Shows

Behind the Mask Theatre combines traditional storytelling with original masks, music, dance, puppetry, martial arts, and other art forms to create what it calls augmented storytelling.  Some of our favorite shows are:

• Cat Mountain - Based on a Japanese folktale. Sho, a servant girl journeys to a strange and far-off mountain where she hopes to find her freedom and her lost cat.  But the people she meets on the way all tell her, no one has ever returned from Cat Mountain!   Puppetry, dance, and Japanese theatre-styles.
  
  
• First Night Boston - We have performed at Boston's premier New Year's Eve celebration every year, but one, since 1991.  On stages, in the grand parade, and roaming the Hynes Convention Center.  Have you met one of our masked characters?  Would you like to be one?
  
  
• Monkey King Tales - The rascal-hero of the classic Chinese epic "Journey to the West" comes alive in this show.   Watch monkey battle strange creatures, learn the secrets of immortality, and get put in his place by Buddha.  Elements of Beijing Opera, Martial arts battles, shadow puppetry, dance, and live music tell the story of this unlikely hero.
  
  
• Once Upon A Time - A masque of classic fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Italo Calvino, and Celtic legend.  Hark to the Hobgoblin, understand the language of animals, learn the lore of the Druid, laugh with the Fools, and feel the siren spell of the Mermaid’s song enchant you into the magical world of rags to riches, the hero’s quest, and true love lost and found.  Storytelling and masks by Eric Bornstein with traditional and original music by Lynn Noel and Jonathan Gilbert.
  
  
• The Woman Who Outshone the Sun - A beautiful and mysterious woman with magical powers is exiled from a mountain village and she takes its water source, a river, away in punishment.  Through their suffering for what they have lost, the villagers learn important lessons of tolerance, forgiveness and the frailty of the ecosystem.  Performed as a bilingual story (Spanish & English), and based on a poem by Alejandro Cruz Martinez.
  
  
• Masks of Odysseus - Homer's classic tale of Odysseus' ongoing attempts to get home from the Trojan War, as told by an unusual character.
  

Bring one of our shows to your theatre, school, park, or celebration!