Opera Action Figures: The Stop Motion Animation of Thetford’s Amy and Terry Lawrence
March 15 at JAM in White River Junction
Opera Action Figures? Me neither. Couldn’t picture it. What does this mean?
Sometimes you need to get in your car and drive to White River Junction for answers. More specifically, if you stop in at JAM—Junction Arts and Media— (a small space next to Tuckerbox), “opera action figures” will no longer seem so puzzling, but instead, dazzling.
Two artists, Amy and Terry Lawrence, are Thetford-based twin sisters who fell so deeply in love with the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Akhnaten that they wanted to re-create it. Terry explained how she came to collaborate with her sister:
“When we saw Philip Glass's Akhnaten at the MET (we are not opera goers), we were stunned. I was looking up everything I could find on YouTube and came across a Lego version (the whole opera in 10 minutes). I recommended it to Amy and her response, ‘We can do better.’ I'd never imagined making a movie with her.”
They designed miniature sets and costumes for small, faceless wooden dolls called artist’s mannequins. Then they filmed the tiny actors, or action figures, and put it all together with the opera’s score. And then they did not stop, because there are many shows that must go on, including a tribute to Stephen Sondheim and one to Gershwin’s music.
Did I mention Akhnaten, the opera, had lots of juggling? No, I did not. How did we ever think we could animate that in stop motion?? Our motto to this day is: we'll figure it out as we go along. —Terry Lawrence
The first jointly-created film for the Lawrence sisters began in an empty animation room at Dartmouth until COVID drove them out. They regrouped and found the perfect place for a studio: their mother’s basement. Asked about this unique mode of storytelling, called stop action (or motion) animation, and how and why it was chosen, Terry responded:
As a film professor she [Amy] taught animation classes at Dartmouth, so we discussed drawings, photoshopped images, silhouettes, claymation and every style out there. I remembered a little wooden mannequin I acquired when I was getting my degree in set design. It seemed to move all the ways we needed. It was also 4 1/2" tall, so making costumes wasn't too crazy. We decided I'd make the sets, she'd do the filming and we divided up costumes.
You can see a selection of the dolls/action figures, their wardrobes, the sets, and the films playing on a loop at JAM during their regular Monday to Friday hours. And on March 15, Amy and Terry will premiere a new film, Gershwin Preludes: A Thinking Man’s Guide to Paris and screen an old favorite, Thank You, Mr. Sondheim, at JAM with a Q&A after. You can read about Amy and Terry here (their creations are whimsical; at the same time, they bring a wealth of serious education and varied arts experience to this current endeavor.) You can view a sampling of their films here; they’re a little addictive.
(Photos by permission of Terry Lawrence)
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And in case you are wondering . . . Susan B. Apel shuttered a lifelong career as a law professor to continue an interest (since kindergarten) in writing. Her freelance business, The Next Word, includes literary and feature writing; her work has appeared in a variety of lit mags and other publications including Art New England, The Woven Tale Press, The Arts Fuse, and Persimmon Tree. She connects with her neighbors through Artful, her blog about arts and culture in the Upper Valley. She’s in love with the written word.