SNOW QUEEN
“Where there is friendship and love to be found,
roses will surely still bloom.”
About the Production
PuppetART’s production of the classic Hans Christian Anderson fairy tale uses a remarkable variety of techniques and effects in its telling of the tale, including marionettes, rod puppets, hand puppets, projections, and costumes which double as scenery. The script and score (composed by Maria Mikheyenko) are our own, and the story is served well by a strikingly beautiful design. PuppetART’s Snow Queen was introduced in 2011 and was most recently performed in Detroit’s Music Hall, to critical and popular acclaim.
About the Story
When the Snow Queen abducts her beloved friend Kai, Gerda begins a magical and perilous journey to find him, encountering friends, flowers, fiends, and an enormously critical crow. Follow her as she sets out on her heroic quest to the cold and dazzling world of the Snow Queen. PuppetART’s original musical production reminds us the perseverance of human bonds in the face of great obstacles. “Where there is friendship and love to be found, roses will surely still bloom.”
About the Author
Danish author Hans Christian Andersen was born at the beginning of the 19th century to a family of limited means. Suffering a poor education and bouts of depression, he published his first book of fairy tales in 1835, which included classics such as “The Little Mermaid”, “The Princess and the Pea”, and “The Emperor’s New Clothes.” The book sold few copies.
Andersen’s stories had begun with stories he had heard as a child, but he soon began writing original stories with fantastical elements. The Snow Queen is one of these, and it is said that the Snow Queen character herself was based on his experience with opera singer Jenny Lind, who had rejected his marriage proposal and broken his heart thereby.
His contemporary admirers included Charles Dickens and Søren Kirkegaard – today his works are known and loved throughout the world, having been translated into 125 languages, and there are few who are unacquainted with at least one of his stories even if the author’s name eludes them.
H.P. Paul’s 1872 English translation of Andersen’s Snow Queen can be read here
The H.C. Andersen center in Odense has supplied a more extended biography and list of works here
Books By Andersen
Andersen, Hans Christian. Owens, Lilly, Ed. The Complete Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales.
New York: Gramercy, 1993.
Andersen, Hans Christian. The Fairy Tale of My Life: An Autobiography. New York: Cooper Square Press,
2000.
Books About Andersen
Andersen, Jen. Hans Christian Andersen: A New Life. New York: Overlook Press, 2006.
Binding, Paul. Hans Christian Andersen: European Witness. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014.
Wullschlager, Jackie. Hans Christian Andersen, The Life of a Storyteller. New York: Knopf, 2001.
