The Lorrie Gardner UNIMA Australia Biennial Scholarship
2023 Applications are now OPEN
To be eligible, an applicant must be a continuous financial member of UNIMA Australia for at least 2 years. To join, please visit our membership page.
Or contact our Membership Secretary, Katherine Hannaford, via our Contact form.
Application Information Guidelines
Closing date: Friday 31st March, 2023
Successful applicants will be notified by 14th April, 2023.
Please send your application to the General Secretary, Kay Yasugi at secretary@unima.org.au. She will forward them to the Scholarship Committee: Sue Wallace, Joanne Foley, and Murray Raine.
On that note, we welcome Murray Raine to the Scholarship Committee for UNIMA Australia. He is taking on the role from Philip Millar, who is now the President of UNIMA Australia.
We thank Philip for his many years serving on the Scholarship Committee, and we also thank Sue and Joanne for their continued work.
About the Scholarship
Lorrie Gardner of Gardner’s Puppet Theatre was a longstanding and active member of UNIMA Australia. She was President for 3 years until illness forced her to retire in 2004. In 2005 Lorrie Gardner bequeathed a substantial contribution to the fund and the renaming of the scholarship fund is to honour not only her financial contribution but her artistic contribution as an outstanding puppetry practitioner, teacher and colleague. The Scholarship Fund has been created through the individual contributions of members, and supported by further donations from the Gardner family.
Purpose of the Scholarship
The purpose of the scholarship is to assist the development, evolution and growth of Australian puppetry arts & culture by benefiting UNIMA Australia Inc. members. All activities, projects and situations must be puppetry oriented.
The Scholarship is offered to individual puppetry practitioners to further develop their puppetry practice.
Scholarship Guidelines
The scholarship can be used toward tuition costs or travel expenses to attend training institutions, workshops, appropriate festivals, etc. or to work with a specialist teacher.
It can also be used towards the costs of bringing a specialist teacher to work with an individual member or group of members or for any other activity that the scholarship committee deems worthy.
The grant can be for in-person or online training/projects.
It cannot be used for production costs or capital purchases.
Who is eligible?
Applicants must be Australian citizens or Permanent Residents.
Applicants must have been continual financial members of UNIMA Australia for a minimum of 2 years up to the closing date of the application. In the event of a group application, all members of the group must be UNIMA Australia Inc. members (with at least one participant being a continuous financial member for 2 years at the time of application).
Members of UNIMA Australia Inc. executive and scholarship committee members are not eligible to apply during their terms of office.
How to apply
- Check your eligibility. If in doubt about the length of your membership contact the UNIMA Australia Membership Secretary, Katherine Hannaford, by email to membership@unima.org.au
- Check that the proposed project meets the guidelines. If in doubt contact Sue Wallace from scholarship committee (spuppet@ozemail.com.au)
- Clearly articulate your proposal in writing in a maximum of 2 pages.
- If you are applying to attend a course or festival include source material about the course or festival e.g. festival program, web site link, course brochure etc.
- If you are applying to work with a specialist teacher/artist please check with the scholarship committee if you need to include a CV for that artist.
- Provide a 1 page CV for each member applying highlighting information relevant to this application.
- Provide a project budget detailing the Scholarship proponent.
Acquittal
Successful applicants must submit a report of their scholarship project no later than 6 weeks after completion of the project. Visual illustration should be attached, including photos, drawings &/or video . This report will be published on-line and/or in print and also circulated to members. Reports must be sent by email to the General Secretary, Kay Yasugi at secretary@unima.org.au
Previous Recipients of the Lorrie Gardner Scholarship
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- 2010 RECIPIENT: TIM DENTON – Tim travelled to Vermont, USA, to take part in Peter Schumann’s Bread & Puppet Theater’s Residential Apprenticeship Program – An intensive 5 week experience.
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- 2011 RECIPIENT: LANA SCHWARCZ – Lana was invited to be one of three emerging Artists at the 2011 National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Centre in Waterford, Conneticut (USA). It was a 2 week experience of Artist development. (Photo shows here shadow work for her show, ‘Small Talk’. Photo by Richard Termine).
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- 2012 RECIPIENT: BETH MCMAHON – Beth underwent specialist training with Puppeteer, Film maker and Marionettiste Yvette Edery in Los Angeles, USA. She learned about new creative techniques for Theatre and Film.
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- 2013 RECIPIENT: LAUREN REDPATH (PICTURED RIGHT) – Lauren did a summer internship with Phantom Limb Company in New York City, USA. She learened more about their puppet making process while gaining perspective about her own practice, and challenging herself creatively in an unfamiliar landscape. (Photo by Alex Pines).
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- 2014 RECIPIENT: JHESS KNIGHT (PICTURED LEFT) – Jhess used her scholarship to complete her Diploma in Professional Puppetry at the London School of Puppetry (LSP) in the UK, and also attend the Fifth Annual “Festival des Marionettes aux Estampes”, a Puppetry festival in the south of France. (Photo of Jhess Knight and LSP Director of Studies Caroline Astell-Burt, Photo by Tedadair.com)
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- 2015 RECIPIENT: MICHAEL BEVITT (THE INDIRECT OBJECT) – Michael used his scholarship towards developing the experimental work “For the Love of an Orange” for the Prague Quadrennial Makers Exhibition and working with internationally acclaimed Object Theatre Specialist, Stéphane Georis, in Belgium. (Photo: Gabriel S. Partington and Michael Bevitt performing ‘For the Love of an Orange’. Photo by Beth McMahon).
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- 2016 RECIPIENT: KATHERINE HANNAFORD – Katherine went to Beyond the Sock – A Puppetry for Film and Television Workshop in Denton, Texas USA. Photo: Katherine sewing the fur for her chicken puppet (Photo by Rudy Cervantez)
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- 2018 RECIPIENT: FIONA FINLEY (The Drama Studio) Fiona had a 2 day private workshop with puppeteer Kay Yasugi (Pupperoos) to learn various puppetry skills (including shadow puppetry, marionettes and rod puppets) in order to practically apply them in both classes and productions at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre in Wollongong, NSW (Photo by Kay Yasugi).
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- 2021 RECIPIENT: MARK PENZAK Our previous recipient was Mark Penzak who worked with experienced director/writer Richard Tulloch to acquire new writing skills and create an outline for a video series, Spookmaster, intended for children and using puppetry as its main form of expression.