“A crankie is basic in concept: it is a scroll that provides the visual narration to a story or song,” write the organizers of “Crankies Take New York!,” a weekend-long performance festival at Flushing Town Hall, New York, from Feb. 28 to March 2, 2025.
Generally, a crankie is a TV-like box with an illustrated scroll inside that unspools for viewers as the performer cranks the scroll from one side to the other. Nineteenth century versions were often called “moving panoramas.” These days the viewing box is often back-lit, and sometimes incorporates puppetry (especially shadow puppets). Crankie performances seem to have especially blossomed over the past decade or so, accompanied by an increasing number of crankie festivals from Baltimore to Seattle.
Co-curator Josh Kohn performed an imagined origin story of crankies. Co-curator and host Emily Schubert and Ian Mansfield of Vermont performed a crankie about Schubert’s great aunt’s study of U.F.O.s. Schubert also performed a blobfish puppet between acts, urging the audience to not give up hope.
The Lantern Sisters (Katherine Fahey and Dan Van Allen) from Baltimore performed a murder ballad about a woman drowned by her sister and then a fiddle was made from her bones. Phoebe Potts of Gloucester, Massachusetts, performed an excerpt from her one-woman show “Too Fat for China,” about adopting a boy from Ethiopia. The Boxcutter Collective from New York City performed pieces about a haunted lighthouse and activist witches.
Nasaria Suckoo Chollette, musically accompanied by Randy Chollette, told traditional “duppy” ghostly stories from her native Cayman Islands. The Binoculars (Chloë Swantner and Kaethe Hostetter) from Brooklyn that life’s various troubles—from bills to a cheating husband—are “not the end of the world.” The goth-folk duo Charming Disaster (Ellia Bisker and Jeff Morris) from Brooklyn accompanied some of the acts, and performed between them as they were setting up.
Previously:
• An Evening Of Crankies—‘The Original Moving Pictures’—With Katherine Fahey And Friends
• Vermont Crankie Fest Showcases Old Time, Handcrafted Moving Pictures
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