Torry Bend

Torry Bend is a Set designer, Puppet artist and Associate Professor at Duke University.  Bend’s set design includes: Animal Dance, The Children's Theatre Company, Are They Edible, La Mama, Incubator Arts Project and Dixon’s Place, New York; Circle Course, Katmandu; Pygmalion, Southwest Shakespeare Co.; Stephen Wadsworth's Agamemnon, Getty Villa; References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, Empty Space Theatre Seattle.  In Portland, OR: Omnium Gatherum, The Bald Soprano/The Lesson and Brilliant Traces, for which she received a Drammy and A Tuna Christmas with Oregon Repertory Theater.  She created and directed the toy theater piece The Paper Hat Game, 3Legged-Dog Art and Technology Center, New York, Manbites Dog Theater, Durham, NC, The Great Small Works Toy Theater Festival, Brooklyn, NY, The Den theater, Chicago, IL and Open Eye Figure Theater, Minneapolis, MN; Nesting: Great Small Works International Toy Theater Festival, NY, The Port City Puppetry Festival, NC, Douglas Paasch Puppet Festival ’13, Seattle and Open Eye Figure Theater, Minneapolis, MN.  The Elephant, premiered at Disney Music Hall’s International Toy Theater Festival 2008 and performed with Jumbo Shrimp Circus, Los Angeles.   She created and directed Loser in 2007, Prague, New York, Minneapolis and Los Angeles.  Love’s Infrastructure, a collaboration with band Bombadil, premiered with Duke Performances in 2014.  Bend has received funding from the Jerome Foundation, Henson Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, the Durham Arts Council, and the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation.