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Freggie News
INDIE TV FESTIVAL COULD TURN PUPPETEER'S DREAM INTO REALITY
Gregory Ciano's The Adventures of Dave and Augie to Compete in New York Television
Festival
Hightstown, NJ -- August 4, 2006 -- From the time he was a little boy doing
one-man puppet shows from behind the kitchen table for his mom while she did the
dishes, Gregory Ciano has been entertaining people with puppets. Now he has the
opportunity to share his puppetry talents with a much wider audience if his educational
pilot, The Adventures of Dave and Augie , wins the $10,000 prize or gets picked up
as a result of appearing at the New York Television Festival, an event for independent
television producers being held between September 12th and 17th in New York City.
The Festival's acceptance of the pilot, which stars two sock puppets, Dave and
Augie, and their friend, Hillary, who visit important historic monuments in the
U.S., elated Ciano: "This is the icing on the cake after receiving excellent reviews
for both 'Episode 2: The World of Ben Franklin' and 'Episode 3: Theodore Roosevelt'
at the Kids First! Festivals in the first and second quarters of this year." In
fact, both episodes met with great success. Commenting on the Theodore Roosevelt
episode, which visits the President's home at Sagamore Hill, adult jurors indicated
the video "was entertaining to most kids and parents as well" and that it had
"cool muppets," while the kid juror comments for the Ben Franklin episode, which
visits several monuments in Philadelphia, declared "[the] kids liked it, learned
a lot. They were glued to the TV the entire time and danced along to the song
at the end."
It was a long and challenging road for Ciano to get to this point. "When you're starting out with plenty of ideas but zero cash," he explained "it can be very frustrating." However, Gregory persevered, building his first puppets by himself and filming his first projects with his home camcorder and then with the equipment at a local cable station. Finally, he and his sister, Dawn, who has a Bachelor's and Master's degree in history, came up with the idea of creating an educational series on important U.S. monuments and figures for children grades K-4. The first episode on the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, which Gregory self-financed through his production company Freggie Entertainment was accepted into the catalogue of the nation's largest online educational media distributor, Library Video, making it possible to finance additional episodes and enter the series into film festivals.
The latest honor with the pilot's acceptance at the New York Film Festival comes as no surprise to Dawn. "My brother has always had a quirky sense of humor and has never lost the fun, childlike part of his personality and that definitely shows in the Dave and Augie series."
About Gregory Ciano Since he first began performing for friends and family
at the age of seven, Gregory Ciano has been passionate about puppetry. As a young
man, he performed live puppets shows on the boardwalks of the Jersey Shore and
puppet re-enactments of fairy-tales for birthdays parties. Greg was also the Producer
for several seasons of teen theater in Old Bridge and South Plainfield, New Jersey
as well as for several short films. His academic credentials include study at
the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and at Weist Baron in New York City.
Currently, Greg is the Executive Producer of his own production company, Freggie
Productions, which he founded in 1999 to provide educational videos for children.
Although children are the primary audience for the company's productions, its
videos appeal to the entire family with their fast-paced and sophisticated mix
of humor, information and music. All three episodes of Freggie Production's
The Adventures of Dave and Augie are available through its
website at www.DaveandAugie.com,
which also provides information, games, classroom activities and more. For more
information on Freggie Productions, please visit www.FreggieProductions.com.
(c) Copyright 2006 Freggie Productions. All Rights Reserved.
Freggie Productions, Tel. 732-801-8452 Fax. 609-371-0042