The Watch & Spectacle Puppet Company, based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, is the brain-child of Asa Nodelman. While the company has experimented with shadow and rod puppets, trick marionettes are its specialty. Asa formed the company to produce shows for the Winnipeg Fringe Festival. The first was called The Clock in the Lobby and appeared in 2007. The second was The Aethernomicon in 2008. The Watch & Spectacle Puppet Company has also appeared at the Puppet Apocalypse (2010), Winnipeg's first puppet slam.
By producing puppet plays with sophisticated narratives, constructions, and performances, we wish to foster an enjoyment of puppetry and ultimately reveal puppetry as it truly is; a mature art-form that can be appreciated by all people. We use our plays in part to explore and experiment with the ideas of what a puppet is and what it's for, and how puppetry relates to the other theatrical arts. We encourage our audiences to do the same. We hope that by leading the way to a mature understanding and practice of puppetry, we will inspire other local artists to try it out for themselves. Together we can seize the opportunity to transform Winnipeg into the Canadian centre of puppetry!