Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Douglas N. Paasch will be missed

The Seattle Puppetry Community was struck a horrible blow on Saturday with the unexpected death of Douglas N. Paasch by heart attack. He will be missed. Here's a picture I took of him giving a Q&A at a guild meeting. He's holding his Bunnicula puppet.

I recieved this in an email from another guild member:

In Memorium: Douglas Paasch
By Deb Fialkow

Douglas N. Paasch had over 25 years of experience in professional puppetry, with extensive credits as a puppet performer, designer, builder, director, and consultant. For the past 16 years he had been the resident puppet master for Seattle Children's Theatre (SCT). He also worked with local and regional theatre companies including: Intiman, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Seattle Shakespeare Co., Book-It Repertory Theatre, Strawberry Theatre Workshop, South Coast Repertory (Costa Mesa, CA), and Childsplay Theatre Company (Tempe, Arizona), Mr Paasch has performed internationaly in Bulgaria, Serbia and China. Douglas is also a theatre technician, with special expertise in theatrical effects. Douglas was an instructor or guest artist at CalArts, UW, Cornish, Seattle University, University of Puget Sound, the Art Institute of Seattle and the SCT Drama School. Douglas was a member of Actor's Equity Association and IATSE. Most recent projects included: 'Night of the Living Dead'and 'The Wizard of Oz'@ Seattle Children's Theatre (just opened last night!); doing the puppetry design, direction and construction. Other recent project included: 'The Mary Shelly Project' with Greg Loughridge, 'The Never Ending Story' at SCT.

Doug passed away Saturday, November 22nd, 2008. He suffered an unexpected, massive heart attack.

Doug was a sweet, generous man of extraordinary talent and imagination. His loss to his friends, the Seattle Theater Community, the theater and puppetry industries will be felt profoundly.

Cards, flowers, photos, remembrances may be sent to :
Doug's parents (Leanore and Norm Paasch): 17811 5th Ave SW, Seattle, WA 98166
Lisa's address is 2109 N Anderson St, Tacoma, WA 98406

SCT will be holding a memorial, details will be posted as soon as they are known.

Update:
I have just heard that Lisa and Doug's family would indeed like to have a memorial for Douglas here at SCT on Monday, Dec. 8, starting at 7 pm. I do not know if anyone is preparing a formal e-announcement about it, so I ask that staff start to spread the word: better that people hear about it more than once than get left out.
Mangetout will be donating food. Witney Williams is coordinating details of programming with me. I do not yet have information about preferences for donations.

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