Josh Rice

Josh Rice is a multidisciplinary theatre artist specializing in puppetry & improvisation. He makes work that is at once playful, absurd, and tragic, incorporating simple performer-driven spectacle, puppetry, live music, improvisation, and audience interaction. His work is heavily influenced by his life-long fandom of professional wrestling, comedy, and his training as an improviser.  His new work-in-progress, Kayfabe—a puppet wrestling entertainment spectacular—is the recipient of a 2023 Jim Henson Foundation Workshop Grant, a 2022 New York State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Grant, and 2022 Arts Council for Wyoming County Community Arts Grant. Other original puppetry work includes The Marooned at Dixon Place and New York State Puppet Festival 2018; The VaudeVillains and Composite Portrait at La MaMa Puppet Slam; The Tempest, directed at Shake on the Lake and Sarah Lawrence College. He adapted, designed & directed Shake on the Lake’s puppet-infused A Christmas Carol (2017-19). He also founded & directed The Mnemonic Theatre Project, a puppetry program for seniors living with Alzheimer’s & other Dementias, which has been featured on the PBS documentary series, Visionaries.

Puppetry Performance Credits: Chimpanzee by Nick Lehane (Flipside Festival, Singapore, 2023); Akutugawa by Tom Lee & Koryu Nishikawa V (Japan Society NYC, Chicago Puppet Festival, U.S. Tour, 2023); Dan Hurlin's Demolishing Everything with Amazing Speed (Bard SummerScape 2016, Holland Festival, 2017); Shank's Mare by Tom Lee & Koryu Nishikawa V (NYS Puppet Festival 2022, Paris tour 2019, Chicago Int’t Puppet Festival 2019, La MaMa 2015, Japan tour 2017, Hawaii tour 2017, U.S. tour, 2016); Petrushka with the NY Philharmonic Orchestra (The Barbican, 2015), the Oregon Symphony Orchestra (Portland, 2018) and the Columbus Symphony Orchestra, 2017; The Scarlet Ibis (HERE Arts Center, 2015); Packrat (La MaMa, 2018); and Janie Geiser’s Reptile Under the Flowers (St. Ann’s Warehouse, 2013).

Josh is the Founder & Producing Artistic Director of the New York State Puppet Festival. Since 2018, the biennial festival of puppetry in rural Perry, NY has programmed national and international artists for performances, exhibitions, film screenings, and workshops. Artists Josh has curated include Bread & Puppet Theatre Co, Dan Hurlin, Koryu Nishikawa V, Tom Lee, Jeghetto, Sifiso Mabena, Leah Ogawa, Trusty Sidekick Theatre Co, Andy Manjuck & Dorothy James, among others. Curating Credits: the New York State Puppet Festival 2024, 2022, 2018; NYSPF@Home Streaming Puppetry Series, 2020-21; Puppet Blok (Dixon Place 2018-19). He is also the founder and host of The Puppet Pod!, an interview-based podcast with puppetry artists.