Jay Shah
DevOps\Aerospace Engineer & Journalist
“ How do you say “I love you” when the words never come??“
Jaysuits, some stories are told through grand soliloquies. Others unfold in the quiet space between gestures. And then there’s this production, where love lingers in the quiet space between gestures, loss is framed through the unblinking eye of a camera, and longing unfolds in the delicate movements of a puppet’s hand.
After a strangely warm January, February has arrived with a sharp, icy chill; just in time to set the perfect backdrop for a journey into the frozen North. If you’ve been following along, my last adventure at Gateway Theatre took us through the streets of Dickensian London with Oliver!, and my most recent deep dive into Vancouver’s art scene was the PuSh Festival; a whirlwind of experimental storytelling that still lingers in my mind. But now, we’ll be pivoting to something entirely new.
Making its way to Gateway Theatre this February, this Little Onion Puppet Co. production is anything but conventional.
“Otosan“
Created by Shizuka Kai, Randi Edmundson, and Jess Amy Shead, it’s a heart wrenching, visually immersive tale of a father and daughter struggling to connect; blending intricate tabletop puppetry, real wildlife projections, and a hypnotic original score into a wordless symphony of emotion. Inspired by Kai’s own experiences growing up with a father whose love was expressed in gestures rather than words, they invite us into a world where silence speaks volumes. But before we get too carried away, let’s break this down.…
What exactly is Otosan?
Let’s step inside the world of puppetry and find out….
🧳 A Suitcase, a Camera, and a Silent Journey🐺
Inside Gateway Theatre’s Studio B, you’ll find yourself transported; not to a grand, bustling city or a fantasy realm, but somewhere even more breathtaking: the icy, untamed wilderness of the North.
The journey begins with a suitcase. Shizu, a young girl, sneaks inside her father’s luggage, stowing away on what she thinks will be a simple trip. But instead of bustling airports or crowded streets, she wakes up in the vast Arctic, where the air is sharp, the snow stretches for miles, and the only sounds are the howls of distant wolves.
Her father, a rugged, no-nonsense wildlife videographer is not used to company. His world is one of patience and solitude, waiting for the perfect moment to capture a snowy owl’s silent flight or a grizzly bear’s slow, deliberate steps. He understands the language of the wild but struggles with the one person who needs him most. Shizu’s presence is unexpected. Unwanted. A disruption.
But as the days pass, the wilderness forces them into something more than just survival, it forces them to confront each other. So before we unpack this production, let’s ask ourselves:
🐺 Will they learn to work together, or will their silence push them further apart?
❄️ How do you build a connection when words have never been your strong suit?
📸 And what happens when a camera lens captures more than just the world outside, but the emotions left unspoken?
Without a single spoken word, Otosan weaves an achingly beautiful, deeply human tale of love, distance, and the ways we express ourselves when language fails us.
🎭Tabletop Puppetry: Bringing Shizu, Otosan, and the Wild to Life🎭
let’s talk about magic, no no, not the kind with wands and spells, but the kind that makes felt, wood, and fabric breathe. The kind that blurs the line between the imaginary and the real, pulling us into a world where emotions are stitched into movement.
Every element, from the meticulously crafted puppets to the live projections of Arctic wildlife, is designed to transport you into Shizu and her father’s world.
Unlike traditional puppetry, where strings or hidden hands do the work, Otosan uses tabletop puppetry; an intricate, hands on style where the performers are in full view, manipulating the puppets with delicate precision.
This allows for control in a way real life doesn’t. It lets artists slow time down and tell stories through movement rather than speech.
Shizu:
Our curious protagonist; a living, breathing child. The way her shoulders slump when she feels ignored, the way she hesitates before reaching out to her father; it’s all there in the subtlest of movements.
Otosan:
The father, carries the weight of someone who has spent years in silence. His puppet moves with a stiffness that softens, ever so slightly, as the story unfolds.
The animals:
And then, there are Snowy owls, white wolves, and grizzly bears, each crafted with incredible detail, moving in ways that feel both theatrical and completely lifelike. Created by Stephanie Elgersma, who designed all of the animal puppets that I mentioned, particularly the owl; which has a complex flying mechanism built in so it can flap and tuck its wings away.
Photos by Erin Palm
🎭When Puppets Speak Louder Than Words🐻
But Otosan goes even further, embedding real-life innovation into its very design. The puppets themselves have gone through an evolution, mirroring the way memory is constantly being reshaped.
Originally, the cartoonish, needle-felted puppets were made mostly of wood and clay, a traditional approach that gave them a tactile, handcrafted feel. But this time around, they’ve been scaled up in size and made more durable, with new 3D-printed elements replacing delicate areas like hands, which tend to break easily from repeated movement.
That change wasn’t just a creative choice—it was a necessity.One week before a show, disaster struck. One of the puppets’ legs broke unexpectedly.
“We were like, ‘What are we going to do? This is going to take us a long time to fix, because we’d have to rebuild that out of wood and we don’t have time for that,’” Kai recalls.
Thankfully, the team turned to technology, 3D-printing an exact replica of the damaged piece and swapping out both legs to maintain balance. “We were laughing, because they’re slowly turning into a little cyborg,” Kai jokes.
But with this unexpected upgrade came a learning curve. The balance, the weight, the way the puppet moved—it had all changed.
“How I puppeteer him changes, because before I had more weight on his legs, so if I was to use the mechanism and swing him, he kind of walked pretty easily. But now I have to give him a little bit more,” she explains.
These tiny adjustments, this constant process of learning and relearning, mirrors the very heart of this story.
Furthermore, the performers are always visible. This means we, as the audience, see both the artist and the creation, both the person and the story. And that’s exactly how memory works; we see our past play out, but we also see the version of ourselves watching it unfold.
Most importantly, puppets don’t talk. And neither did Shizuka’s father; well not in the traditional sense anyway. Instead, his love is in the act of looking, capturing, framing. In the quiet ways he witnessed and preserved the world around him. Kai takes that same patience, that same lens of observation, and turns it inward. She recreates a world where love exists not in the words we say, but in the care we take to see one another clearly.
The result?
Something that feels eerily real.
And as Shizu watches her father film them, we will see something extraordinary happen.…
📸A Story Told Through a Camera Lens📸
One of the more innovative elements is its use of real-life footage. When Otosan raises his camera to capture an animal, we will see the actual footage, filmed by co-creator Shizuka Kai’s father; a real wildlife videographer, the same man who inspired this story, projected onto the backdrop.
It’s a simple but breathtaking effect, one that blends reality with the theatrical world in a way that feels deeply personal. A love letter written in shadows and light. The father on stage and the real father behind the camera become one, and suddenly, we’re watching a memory unfold.
🎶 A Soundscape That Breathes 🎶
With no dialogue,this production relies on its haunting original score and immersive sound design to fill the space where words might have been.
❄️ The soft crunch of snow beneath Shizu’s feet
🐺 The distant howls of wolves on the wind
🌲 The gentle rustling of Arctic winds through the trees
Emotional cues, guiding us through moments of isolation, and warmth. And when silence takes over? It’s not empty but alive with meaning.
And in that silence, love takes shape.
🎥Through a Father’s Lens: The Creative Vision of Shizuka Kai, Randi Edmundson,Jess Amy Shead & The Little Onion Puppet Co. 🎭
Let’s step behind the scenes, and into the minds of the artists who built this world.
Shizuka Kai,Randi Edmundson and Jess Amy Shead have been workshopping the show for five years.
“Shizuka Kai“
Kai’s a visionary storyteller whose work straddles the delicate line between memory and imagination. A three-time Jessie Richardson Award winner, she holds multiple nominations and an Ovation award win! With a focus on puppetry and set design, a trained puppeteer on tv/film, an illustrator/graphic designer, director, and jewelry maker, she’s worked with many theatre companies including the oh so familiar Arts Club, Neworld, Théâtre la Seizième, Carousel Theatre for Young People, Electric Company, Rumble, Green Thumb, Boca del Lupo, Theatre Newfoundland Labrador, and others.
Instagram: @shizmasta
It’s a deeply personal creative endeavor for her. Because before Otosan was a play, it was a feeling. A childhood spent watching, waiting, and learning to understand love in a language beyond words. When she was young, her father wasn’t the kind of dad who showered her with hugs or spoke in long, affectionate sentences.
He, as I mentioned earlier was a wildlife videographer, a man who spent his days capturing the raw beauty of nature through a camera lens, filming grizzly bears before he filmed birthday parties, tracking movements of white wolves more easily than the emotions of his own daughter.
His world was patient, quiet, observational.
And that was how he showed love; not through words, but through presence. Through careful, deliberate attention.
For a child, though? That wasn’t always easy to understand.
So she watched him. The way he carried his camera. The way his body tensed when he was on the verge of capturing something spectacular. The way he saw the world, and yet, sometimes, didn’t see her.
And in that tension of distance and connection, Otosan was born.
While this work is deeply rooted in Kai’s personal story, it wouldn’t be what it is without the vision, artistry, and boundless curiosity of
Randi Edmundson
Website: https://littleonionpuppetco.weebly.com/
A true Vancouverite multi-hyphenate, Randi moves through the world of theatre as a producer, director, performer, and designer, but her greatest passion? Puppetry. Whether it’s sculpting the smallest details into a character’s face or studying age old puppetry traditions from across the world, she’s driven by an insatiable curiosity that has taken her from Canada’s theatre circuits to the rich storytelling landscapes of Indonesia, where she recently conducted research with Papermoon Puppet Theatre.
Furthermore,she’s trained with some of the most innovative puppetry artists and companies in the world, including Puppet Animation Scotland, Mind of a Snail, Lost and Found Puppet Co and more; allowing her to craft performances that transcend language, a skill that makes her a perfect fit.
As the Artistic Producer of Little Onion Puppet Co. Randi has helped carve out a space where puppetry is an interactive experience that invites audiences to engage in the creative process.
🔹 Founded in 2016, Little Onion Puppet Co. is dedicated to crafting high-quality puppet theatre that resonates with peeps of all ages.
🔹 Their debut show, Freddie in the Neighbourhood, was a collaborative project with Grade 3 students in Vancouver, reinforcing the company’s mission of making puppetry a deeply participatory and accessible art form.
🔹 The production was nominated for five Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards, winning for Outstanding Performance and Overall Production in Theatre for Young Audiences.
🔹 Since then, Little Onion Puppet Co. has toured Western Canada, bringing handcrafted, deeply immersive storytelling to new audiences, including performances at Victoria’s Puppets for Peace Festival and the Vancouver International Puppet Fest.
If Randi’s approach to puppetry is rooted in curiosity and exploration,
Jess Amy Shead
brings an equally vital force to the production; an artist’s eye for emotion and more importantly…
Accessibility
Jess immigrated to Canada from South Africa when she was just two years old, growing up in a world where she was constantly learning how to bridge cultures and ways of being. That ability to navigate multiple worlds (built just like me fr), to tell stories that exist between spaces, has shaped her artistic path. A performer, creator, producer, and arts administrator, Jess has built a career spanning sitespecific micro-performances, puppetry, Theatre for Young Audiences, physical theatre, and musical theatre. Her work has graced the stages of The Globe Theatre, Pacific Theatre, The Belfry, Chemainus Theatre, and Theatre SKAM, among others. Most recently, she created The Somewhere Cedar, a deeply personal work co-presented at the rEvolver Festival by Upintheair Theatre and The Only Animal.
But it’s her work in puppetry that has been particularly transformative. She first collaborated with Little Onion Puppet Co. as a creative force behind Freddie in the Neighbourhood, which won two Jessie Richardson Theatre Awards for Outstanding Performance and Outstanding Production in the Theatre for Young Audiences category. Now, with Otosan, she steps into a new realm of puppetry storytelling, bringing her expertise in physical theatre and visual storytelling to the production. She understands the nuanced way puppets move, the emotional weight a simple gesture can carry, and the power of silence in theatrical spaces.
Yet, beyond her artistic talents, she is also a fierce advocate for accessibility in theatre. While working as Artist Services Coordinator at the Vancouver Fringe Festival (click the link to know more about what Fringing is Jaysuits) from 2014 to 2018, she became deeply passionate about Deaf theatre; not just theatre that accommodates deaf audiences, but theatre that is created by Deaf artists, with deaf decision makers at every level of production. That experience led her to study ASL, committing herself to becoming a better ally and ensuring that the work she creates is inherently inclusive.
Her involvement this production reflects that dedication; where storytelling isn’t bound by language but instead thrives in the space beyond words. Seeing puppetry as a growing medium, one that allows for more voices, more perspectives, more experimentation. And Otosan, with its visual language, intricate craftsmanship, and emotional depth, is a testament to that belief.
🌿 A Show That Welcomes Everyone: Accessibility & ASL Integration at Otosan 🤟
Some shows Jaysuits claim to be “inclusive,” and here it is anything but an afterthought. An essential part of the storytelling itself; from its silent narrative to its carefully crafted design choices, this production ensures that all of us, regardless of hearing ability or sensory needs, can step into its world.
Here’s how:
Designed with Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing Audiences in Mind
Created with the support of Deaf Consultants Caroline Hébert and Ladan Sahraei to ensure inclusion of people who are Deaf or hard of hearing. To further enhance accessibility, American Sign Language interpretation of the pre-show speech will be available at all performances.
🔹 ASL-Interpreted Talkback — For those who want to engage even further, the performance on Saturday, February 22 at 10:00 AM includes an ASL-interpreted post-show discussion, allowing us Vancouverites to dive deeper into the themes and creative process.
🎭 Relaxed Performance: Making Theatre More Comfortable for All 🛋️
For Vancouverites who prefer a more flexible, sensory-friendly environment, Otosan will have a Relaxed Performance on Saturday, February 22 at 1:00 PM.
What does that mean?
It means theatre without pressure
✅ House lights will remain at half-brightness (no sudden blackouts).
✅ Sound and lighting effects will be softened (less intensity, more comfort).
✅ Audience members can move around, make noise, and engage as needed (without fear of judgment.)
✅ A Chill-Out Zone will be available in the lobby for anyone needing a break.
Because storytelling should be for everyone.
🎟️Join the Journey!🎟️
Will you step into this world? Will you let the silent movements of puppets tell you a story you won’t forget?
Now’s your chance!
For one extraordinary week, Otosan will unfold within the intimate setting of Gateway Theatre’s Studio B,
📍 Venue:
Gateway Theatre, Studio B
📍 6500 Gilbert Road, Richmond, BC
📅 Show Dates & Times:
🗓️ Monday, February 17 – 10:00 AM (Family Day Performance)
🗓️ Wednesday, February 19 – 10:00 AM & 1:00 PM (School Matinees)
🗓️ Thursday, February 20 – 10:00 AM & 1:00 PM (School Matinees)
🗓️ Friday, February 21 – 10:00 AM & 1:00 PM (School Matinees)
🗓️ Saturday, February 22 – 10:00 AM (Talkback + ASL Interpretation)
🗓️ Saturday, February 22 – 1:00 PM (Relaxed Performance)
🎫 Ticket Prices:
💰 General Admission: $23
💰 Youth (Ages 4-18): $13
📞 Box Office: 604-270-1812
🎟️ Tickets & Info: Gateway Theatre Website
✨ Special Performances & Accessibility Features:
🗣️ February 22, 10:00 AM – ASL-Interpreted Talkback: A post-show discussion with the creators, featuring American Sign Language interpretation to ensure an inclusive experience.
🛋️ February 22, 1:00 PM – Relaxed Performance: A sensory-friendly show with dimmed lighting, adjusted sound levels, and relaxed audience expectations. Perfect for neurodivergent audiences, first-time theatregoers, and families looking for a more flexible experience.
🔥 Let’s make it a moment, Jaysuits! Wrap up warm, and I’ll see you at Gateway Theatre; front row for the journey into the Arctic. ❄️
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A Little Onion Puppet Company Production