Krampus Gets Cramped

Overview

“Krampus Gets Cramped” is an intimate shadow puppet piece that will use back-lit “crankie” boxes to tell this story. Crankies are storytelling machines that use a paper or cloth scroll to illustrate the narrative. This piece will utilize a series of different crankies and other forms of puppetry to tell the myth of Krampus, the Christmas demon and the psychobilly, gorehound rock and roll band, The Cramps. And how they all met in the East Village in dirty, dirty NYC in the late 70s. This will be a multimedia performance with narration, music and sound effects along with the wild puppetry. The piece will mix real historical facts about The Cramps along with fictional fantasy of their fabulous rock and roll lifestyle and beyond.

 

Jim Julien is a participant in Philly Fringe Postcards, peer-to-peer review experiment created for the 2025 Fringe by Savannah Reich.

About the Artist

Jim Julien is a performance artist, puppeteer, playwright and visual artist. Now a current resident happily settled in the Philadelphia area, Mr. Julien was previously artistic co-director of the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival for 18 years. Mr. Juliens work has won Fringe awards in Portland, ME, Pittsburgh, PA and Shenandoah (Staunton, VA) Fringe festivals and he has also performed in the Cincinnati, St. Louis, Chicago, Richmond and Nashville Fringe festivals. A graduate of Carnegie-Mellon University, his first full length play about a mad chef and his challenged staff and customers, THE CARO SAVANTI EXPERIENCE, premiered in 2013 and was remounted in 2016 in Asheville, NC.

Mr. Julien was a regular contributor to the suggested-mature-audience-oriented Wham Bam Puppet Slam shows in clubs around Asheville. Mr. Julien was also a founding member of the Asheville Vaudeville Performance Collective, which has presented multiple (somewhat monthly) circus/burlesque/weird variety shows over the last 13 years in Asheville. He has utilized a variety of performance elements in his shows including shadow puppets, vanilla pudding, ghostly spirits and fake dog urine.

Credits