Ramon Abad's Puppetry

Designed and fabricated the large-scale Dragon puppet for San Francisco Art Education Project’s stage production of “Shrek the Musical” at the Presidio Theatre. The puppet was operated by three middle school students: one person for the head with glowing eyes and moving mouth, another for the reticulated tail and the middle person wore a shoulder harness rig to hold the main body of the puppet.

Commissioned by the African American Shakespeare Co. to design and make the puppets for the production of “The Wiz Jr.” at the Bay View Opera House.

Performed a solo puppet show at KQED Street Fest 2024 at the headquarters of San Francisco’s local public television station KQED. Ramon invited several kids from the audience to perform a short scene with puppets to a story that he had improv’ed on the spot.

Sponsored 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.

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”.

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.