June 2, 2000

Kids Will Love Beakman (and Learn Science)! Emmy-Award Winner to Perform at MASS MoCA June 10

(June 2, 2000--North Adams, MA) The opening show of MASS MoCA's summer KidsLab events features the mad-scientist from CBS's Emmy-award-winning show Beakman's World on Saturday, June 10 at 3:00 pm. Paul Zaloom (AKA Beakman) uses exciting experiments, magic tricks and comic antics to demonstrate the laws of science. He engages and challenges children, and parents often comment that they love the show as much as their children do.

Since 1992, Paul Zaloom has appeared on CBS-TV's Beakman's World as Beakman, the humorous and inquisitive scientist who reveals strange secrets of science, nature, and the world around us. The National Foundation for the Improvement of Education calls Beakman's World "...a stimulating, scientifically sound, humorous and effective presentation of science." In six seasons on the air, the show was nominated for numerous Emmys, including Best Children's Show. The show only improves when translated from TV to a live audience. Zaloom preserves the best parts of the popular TV show, when performing live, including the energetic Beakman character that kids find so riveting, as well as the lively science experiments, many of which kids can reproduce at home.

The live show encourages audience participation, and Zaloom takes advantage of every chance he gets. Zaloom promises, "There will be a number of victims, uh, volunteers that I'll get up on stage." According to The Los Angeles Times, "The irreverent Beakman can satisfy nearly anyone's curiosity with an answer that is always right on, and can by wry, energetic, sarcastic, engaging, funny, and loud."

A political satirist, performance artist, and puppeteer, Zaloom writes, designs and performs his solo performances. His highly idiosyncratic work utilizes techniques such as overhead projection, government document exposŽ, and puppets. Zaloom is a member of Vermont's acclaimed Bread and Puppet Theatre. He is best known for his found object manipulations, where he operates tools, toys, packaging material, kitsch, and other debris in rapid-fire, satirical vignettes about modern life. Zaloom's dummy puppet show about indoor pollution, The House of Horror, received an Obie from the Village Voice. His design of My Civilization was awarded an American Theater Wing Design Award. He has also been given a New York Dance and Performance Award (the "Bessie"), an LA Weekly Critics' Award, and three Citations of Excellence in the Art of Puppetry from UNIMA-USA. He has received four National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, three Henson Foundation grants, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Zaloom has performed a number of highly regarded venues including the Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center, Spoleto Festival USA, and the American Repertory Theater.

KidsLab events are co-sponsored by WNAW (AM 1230)/WMNB (FM 100.1) in North Adams, WSBS (AM 860) in Great Barrington, and Berkshire Bank. General support for the 2000 season is provide in part by the Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Department of Economic Development/Office of Travel and Tourism.

Tickets are $12 for adults and $7 for kids. Tickets are available through the MASS MoCA Box Office at 87 Marshall St. in North Adams from 10 am until 4 pm, Tuesday through Sunday. Tickets can also be charged by phone by calling 413.662.2111 during box office hours or purchased on line at www.massmoca.org.

MASS MoCA, the largest center for contemporary visual and performing arts in the United States, is located at 87 Marshall Street in North Adams on a 13-acre campus of renovated 19th-century factory buildings. MASS MoCA focuses on the work of artists charting new territory; works that blur the lines between visual and performing arts; and works that have seldom, or never, been exhibited because of physical demands such as scale, materials, and fabrication methods.

For Immediate Release
Contact: Katherine Myers
(413) 664-4481 x8113
katherine@massmoca.org