Maskmaker/Arts Educator, designing custom masks & programs - corporate, educational, & private events

Epic Fortnight, Bethesda Softworks, Boston Ballet, Boston Lyric Opera, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum

Award-winning mask maker Eric Bornstein of Behind The Mask Studio/Theatre specializes in custom made masks, corporate event planning, arts education, and mask theater programming. Eric has studied mask making with masters Agung Suardana in Bali, and Donato Sartori in Italy. He received his MLA in Fine Arts along with the Thomas Small prize from Harvard University. Behind The Mask was recently awarded the commission of 120 award statuettes for the prestigious Reggae Gold award event in Kingston, Jamaica. Previously, Eric was awarded a Fulbright award to revive and reinvigorate the art of giant puppet effigies in Jamaica 2017. He won the 2016 IRNE award for Best Puppetry Design for Company One's Shockheaded Peter, and was part of the Liars & Believers team that won the Excellence in Production Design award at the New York Musical Theatre Festival 2012 for his masks in Le Cabaret Grimm. Look for Eric's feature appearance in May 2019 on PBS hit show, Pinkalicious and Peteriffic and a residency at the First Church Boston on Masks and Spirituality.

Other recent clients include: Centerstage Theatre's Frank The Freak (Kingston, Jamaica),Fava Opera's Les Sortilege D'Enfants (Paris), Boston Ballet's Nutcracker, Boston Lyric Opera's Madama Butterfly, Peabody Museum at Harvard, Gamm Theatre's Morality Play, Liars & Believers' Talk to Strangers, The Walnut Hill School’s Nutcracker, Forestdance (Forestmasks: Facing Our Destiny -- Giant Branch Mask), the Outside the Box Festival (Cat Mountain), Slaughterhouse Society Revenge of The Robot Battle Nuns and Spider Cult: The Musical at Club Oberon, Boston Anime, corporate video game promotions for Bethesda Softworks video games: Dishonored (Versailles, France), Skyrim/Elder Scrolls at The Boston Park Plaza Castle, Wolfenstein, and The Evil Within, A Glimpse Beyond at Mt. Auburn Cemetery (Artistic Director/Mask Design), Puppet Showplace Theatre, the Cambridge River Festival (Giant Brother Blue Puppet & Butterflies of Love ), Babes in Boinkland's The Slutcracker; A Burlesque, Underground Railway Theater’s Life of Galileo, First Night Boston, and the Harvard Yiddish Players’ Shulamis.

He currently teaches classes in making and performing masks, and offers performances and residencies to schools throughout the state through Young Audiences of Massachusetts. Over the last 30 years Eric’s masked characters have been the subject of numerous media features. Local and national media have described Eric as “Boston’s preeminent mask maker”…”a man of many talents” and his masks as “phantasmagoric,” “magnificent,” “Stunning, finely crafted…first-rate,” “eerie/enchanting,” "masterful," "outstanding," and “gorgeous.”

For more information please visit www.behindthemask.org
 

Fulbright Scholar
IRNE Award Winner
New York Musical Theater Festival Best Production Design Award Winner (team)
Published Author
Featured artist on PBS
Featured artist at North East Comic Con