who couldn't make it. Termine went to college at UConn at the Hartford branch and later transferred to the Storrs campus. He majored in Theater/Acting and received his BA then continued on until he received his MFA at Storrs for Theater/Puppetry.

For his thesis production, Termine performed "The Death of Dr. Faustus" in the fall of 1976 in the Mobius theater. His theme was of a different form of reality and illusion. He had live actors in masks and life-sized puppets, representing reality, which seemingly manipulated the actors as puppets in a puppet show within the puppet performance. Unfortunately, video wasn't as available as it is today, so there is no recording of his thesis production. Recently, Termine's Devil puppet from "The Death of Dr. Faustus" was on exhibit at the Brad Williams' tribute at the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry.

Termine did go on to work with Bart Roccoberton and Brad Williams at Pandemonium Puppets, though only one time and for only one show. When asked why this was so, he responded that "Brad and Bart were more connected with the Muppets style" (to which he paused and laughed saying that it was ironic because he later ended up working for the Muppets) and this he continued to say "was not my forte!" This is because Termine sees himself as more of a director than a performer. As a puppeteer, he stressed that he realized his limitations as a performer.

After earning his master's degree in 1977, he went on to teaching theater and design at Connecticut College. In 1980, Termine went to New York where a contact he made as a graduate student, Jan Rosenthal (now Stefura), led him to take a six month job with Jim Henson's Muppets. He worked as a stitcher and worked in the Muppet workshop. He eventually ended up staying on for nine seasons working on Sesame Street as a designer and builder. He also served on the board of directors of the Jim Henson Foundation which encourages American puppeteers and provides grants to those who are trying to break new ground by reaching adult audiences with their puppetry. Termine also organized teaching residencies through the Henson Foundation.

Around 1986-ish, Termine won a group Emmy Award for outstanding costume design on Sesame Street was also nominated for four others. He also is responsible for creating two characters for Sesame Street: Placido Flamingo, an opera-singing flamingo, and Meryl Sheep.

In 1987, Termine went over to France with Jim Henson as an assistant. When he originally took the Henson job, he didn't see it as a major goal. He says that "there were people I met who had (this) as their primary goal as a puppeteer and they were focused only on working for the Muppets. That wasn't me; that's not how I went into it."

Working for Henson did however lead him to photography, which provides him with both an income as well as a creative outlet. "Because all Henson creations are copyrighted, great care was needed to document everything" and during free time around the set, Termine started photographing and eventually became the official photographer. He learned photography basically by going around and doing it and only took a few formal classes. His experience in building and designing puppets gave him a good idea of what to look for and what would work on film.

As well as a source of income and a creative outlet, photography provided something else that was and still is important to Termine- integration. This integration can be seen, as in his thesis production of "The Death of Dr. Faustus" with the actors and the puppets, in his photography where he can blend the art of photography with the art of puppetry as well being able to build and design a puppet and be able to catch, with the camera, the "moment when the puppet is alive," and in his goals for the future.

Throughout the mid to late eighties, his love for photography led him to begin a career as a free-lance photographer. Not only does he continue to do work for the Children's Television Workshop, but he also does performance and theatrical photography for theater and dance. As examples, he's photographed productions for the Cleveland Ballet, Broadway's "phantom of the Opera," and the Berkshire Theater Festival.

In 1990, Jane Henson established the Rose Endowment Fund for Puppetry to assure the continuance of puppetry at the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center. The National Puppetry Conference was begun in order to develop programming from these funds. George Latshaw was named Artistic Director and Termine, Associate Artistic Director. Due to the demands of the schedule, Latshaw and Termine ended up switching jobs and both were happier for it so that by 1991, Termine was the Artistic Director.

Now in its seventh year, most of Termine's focus is on the National Puppetry Conference and in providing a place for puppeteers to work. There are all kinds of conferences held, from cabaret to TV to playwriting. As director, his focus is not just on design and construction but on what's going on performance-wise as well. He said that he "feels very strong and very positive about what he's doing.

Termine is now continuing to do free-lance photography for the Jim Henson Production Company and he just recently helped to finish up putting together a video series of Muppet stuff annotated of Jim Henson and his works. The first in this series is entitled "Creating Characters" and tells about how he did it. The next one is in progress at the moment and will be called "Creating Worlds and Telling Tales."

When asked about what he thought of puppetry today, Termine said that he "sees films and blockbusters today and the use of puppetry within." He sees "puppetry as becoming part of the vocabulary of the screen." From a director's point of view, he sees its commercialization and it as a film medium. As a director, he believes in incorporating puppetry into the theater, as Julie Taymore does by "bridging puppets and theater through her use of puppets and masks." He sees at the O'Neill Center, "theater coming together with writers and playwrights and masks using the power of the moving image and being more aware of that. It's great stuff!" He also sees puppetry as being an alternative, something pure unto itself, not only as something commercialized.

In the future, Termine said he sees puppetry breaking away from the stereotype that puppets are only for children. Keeping technology in balance is important, yet says that "the potential technology for the art form (video technology) is wondrous." But Termine stresses that "performance is at the heart of a piece. With all the technology and tricks, which impress and take away the viewers attention, there is the danger of loosing the essence of a piece. He sees more technology coming into play but the O'Neill Center as being not too involved with technology. The focus instead being on the soul and essence that a live performance can exude which technology can't quite capture.

As an afterthought, when asked, Termine mentioned that he thought the possibility of a Guest Artist Chair at UConn is "a great idea!" He would love to do it as he feels that he would now be ready for this kind of thing at this time in his career.