Ramon Abad's Puppetry

Commissioned by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center (APICC), Ramon directed "Duck Soup," an immersive theater show for kids and families at Bindlestiff Studio June 8-16, 2024. The production involved the audience moving to separate areas of the theater to watch three short stories performed entirely with puppets of various mediums. The final story used projection video mapping as part of the immersive stage environment. Sponsored by a CA$H Perform Grant from Theatre Bay Area (TBA).

Solo art installation of kinetic sculptures or puppets that encouraged interaction.

October 7 - November 18, 2023

San Francisco Arts Education Gallery, Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco, CA

Sponsored by a San Francisco Artist Grant 2022-2023 from the San Francisco Arts Commission.

Interactive kinetic sculpture/puppet installation. Children and adults were prompted to pull ropes that activated movement.

June 10-24, 2023

Kreatives Pop-Up Gallery • Metreon, San Francisco, CA

Sponsored by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center and Bindlestiff Studio, Ramon directed a live, all-puppet children’s stage production in November 12 and 13, 2022. He commissioned three young child playwrights to work with a dramaturg and write stories for the show. He lead a team of designers, musicians and puppeteers and acted as the Story Teller.

Commissioned by KULARTS to perform “Tito Ramon’s Pop-Up Puppet Show” at Yerba Buena Gardens with live musical accompaniment by DJ Bitesize for the book launch of “Musalaya’s Gift” by Conrad J. Benedicto.

Children in the audience were invited to make the puppets move and shimmy in an informal dance club with music provided by DJ Bitesize.

Puppet design: Cir Sayoc and Marc Aure

Awarded an Artist Grant from Kultivate Labs to design and perform a solo puppet booth show at a new community outdoor park in San Francisco that opened post pandemic 2021.

Ramon commissioned Manila-based artist Boni Juan to design and make the puppets and Seattle-based illustrator Ninang Nunu to design the puppet booth graphics.

Musician Titania Buchholdt performed live indigenous Filipino instruments and members of the American Center of Philippine Arts, lead by Herna Cruz-Louie, played traditional Filipino banduria instruments.

Originally created for the online Zoom show “Tito Ramon’s Incredibly Silly Puppet Show” 2021, the Bernie puppet is an interactive puppet piece that visitors are encouraged to “activate the kickline” or make the legs move like a Radio City Hall chorus line.

The puppet is part of the group exhibition “Living Things: Artists and Their Objects of Affection” 2022-2023 at the San Francisco Arts Education gallery, Minnesota Street Project.

Funded by an Individual Artist Grant 2020-2021 from the San Francisco Arts Commission, “The Party” is a short video Ramon directed at the start of the Covid-19 lock-downs and is entirely acted with puppets.

As restrictions gradually eased in 2021, he was able to work with a team of designers and puppeteers to shoot at Balay Kreative Studio.

Inspired by the book “Legions of Boom: Filipino American Mobile DJ Crews in the San Francisco Bay Area” by Oliver Wang, the story is about four Fil Am teens preparing for a big garage party in mid-90s Daly City, CA.

Created entirely while “sheltering in place” at the height of the Covid-19 lock-down of 2020, the video short was originally streamed as part of Bindlestiff Studio’s online show “Okay Ba Tayo?”.

All puppets and sets were made on their home kitchen table and shot with Ramon’s wife as an assistant puppeteer/camera operator. In a light-hearted approach, the video addresses the current dynamic of replacing the binary use of “Filipino” with the more inclusive term “Filipinx”.

Solo piece performed and streamed live at Balay Kreative Studio for UNDSCVRD 2021 with DJ Trixamillion providing musical accompaniment.

Pop-up book style puppets with a story poking fun of Bay Area techie culture.

Performed in various locations since 2011, including UNDSCVRD 2018 and 2019, the puppets for this piece emerge from several over-sized pop-up books.

The hero goes on an adventure as he tries to return home by himself since his parents are too busy to pick him after his “tae-kwon-do-eskrima-karate” class. He stumbles on the Fear Factory and is able to throw his Pokemon ball to conquer Fear.

Since 2017, this short interactive piece has been performed at various locations including UNDSCVRD 2019 and the “Beautiful Eyes” book launch 2018 at the San Francisco Main Public Library.

The piece begins with Ramon asking a child from the audience to take his photo as a “Selfie” with his phone camera. By using a special app on his phone, Ramon “magically” produces a large 3D head of the photo. He then asks the audience to “feed” prop flies that were hidden in the seats.