Agostino Arts is a theatre and event company, presenting a range of performances for children, adults and family audiences. Our Transformations company of artists presents exceptionally creative face and body painting for public, private and corporate events. Agostino Arts, LLC. is a partnership under the direction of Lorraine Zeller-Agostino and Christopher Agostino.
Lorraine Zeller-Agostino has been performing, directing and teaching children’s theatre for over 40 years, directing more than 150 student productions and touching the lives of thousands of kids and their families. She was a founding director of Touchstone, a theatre company based in Bethlehem, PA, with which she toured across the US, Mexico and Great Britain, winning the coveted “Fringe First Award” for innovative theatre at the Edinburgh Festival. In New York, she worked and taught with The American Mime Theatre under the direction of Paul Curtis. For twenty years Lorraine has directed the summer theatre workshop program for the Town of Islip on Long Island. In addition to her face painting and performances for schools and family audiences, Lorraine presents theatre workshops for schools, including programs to create original student productions.
Christopher Agostino is a visual and performing artist. He tells stories through painted faces in his signature StoryFaces performances. He and/or his work have appeared in the film CircusPerson, on the NBC Today Show, the CBS Early Show and the cover of Abercrombie & Fitch Quarterly, at makeup shows for Kryolan Professional Makeup, and for the opening of the 2013 National Storytelling Conference. His 45 years on stage began as a teenage apprentice to a professional theatre company, performing Shakespeare in parks and arts-in-education programs in schools. His teachers include physical theatre luminaries such as John Towsen and Sigfrido Aguilar, and his acquired skills include physical comedy, clowning, creating original theatre and storytelling. His professional art career began as a graphic artist, working with his father in Ambassador Arts silk screen studio. In addition to his face and body painting, he creates masks, props, paintings and hand-painted costumes for our shows, makes ceramic sculptures and pottery (taught by John Fink), and enjoys gardening. Learn more about Christopher’s Transformations, his book, and his unique stage presentation Talking Art — origins, inspirations and appropriations. Find him on Instagram at christopheragostino and twitter @storyfaces
2022— StoryFaces was presented as a special event in three performances at the 50th annual National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN
“I believe that more important than the design you get painted with is the experience of being painted, the experience of seeing a new identity when you look in the mirror, and how that identity is perceived when others look at you. A facepainter, by changing how the world perceives the person they have painted, alters that person’s perception of the world and of themselves.”
Transformations Facepainting
“Transformations” is our term for the makeup style developed by Christopher Agostino when he began face painting in 1976. His training as an acting student in the use of theatrical makeup to change a performer’s identity led to research into the way masks and body art are used in world theatre and traditional cultures. His background in graphic arts led to a bold sense of design. Together these techniques and influences became the dynamic, mask-like style we call Transformations.
To expand the Transformations effect beyond individual faces to entire events, Christopher formed a distinctive company of Transformation Artists, comprised of professional artists in the visual and performing arts who joined us and made their own contributions to the company style. In 1993 our company began a long association with the world-famous Bronx Zoo, where we painted tens of thousands of visitors at the zoo, setting a standard for high quality face painting in the New York entertainment industry and changing the public perception of just what a painted face can be. Learn more about our Transformations artists , see the Faces and fine art Bodypainting.
Transformations is a modern expression of a profound and ancient art — the universal act of taking control of our identity through masks and body art as seen in world cultures. We present our face painting as an interactive performance art for public events and private parties, turning the people we paint into living art and giving them the experience, for a day, of being transformed.
Agostino Arts Theatre
Agostino Arts presents exciting, innovative performances and entertainment for schools, libraries, theatres, festivals and events. We are based in the New York City area and perform primarily throughout the Tri-State region for children, adults and family audiences. The Bodacious Book Show, “the perfect show for PARP and Reading Programs”, is our most popular arts-in-education program and has appeared in hundreds of schools since it was created 30 years ago with a New York State grant. Christopher Agostino’s StoryFaces and Talking Art programs are truly innovative performances combining storytelling with painted faces, bringing cultural traditions from across time and around the world into a modern context through this fusion of spoken word and visual art.
Agostino Arts also designs original theatrical presentations for special events, including Bodies Alive!, a celebration of bodypainting in performance, for the 2008 Face and Body Art International Convention.
