Tony Montanaro: A Love Story performed by Karen Montanaro with Jack Golden

**Eggtooth Productions presents Karen Montanaro’s one-woman, multi-media show, Tony Montanaro: A Love Story, a comical, profound, intimate, and breathtaking account of the personal and professional relationship between Tony and Karen Montanaro.**

*Tony Montanaro: A Love Story* is based upon the creative relationship Karen had with her husband Tony, perhaps the most famous American Mime performer in our history. When Tony and Karen met in 1987, Tony was a world-renowned mime artist and Karen was a professional ballet dancer. Tony was 60 years old and freshly divorced. Karen was 27 years old and the only “relationship” she had ever had was with ballet. Tony was ready to leave his former life, buy an Airstream and hit the road. Karen was at a dead end, suffering from anxiety attacks and a life-threatening malaise. Thus began a relationship that Karen credits with saving her life; imparting grand lessons in vulnerability, artistry, playfulness and more playfulness.

Karen, a world-renowned dancer and mime artist, an award-winning choreographer, and innovator of ‘mimedance,’ said, “Tony’s original vision in 1972 was to build an international school and theater of mime, but pretty soon the word got out that this former horse farm, on the end of a dirt road, in the middle of nowhere (Paris, Maine) was something else altogether. As Jack Golden and I and many other students-of-Tony’s discovered, ‘The Barn’ was a kind of incubator where we broke out of ‘shells’ we hadn't known we were in . . . lots to say on that subject . . .”  

 David Bruin, executive artistic director of Celebration Barn, which commissioned and produced the piece said, “Tony Montanaro: A Love Story delivers on the promise of its subtitle. As Karen tells it in this intimate and heartfelt show, it all began when a beautiful ballerina caught the eye of a world-weary mime, and from that fairy tale beginning, a decades-long partnership in life and art was born. But there is, of course, more to the story, a story that Karen brings to life with her unique mix of mime, dance, and storytelling. In a world where our deepest affections are leveraged for user data, Karen's show is a moving testament to the power of love—and art—to change our lives and shape our destiny.” 

 Opening for Montanaro will be long-time friend and collaborator, Jack Golden from Leyden, MA. Jack Golden has spent fifty years travelling the country as a performing artist. He earned his clown shoes at San Francisco’s renowned Pickle Family Circus (where Bill Irwin got his start), then studied mime, movement and improvisation with Master Physical Theater Artist Tony Montanaro.  He was part of the New Vaudeville troupe The Wright Brothers, and then became a solo performer travelling to schools throughout the US, delighting children and delivering an environmental message.