ABOUT PAUL ZALOOM

Paul Zaloom is a comedic puppeteer, political satirist, filmmaker, and performance artist who lives and works in Los Angeles and tours his work all over the world. Zaloom has written, designed and performed 12 full length solo spectacles, including Fruit of Zaloom, Sick But True, his latest, Mother of All Enemies and, with Lynn Jeffries, The Abecedarium.

WHAT

Zaloom started out with the renowned avant-garde puppet company, the Bread and Puppet Theater, in Vermont and has worked with this seminal company since he was 19. He began making solo shows in 1978 and has since worked with found objects, rod puppets, toy theater, shadow puppets, overhead projections, cantastoria (story telling with pictures), hand puppets, and humanettes.

WHERE

Zaloom has played the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, the Spoleto Festival USA, AND King Tut's Wah-Wah Hut, plus hundreds of other venues in 40 states. Numerous international festivals have featured his work on his 9 tours to Europe, including the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Scotland; Les Semaines de la Marionette, Paris; and the UNIMA World Congress, Dresden.

BEAKMAN

Since 1992, Zaloom has also appeared on the science educational TV show Beakman’s World as Beakman, the wacked-out, weirdo scientist who answers viewers’ questions about science, nature, and various bodily functions.

Zaloom also tours Beakman Live!, featuring large scale science demonstrations with loads of audience participation and lots of the trademark goofy Beakman humor.

Click here to go to the Beakman Live! website

FILM

Zaloom co-conceived, co-wrote and was head puppeteer in the feature length puppet film of Dante’s Inferno, based on paintings and drawings by L.A. artist Sandow Birk, directed by Sean Meredith, and starring Dermot Mulroney and James Cromwell.

Hell goes animated as apocalyptic artwork and eerie Victorian toy theater converge in this subversively satiric update of a literary classic. An official selection at the Slamdance Film Festival 2007, Dante s Inferno is like nothing you’ve ever experienced before.

“Feels like the unholy offspring of Mike Judge and R. Crumb” Robert Abele, Los Angeles Times

View a trailer of the film here: www.dantefilm.com
Purchase the film here: dantefilm.com/store.html

TEACHING

Paul has taught PUPPETRY or PERFORMANCE ART classes in many schools and universities, including:

Rhode Island School of Design, O'Neill Theater Center, Emerson College, Cal Arts, Omega Institute, George Mason U., Union College, Institut Internationale de la Marrionnette (Charlesville, France), School of Visual Arts (NYC), Hamilton College, Center for Puppetry Arts (Atlanta, GA), etc.

AWARDS

A Village Voice OBIE
An American Theater Wing Design Award
A New York Dance and Performance Award (the “Bessie”)
An L.A. Weekly Critics’ Award
FOUR Citations of Excellence in the Art of Puppetry from UNIMA-USA.

GRANTS

Guggenheim Fellowship
4 National Endowment for the Arts fellowships
Three Henson Foundation grants
And NYFA, NYSCA, Art Matters, Durfee, California Arts Council, L.A. Department of Cultural Affairs, and others.