The Café Royal Cultural Foundation NYC has awarded a 2026 Spring Performance Grant to Robin Frohardt for her performance titled "Shopping Center of the Universe"  

Shopping Center of the Universe is a live performance that blends puppetry, film, prose, and music to explore how the architecture of consumer culture shapes our sense of self and our relationship to nature.  Onstage, intricately hand-built puppets and cardboard sets are animated live by performers in front of multiple cameras. The live feed is projected above them alongside narration and musical score, allowing the audience to experience both the raw mechanics and their cinematic expression simultaneously. Inspired by a real Home Depot parking lot that I have been living across the street from for 18 years, Shopping Center of the Universe asks if we think of a parking lot as a naturally occurring phenomenon, does that make us feel more like natural creatures?  How do we reconcile the predicament of being born a soul in a body, raised in a Walmart?

Known for her rich aesthetic and highly detailed constructions, Robin Frohardt is an award-winning theater and film director. Her narrative-based film, puppetry, and sculpture use recognizable materials, often trash, to create richly detailed worlds that make magic of the mundane and highlight the trivialities of modern life. Rather than creating straightforward plays or films, she fuses mediums and spends years meticulously hand-making characters, sets, and environments. Her work addresses themes of consumerism and environmental catastrophe through a darkly humorous lens.

Her theatrical work has earned her a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Creative Capital Award, and multiple Jim Henson Foundation Grants. Her play THE PIGEONING, hailed by the New York Times as “a tender, fantastical symphony of the imagination,” debuted in 2013 and continues to tour at home and abroad. Her follow-up project THE PLASTIC BAG STORE premiered in Times Square in 2020 and has since toured to Los Angeles, Chicago, Adelaide, and Austin. The 6-month-long run at Mass MoCA was cited as one of the top 50 art installations in the world by Hyperallergic.