The Little Match Girl puppet in the Figures of Speech Theatre production of “the little match girl passion.” (Phyllis Graber Jensen/乐播传媒 College)

Maine鈥檚 groundbreaking Figures of Speech Theatre premieres the little match girl passion, a theatrical setting of contemporary American composer David Lang’s Pulitzer Prize-winning piece, in performances at 7:30 p.m. Saturday-Monday, Jan. 9-11, at 乐播传媒 College’s Schaeffer Theatre, 329 College St., Lewiston.

Admission is $15 for the general public and $10 for 乐播传媒 College faculty and staff. 乐播传媒 College students are eligible for free admission but reservations are suggested. .

Lang鈥檚 piece interleaves the text of Hans Christian Andersen鈥檚 well-known story about an impoverished child selling matches in the streets on New Year鈥檚 Eve with selected texts from Bach鈥檚 St. Matthew鈥檚 Passion.

“The first time I heard the little match girl passion,鈥� says Figures of Speech artistic director John Farrell, 鈥淚 felt a deep connection to the kind of visual theater that Figures of Speech has practiced from its beginnings, and I began to envision a theatrical setting for the music composed of puppets, masked actors and projected video.

“The performance elevates the suffering and death of the match girl to a spiritual plane, and it asks us to consider our relationship to the suffering of children everywhere.鈥�

Farrell adds, 鈥淥ur production takes the audience on a journey 鈥撯�� from the original story, through Lang鈥檚 inspired synthesis of Andersen and Bach, to our vision of the Grandmother as an embodiment of the cosmic feminine.鈥�

Ultimately, Farrell hopes, the little match girl passion will fuse music, dance, puppetry, masks, and projected imagery in a theatrical event that defies categorization.

Figures of Speech has toured the world for more than 30 years with original works created at the intersection of drama, poetry, sculpture and dance. John Farrell and his wife, Carol Farrell, co-founded Figures of Speech in 1982 to explore the interplay of puppets, actors, shadows, movement and masks. Carol Farrell is the supervisor of the 乐播传媒 costume shop.

The company is known for psychologically rich, visually stunning adaptations of folk tales, classical myths and original works for adults. Figures of Speech is a four-time recipient of the coveted UNIMA Citation of Excellence, the highest distinction in American puppet theatre.

The production of the little match girl passion is supported in part by grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Davis Family Foundation, the Maine Theater Fund of the Maine Community Foundation,聽the Maine Humanities Council as part of the Pulitzer Prize Centennial Campfires Initiative, and the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts.

John Farrell performs T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets” from memory.

John Farrell, a principal in Maine’s groundbreaking Figures of Speech Theatre, recites from memory Four Quartets, a suite of poems often considered T.S. Eliot’s greatest, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 27, in the Olin Arts Center Concert Hall, 75 Russell St.

Also in Olin that evening, the renowned DaPonte String Quartet follows Farrell with a performance of Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 15 (Op. 132) in A minor, thought by many scholars to have been an inspiration for聽Four Quartets.

The evening is open to the public at no cost, but tickets are required. Please visit . For more information, please call 207-786-6163.

First undertaken in 2011 with permission — rarely granted — from Eliot’s estate, Farrell’s recitation of聽Four Quartets affords audiences an opportunity to immerse themselves in 1,000 lines of poetry exploring humankind’s relationship with time and with experience itself.

Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948, Eliot is known for such poems as “The Waste Land” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” among many other works of poetry, prose and drama.

The DaPonte String Quartet.

He wrote the poems constituting聽Four Quartets from 1936 to 1942, and they were published as a book in 1943.

According to the Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature, the poems reflect Eliot’s insights into the cyclical nature of life “through themes and images deftly woven throughout the four poems.

“The work addresses the connections of the personal and historical present and past, spiritual renewal, and the very nature of experience; it is considered the poet’s clearest exposition of his Christian beliefs.”

Figures of Speech Theatre

Figures of Speech Theatre has toured the world for more than 30 years with original works created at the intersection of drama, poetry, sculpture and dance. John Farrell and his wife, Carol Farrell, co-founded Figures of Speech in 1982 to explore the interplay of puppets, actors, shadows, movement and masks.

The company is known for psychologically rich, visually stunning adaptations of folk tales, classical myths and children’s stories such as Hans Christian Andersen’s “Nightingale.”Figures of Speech retains a strong commitment to teaching and performing in schools and theatrical venues throughout its home state of Maine.

Figures of Speech is a four-time recipient of the coveted UNIMA Citation of Excellence, the highest distinction in American puppet theatre.

DaPonte String Quartet and Beethoven’s Op. 132

Founded in Philadelphia in 1991, the DaPonte String Quartet surprised the musical world soon thereafter by moving from a cosmopolitan urban area to rural Maine. Nationally known and with a touring schedule that reaches into Western Europe, the DSQ remains deeply rooted in mid-coast Maine.

The members of the quartet are violinists Lydia Forbes and Dino Liva, who was a founding member of the quartet; violist Kirsten Monke and cellist Myles Jordan, another founding member. The DSQ is known for a repertoire that that spans virtually the entire history of music, from 17th-century works to cutting-edge contemporary quartets. They are also known for the inventiveness and freshness of their interpretations.

While the exact relationship between Beethoven’s late Op. 132 quartet and Eliot’s Four Quartets isn’t clear, scholars believe that there was at least a subliminal connection between the music and the poetry.

In a letter to the poet and novelist Stephen Spender, Eliot wrote that “There is a sort of heavenly, or at least more than human, gaiety about some of [Beethoven’s] later things, which one imagines might come to oneself as the fruits of reconciliation and relief after immense suffering; I should like to get something of that into verse before I die.”

John and Carol Farrell of Freeport, founders of the acclaimed Figures of Speech Theatre, are working with 乐播传媒 students in a theater production workshop that will culminate in performances of the Asian folk tale Dragon’s Daughter at 7:30 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, May 20-22, and at 2 p.m. Sunday, May 23, in Gannett Theater, Pettigrew Hall, 305 College St.

Performances are open to the general public for $6 and to seniors and students for $3. Tickets will be available from . For more information, please call 207-786-6161. The Farrells’ residency is made possible by the Freeman Foundation.

The Farrells are internationally renowned for adapting folk tales in productions that make imaginative use of masks, puppetry and other traditional stage devices. At 乐播传媒, they are conducting an intensive program in a variety of Asian performance genres including the “noh” style of musical theater and “bunraku” puppetry, both from Japan.

They will direct 乐播传媒 students in Dragon’s Daughter, which Figures of Speech premiered in 1997. Set upon an altar in an ancient temple, the production combines carved puppets with dynamic masked dance and storytelling. It’s the story of a young girl’s experiences as she seeks a secret lake that will save her village from drought.

“A story for our time and all time, Dragon’s Daughter soars with humanity,” a reviewer for the Brunswick Times-Record wrote. “The work transcends the merely dramatic; its content and method achieve a spirituality worthy of its setting.”

Since its founding, in 1982, Figures of Speech has celebrated the value of all cultures through the interplay of puppets, actors, shadows, music and masks. The company explores personal, social and spiritual issues with projects that quietly but emphatically illuminate our relationship to the earth and the balance between individual vision and community obligation.

Figures of Speech has toured all over the world, from Bulgaria to Japan to Peru. Besides performing at venues such as the Kennedy Center, the Smithsonian Institution and the New Victory Theatre on Broadway, the company retains a strong commitment to teaching and performing in rural schools and theaters throughout its home state of Maine.

The company is a four-time recipient of the coveted UNIMA Citation of Excellence, the highest distinction in American puppet theater, as well as numerous grant awards from organizations including the National Endowment for the Arts, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Jim Henson Foundation and the New England Foundation for the Arts.

At 乐播传媒 for the college’s five-week spring Short Term, the Farrells are teaching the annual theater production workshop, this year titled “Cultural Fusion: Asian and Western Theater Styles in Performance.”

Though puppet theater is featured in theater history courses at 乐播传媒, this production workshop gives students “the chance to work with well-respected practitioners of the art in a concentrated way,” says Michael Reidy, lecturer and technical director for the theater department. “This course will broaden the students’ view of what makes theater a vital and fascinating form of expression.”