Larry Reed: A Life in Light and Shadow

Join us at the Roxie Theater for a special screening honoring the life and work of Larry Reed (1944–2026), master of Balinese shadow theater, theater and film director, and founder of ShadowLight Productions.

Drawn from a career spanning more than five decades, the works in this program offer just a glimpse of the breadth of Larry’s artistic life. His practice began with a deep immersion in Balinese wayang, which he studied for years before translating and performing traditional shadow plays for American audiences. Through ShadowLight Productions, he went on to develop cinematic shadow theater, bringing actors, puppets, projected imagery, music, and large-scale shadows together in a form for which the company became internationally renowned. Larry remained a deeply experimental artist throughout his life, continually pushing the possibilities of shadow theater and finding new ways for it to meet theater, film, and other visual forms. The three works presented here trace a small part of that trajectory, from his early years in Bali to one of his final experiments with the form.

Shadow Master
Filmed in Bali in 1979 by Larry Reed and the late San Francisco cinematographer and director John Knoop, Shadow Master is a dramatic documentary about the family of I Nyoman Rajeg, the dalang with whom Larry lived and studied for two years. Told from the perspective of Rajeg’s daughter Suartini and performed by members of the family, the film grew out of their lives and experiences during the filming process. Made before mass tourism transformed Bali, Shadow Master offers an intimate portrait of the family and community in which Larry immersed himself as a young artist and student of Balinese shadow theater.

Ghosts of the River
We will show excerpts from Ghosts of the River, ShadowLight’s 2009 cinematic shadow theater production created with acclaimed playwright Octavio Solis. Combining live actors, shadow puppetry, projected imagery, and music, the bilingual work tells stories of people whose lives have intersected with the Rio Grande across generations—from refugees of the Mexican Revolution and families making the dangerous border crossing to Border Patrol agents confronting questions of immigration and conscience. Directed by Larry Reed, with art direction by Favianna Rodriguez, music by Cascada de Flores, and shadow design by I Made Moja.

In His Own Words: An Invocation
Larry’s final film project, In His Own Words: An Invocation, was created by ShadowLight in 2024 and inspired by the early life of Marc Chagall and his surreal autobiography, Mein Leben. Working with Bay Area–based painter, video artist, and stage designer Naomie Kremer, who served as Art Director on the film, Larry created a world of puppets, shadows, layered imagery, and animation that brings Chagall’s words and recollections of his childhood to life. The film is narrated by Peter Coyote, with music and foley by San Francisco–based musician and composer Beth Custer. It reflects the experimental spirit that remained central to Larry’s practice, as he continued to push his own work and the possibilities of shadow theater in new directions.

We invite those who knew Larry and his work, as well as those encountering it for the first time, to join us in celebrating an artist whose imagination transformed the possibilities of shadow theater.

To see more of Larry Reed’s work and the work of ShadowLight Productions, please
visit shadowlight.org.

To support our legacy work, please donate to ShadowLight here.

Runtime: 1:29:30