Be delighted by Whimsical Beauty – a double bill hour of fun and uplifting puppetry, movement, comedy and poetry. Featuring the zany ‘Eh!’ and enchanting ‘On Beauty’.
First up we have….
‘Eh!
An amusing, creative slapstick comedy with ingenious puppetry and physical theatre. A young man stumbles through life fighting the very thing that holds him back – himself! He tries finding love, hits the gym, and gives life a go – but everything that can go wrong – does. A-laugh-out-loud spiral of misfires, mayhem, and misguided hope.
Created by: Ben Kuryo, Actor-Puppeter: Ben Kuryo, Directed by: Maddy Slabacu
Followed by……
‘On Beauty’
A captivating piece of immersive visual theatre. With imaginative and innovative puppetry, poetry and movement it presents the poem of the same name by Kahlil Gibran. Throughout the show the source of all life sends forth spirits from the Divine realm to the physical world. While the poem’s quest to define beauty provides the narrative and thematic structure, the magic of puppetry as a ‘life’ giving artform is explored through spirit-seeking different forms.
Created & Directed by: Shabnam Tavakol, Actor-Puppeteers: Shabnam Tavakol & Sophie Nancarrow, Music by: Bob Short, Consultant: Maddy Slabacu, Voice overs by: Bob Short & Maddy Slabacu
Lighting by: Rajdeep Roy, Make up by: Ruby Dolly
Biographies
Ben Kuryo
Ben Kuryo is an experienced and dynamic stage and screen actor with a strong foundation in classical theatre, contemporary performance, and puppetry. A graduate of the Actors College of Theatre and Television, Ben holds an Advanced Diploma of Arts in Stage and Screen Acting, a Diploma in Performance Practice, and a Certificate III in Theatre and Screen Performance.
With a career spanning diverse roles across Australia and international stages, Ben has performed in renowned works including Hamlet (title role), The Tempest (Caliban), The Velveteen Rabbit, and The Recruiting Officer, under the direction of industry professionals such as Paul Cohan, Maeliosa Stafford, and Lex Marinos. He has collaborated with acclaimed theatre companies such as Horizon Theatre Company, World Puppet Carnival, ACTT, and Teatrul Țăndărică Romania.
Ben’s versatility shines through in both lead and supporting roles in productions like Desdemona the Raven, The Eh Show, Rumpus Room, Faith Connections, Dance Magic, and Girls vs. Boyz (a self-devised cabaret). He is also a skilled puppeteer, having brought characters to life in shows such as An Alien Adventure, Punch and Judy, and Grimm Tales.
On screen, Ben has taken on a range of lead roles in short films, including The Woman Who Were Never There, Wheels of Justice, Training Day, and Case of Us.
Shabnam (Shab) Tavakol
Shab is the co-Artistic Director of Horizon Theatre Company and has been with Horizon since it’s early years. She is an actor, puppeteer and dancer with over two decades of international touring experience. She is principal Actor-Puppeteer in several of Horizon’s international award-winning productions, touring to various parts of Europe and Asia. She has also toured abroad to Pakistan and UK with Rafi Peer Theatre Company and toured Ibiza, Spain with her own dance production company.
Shab works extensively as an actor and puppeteer for several theatre and film productions in Australia receiving critical acclaim of her work. Theatre performances include as Ophelia in Hamlet, as Sprite in Tempest, in Playscript’s ‘Paradise Now’ and ‘Walk in Beauty’, as Sonal in Nautanki Theatre’s Ten Years from Home (KXT Theatre, Broadway & Riverside Theatre), and the wicked stepmother in Sundarella, directed by Bali Padda (Darling Quarter Theatres). Film credits include playing ‘Vera’ in the award-winning short film “Grace” (2024) which was a finalist and awarded in several international film festivals.
Shab is also a graduate of Horizon Theatre’s The School of Puppetry and Visual Performing Arts, and a graduate of the Actors Centre Australia and has extensive training and experience in dance and movement. She provided movement consultancy to Actors College of Television and Theatre for their graduation and puppetry orientation at Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA).
Shab directed Horizon’s recent puppet festivals and projects including Sharing Culture Puppet Festival, Under One Sky, Words in the Wind and Friends in the Park. She has recently returned from Paris where she was selected by the world-renowned Phillipe Genty’s training company Mots De Tete to undertake a course in Visual Dramaturgy. ‘On Beauty’ is her first professional development into visual theatre making and direction. Her work was a success with audiences at its premier of Nautanki Theatre’s 9th South Asian Theatre Festival at Riverside Theatres in 2024.
Sophie Nancarrow
Originally from Adelaide, Sophie is a young emerging actor studying Musical Theatre at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and pursuing a career in performing arts. She is very passionate about telling Australian stories, and during her studies at the Conservatorium she has had the opportunity to play roles in a few new Australian works during their developmental stage, including playing Margaret Goff in Paper Stars (Sydney Conservatorium), Laura in Beaudy (Yellow Line Theatre Company), and Rachel and Jordan in Nutz! and The Debate Team respectively (Sydney University Music Theatre Ensemble MUSE).
She has also ventured into writing and composition herself, having co-wrote and composed the score for the play Stalled in 2021-2022.Building upon her background in Singing, Acting and Dance she has had the opportunity to work with puppets in shows including: Jurrassic World: The Exhibition (Superlunar,Universal Studios) and Nursery Rhyme Time (Horizon Theatre). She delights in exploring new avenues of expression through performance and can’t wait to see what else Sydney and the world has in store for her.
Maddy Slabacu
Maddy is the founder and co-Artistic Director of Horizon Theatre Company. She is a Director, Actor and Master puppeteer with equivalent Honours Degree in Theatre and Puppetry trained at Tandarica Theatre Romania. Migrating to Australia she worked with the then Marionette Theatre of Australia. She has over 40 years of experience in theatre, film and puppetry including Spare Parts Puppet Theatre and Storyteller Theatre.
She teaches at Australia’s NIDA (directors’ course) with extensive acting, direction and production experience accumulating an impressive number of awards, prizes and distinctions. She was one of the creators and trainers of The School of Puppetry and Visual Performing Arts (supported by Australia Council for the Arts) in the early stages of Horizon Theatre to equip the theatre with trained young puppeteers, resulting in the development and growth of outstanding actors and puppeteers.
Her many shows she directed won international awards including critical acclaim by puppetry and theatre critics in Russia for her innovative work. She now supports emerging theatre makers as a theatre producer.
Bob Short
Bob Short has worked with Horizon Theatre since 1998 and is a musician, composer, video maker and author. His most recent book “Night Comes Down” is currently receiving very positive reviews.
He is most known for the punk band Filth and UK Gothic band Blood and Roses. He has extensive experience of commercial music clip production and work in Community Television.
On Beauty
And a poet said, Speak to us of Beauty.
And he answered:
Where shall you seek beauty, and how
shall you find her unless she herself be your
way and your guide?
And how shall you speak of her except
she be the weaver of your speech?
The aggrieved and the injured say,
“Beauty is kind and gentle.
Like a young mother half-shy of her
own glory she walks among us.”
And the passionate say, “Nay, beauty is
a thing of might and dread.
Like the tempest she shakes the earth
beneath us and the sky above us.”
The tired and the weary say, “Beauty is
of soft whisperings. She speaks in our spirit.
Her voice yields to our silences like a faint
light that quivers in fear of the shadow.”
But the restless say, “We have heard her
shouting among the mountains,
And with her cries came the sound of
hoofs, and the beating of wings and
the roaring of lions.”
At night the watchmen of the city say,
“Beauty shall rise with the dawn from the
east.”
And at noontide the toilers and the way-
farers say, “We have seen her leaning over
the earth from the windows of the sunset.”
In winter say the snow-bound, “She shall
come with the spring leaping upon the hills.”
And in the summer heat the reapers say,
“We have seen her dancing with the autumn
leaves, and we saw a drift of snow in her
hair.”
All these things have you said of beauty,
Yet in truth you spoke not of her but of
needs unsatisfied,
And beauty is not a need but an ecstasy.
It is not a mouth thirsting nor an empty
hand stretched forth,
But rather a heart enflamed and a soul en-
chanted.
It is not the image you would see nor the
song you would hear,
But rather an image you see though you
close your eyes and a song you hear though
you shut your ears.
It is not the sap within the furrowed bark,
nor a wing attached to a claw,
But rather a garden for ever in bloom and
a flock of angels for ever in flight.
People of Orphalese, beauty is life when
life unveils her holy face.
But you are life and you are the veil.
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mir-
ror.
But you are eternity and you are the mir-
ror.
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