Hopeful Monster

Hopeful Monster formed in 2017 as a collaboration between Ella Mackay, Eti Meacock and Bori Mező, puppeteer-makers from Scotland, England and Hungary. They met while training at the Curious School of Puppetry and the Puppet Theatre Barge in London.

A hopeful monster is what you get when a sudden genetic mutation produces a radically new organism. Like its evolutionary namesake, the company aims to create work that is weird and wonderful, playing with the possibilities of puppetry in its widest sense and delighting in the unusual visual creations that might emerge.

Hopeful Monster is part of a wider community of puppeteers and artists who have helped as guest directors, advice givers and general supporters.

Meet The Company

Company_Ella

Ella Mackay

Ella is a puppet maker and puppeteer based in Glasgow. She studied Fine Art at the Glasgow School of Art before side-stepping into the puppet world, training at the Curious School of Puppetry and the London School of Puppetry. She also creates as Nudge Puppets, freelance puppet making for other companies and delivering puppet experiences and workshops. She spends most of her time tinkering away on puppet builds and is often covered in bits of fluff, foam and tape but has also been spotted trotting around botanical gardens as a life-size unicorn. She is interested in conveying both emotion and silliness through movement and playing on the line where self and other become blurred. She is drawn to the uncanniness of empathising with puppets and what this can say about the experience of being and connection.
Website: www.ellamackay.co.uk
Facebook: @nudgepuppets
Instagram: nudge_puppets

Eti Meacock

Eti is a maker, rewilder and unintentional animist who lives and works in Devon. She has a background in Fine Art Painting from Brighton University and went on to train as a performer at the Curious School of Puppetry, The Puppet Theatre Barge, and Bread and Puppet Theater in Vermont, but these days you’re more likely to find her clambering through a hedge row than on stage. Although her work as a freelance puppeteer opened up some exciting opportunities, like being the left shoulder of a giant polar bear or animating pieces of rigatoni pasta, she is primarily interested in the process of devising new work and using creativity and puppetry as a tool to develop nature connection and radical empathy in herself and others.
Instagram: eophila_eti
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Company_Bori

Bori Mezö

With a degree in English Literature and Theatre Studies, Bori moved from Budapest to London to train on the Puppet Theatre Barge. Since then she's done various puppetry courses with various artists, in various places: with John Roberts, Puppets in Prague, Curious School of Puppetry, Told by an Idiot etc. She is fluent in less than or equal to two languages. She's interested in rhythm and what makes visual storytelling tick. She spends a lot of time thinking about human behaviour, displacement and wondering about identity. She loves theatre and most of all puppetry for its ephemerality, playfulness and its moments of jaw-dropping, childlike discoveries. You can often see her puppeteering in shows for the Puppet Theatre Barge or touring the country with String Theatre. She recently created a solo storytelling puppetry show and The Doorstepper’s Map, an online interactive map leading to a directory of doorstep performers.
Instagram: borimezo Website: www.thedoorsteppersmap.co.uk