Tell us about your history with this show.
Stick Up! is a show that I saw in a puppet festival in Montreal, and it was my favorite thing by far that I had see at the festival, and one of my favorite things I had seen in a while. The panache and the real joy they took in doing it was what struck me. It was smart, funny, it moved quick, it was clever, it was satirical of popular culture.

What set Stick Up! so far apart from the rest?
It falls into a whole genre of its own, this whole objects theater where people use everyday objects and repurpose them to use in a puppetry context. It’s just done with a lot of flair. It’s basically a spoof of bank heist films or the big getaway films done in a tiny space by one really goofy and appealing performer with lots and lots of invention.

It just keeps delighting you, it’s just so hilarious and beautiful how they do it. The set looks like a shop with a bunch of industrial shelving and cleaning supplies, and they kind of turn everything into this huge, epic, exciting Tom Cruise adventure. And I’m super glad we got them here!

As director of the Dream Music Puppetry Program at HERE, what do you look for to bring back to the theater?
I’m always looking for things that are small—though this show is rather dense, and it’s going to be a squeeze to fit it into the downstairs theater. I’m just looking for something that’s original, that’s different, that shines in a way that I like. Especially if I’m going to bring something to New York, because of course there are a lot of great artists in New York I want to present. I just want it to be excellent. And this is excellently executed and wonderfully paced and timed. I want to bring the best of what I see out there.

And what do you have coming up?
Before Stickup, we’re doing the Holiday Puppet Parlor on Tuesday, which is a sort of cabaret show that we do regularly of puppetry and friends of puppetry performers. Tigger!, Dirty Martini and Julie Atlas Muz will be there, among others, so that will be a lot of fun.

Stick Up! (Braquage)
Dec. 16–18, HERE, 145 6th Ave. (at Dominick St.), www.here.org; $20.

The New York Times has called HERE (formerly HERE Arts Center) “one of the most unusual arts spaces in New York and possibly the model for the cutting-edge arts spaces of tomorrow.” Kristin Marting, artistic director of HERE, speaks about the shifting cultural scene Downtown and HERE’s place in the middle of it all.

How long have you been with HERE?

I’ve been with HERE since its inception in 1993. I was one of the founders. There were two theater companies that had recently been kicked out of their spaces—The Tiny Mythic Theater and The Home for Contemporary Theatre & Arts. We found each other and discovered that we could do more by combining our efforts.

And what was the combined result?

The result is HERE! We created a multidisciplinary space that could support artists from a variety of disciplines in the hopes that they would start bouncing ideas off of each other. Our aesthetic represents the independent, the innovative and the experimental, and in 17 years, we’ve supported over 12,000 artists and attracted more than 950,000 arts patrons. The core of what we do is develop and support resident artists. Over the course of three years, they develop a project. We show it here, and then hopefully we can launch them on tour.

In your nearly 20 years leading HERE, what changes have you witnessed in the Downtown arts scene?

There are really significant changes in terms of the quality of the work. Among the various artistic disciplines, there is less segregation and more integration. There’s also been a real increase in the range of people participating in arts events Downtown, and an increasing openness to the sort of work that is made down here. Having said that, there’s also been a real shift of available spaces. There has been an addition of spaces but a loss of spaces as well.

Before HERE moved in, very few people went west of Sixth Avenue, but a lot of people come to HERE and I think we’ve really helped open up the neighborhood. We have a young demographic, with most of our patrons in their twenties and thirties, and most of them don’t live Downtown because it’s become so expensive. Downtown really is a state of mind.

What do you love most about your job?

I love the opportunity to work with artists to help them realize what they’re thinking. Every artist thinks in a completely different way, and every end result reflects that. It’s like, every time you create a new product, each new product is a new thing, entirely unrelated to the product before. So the fun and the challenge is in being fresh and open with each project.

What do you like least about your job?

I hate spending so much time raising money. It’s always a challenging task. We’ve got great support on so many levels—a broad range of support—but it’s awfully time-consuming. It’s also a continual struggle to compensate artists for their work. If you averaged out the hours artists work on their products, they’re working for less than minimum wage. It’s frustrating to spend so much time raising money and still not be able to resolve that income gap.

What can we look forward to coming up at HERE?

In December, we have a wonderful show called Stick Up! (Braquage) coming into the space. It’s a French piece of puppet object theater and it’s an absolute delight. The show involves cat burglars, bombs, car chases… it’s very physical. It’s a great piece for the family, lots of fun and quite spectacular.

We’ll also continue with our Puppet Parlors, which Basil Twist curates. Puppeteers of New York pool their resources and present little pieces in a wonderful mélange.

In January, we’ll have more shows from our resident artists. Miranda, by creator, composer, librettist and producer Kamala Sankaram, is a steampunk murder-mystery chamber opera in which the musicians do all of the acting and singing as well. And Chimera, by Deborah Stein and Suli Holum, is an arresting new play inspired by a real-life horror story, which explores what happens when technology shatters our ideas of who we think we are.

How has your Downtown location affected what you do and make at HERE?

We have no pressure to create commercially, so we can support the uniqueness and vision of the artists we work with on their own terms. We have a real freedom to select artists. We don’t have to edit our choices, and the artists don’t have to edit their choices either. The art has integrity and professional quality, but it can be whatever it wants to be.

Photo by Carl Skutsch