​

Patricia O’Donovan is an independent artist, performer, scholar, researcher, teacher, and writer working at the intersection of visual theatre, the plastic arts, and science. Born in Argentina, she lives and works in Jerusalem, Israel.

​

She holds a PhD in Biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, is a graduate of the School of Visual Theatre in Jerusalem, and holds a Postgraduate Certificate in Theater Arts from the University of California, Santa Cruz. She has worked as a professional puppeteer for over forty years, performing in the theaters, national and international festivals of sixteen countries (France, Germany, Austria, Spain, Belgium, Luxemburg, Holland, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Switzerland, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, India and Israel) in five languages: Spanish, Hebrew, English, French, and German.

​

Following the success of Der Lichtstrahl, a puppet show about Louis Braille’s life and invention, at the Berlin Augenblick Mal! Festival in 1997, it performed  extensively in Germany and France where, under the title Louis l’Enfant de la Nuit, it was performed more than 3,000 times over the years.

For two decades, she created, wrote, and directed Science Theatre shows designed to communicate the science related to the exhibitions at the Bloomfield Science Museum in Jerusalem. Her vast and diverse body of work in puppet and visual theatre—as a creator, director, designer, playwright, performer, and teacher—includes two solo productions based on the writings of Heinrich von Kleist: "The Earthquake in Chile" (2016) and "On the Theater of the Marionettes" (2017). For over two decades, she has also taught puppet theatre and storytelling at leading academic and cultural institutions in Jerusalem. 

​

At present she  continues to write, teach and direct puppet theater and storytelling, as well as perform a work for   co-speech gestures, storytelling, and illuminated 2D papercuts, based on Franz Kafka’s “The Vulture ” (Der Geier)She is also developing a new performance based on a second text by Kafka and one by Jorge Luis Borges.