HI-YAH! Productions

HI-YAH! Productions is a puppet theatre company from New Orleans. The members of HI-YAH! (Arthur Mintz, Jacques Duffourc and Rene Duffourc) are designers, sculptors, painters and puppeteers.  However, each of the three members in HI-YAH! began their artistic careers as musicians.  Arthur was in the band World Leader Pretend, which was signed to Warner Brothers.  Jacques and Rene have an indie band called the Bally Who?  The specific type of chemistry and interplay of ideas, which is fundamental to making music, has become the foundation of HI-YAH!’s creative philosophy.

Fantastic Mr. Fox is HI-YAH!’s first production.  The show opened in the winter of 2010 and received both critical acclaim and popular success.  The show won the Ambie award for Best Theatre piece, the Big Easy Special Recognition award and was named the top art event in New Orleans by the Times Picayune. Due to popular demand, the show was extended 4 times.

The show was conceived and designed while Arthur was stuck in a van on tour with his musician wife, Theresa Andersson.  However, after filling multiple notebooks with sketches and ideas, Arthur dismissed the immersive-theatre concept as being completely impractical.  Upon returning to New Orleans, Arthur was invited to Jacques and Rene’s art studio.  After being inspired both by a gorgeous miniature cardboard house (which Jacques and Rene had built) and the Duffourc Brothers incredibly optimistic attitude towards everything, Arthur presented his designs and concept for Fox to the guys.  Within a month the three formed a company and began working on the immersive adaptation of Roald Dahl’s story.

The sculptural technique used in the production, is a technique Jacques learned from Mardi Gras sculptor Joe Barth. The original production took 1 ½ years to construct, and utilized hundreds, if not thousands, of cardboard boxes.