I had an interesting experience today. We ran into a problem with the girl monkeys because their heads were cast of a significantly heavier material than the rehearsal puppets. The workshop design required them to be light. What to do. After ages of trying different things and getting frustrated and thinking that we would have […]
Non-verbal thought Read More »
If you’re interested in the design process, I’d suggest clicking over to Miss Emily DeCola’s website where you can see the design process for the monkeys we are building. It’s interesting stuff and the monkeys are so cute it’s painful. I mean look at their little haircuts! They come like that naturally. How can you
Serendib Puppet Design Blog Read More »
For the workshop of Serendib, Emily made a series of prototype monkeys. This is the female model and is a beautifully simple design. The puppeteer slips her hand inside the torso of the monkey, and manipulates a small internal rod for the puppet. My job is to translate these structure prototypes into puppets that will
I will switch over to the pelvis until he gets back My second try at the crotch gave the bear the biggest package in the world. Let’s see if they have bigger balls. If we can’t find anything else, let’s get the Chinchilla chew toys for the monkey balls. Then you can put the kitty
More things said at work. Read More »
Emily gave me a shopping list this morning and sent me off into the world. The list is pretty straight forward, but I’m in NY were everything seems to be moving at a fast pace, but actually takes forever. I went to four different fabric stores to pick up silk for the monkeys’ skin. Most
Shopping for Monkey Balls Read More »
I’m looking at my suitcase and wondering what security will think of it. For the monkey build, I’m taking my DeWalt radial sander, belt sander, three boxes of industrial hot glue and two shafts of nylon for milling parts. My other checked bag contains 8 bottles of Frameworks Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and a roll
Andrew at PuppetVision found this wonderful 1920s newsreel about toy theater. Toy theater is one of my favorite forms and this newsreel is as informative today as it would have been eighty years ago.
Just to keep you up to date, here’s the website for, Serendib, the show I’ll be building monkeys for. The Ensemble Studio Theatre First Light Mainstage Production Power. Sex. Status. And that’s just the monkeys David Zellnik’s SERENDIB is a witty comedy about a group of scientists trying to save the world’s most important monkey
This morning Rob and I were standing in the kitchen. The classical radio station was playing the background as we waited for the opera to begin. As we were talking, I heard the announcer say, “And that was ‘The dance of the dolls’,” which immediately made my head turn to the radio, because dancing dolls
A musical convergence Read More »
I’ll be in Brooklyn building puppets for the fabulous Emily DeCola and a production of Serendib. I’ll be building monkeys from February 6th-February 22nd. Consider yourself forewarned.
Brooklyn and Puppets Read More »
This is the last of these re-run posts. The Rabbits, Carrots and Whales tour was very short, but I used to tour nine months out of the year. I don’t do that anymore. At least, not the same way, but it does seem like I’m gone an awful lot. Friday, October 22, 1998Day Sixteen This
Life with a touring puppeteer: 1998, Day 16 Read More »
Thursday, October 22, 1998Day Fifteen Ah- life on the road… Sungura broke again. But it was a new problem this time! How exciting. He has two joints in his neck. One at the base of the head and one at the base of the neck, where it joins his body. Up until now I’d been
Life with a touring puppeteer: 1998, Day 15 Read More »
Wednesday, October 21, 1998Day Fourteen Today we had a little bit of the excitement that makes live theater so fun. Sungura’s ear fell off while he was on stage. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this, but he never leaves the stage once the show starts. It was actually quite amusing. We-ha comes on stage and
Life with a touring puppeteer: 1998, Day 14 Read More »
I spotted this on BoingBoing. I’ve got a weakness for automaton and wind-up toys. I had read about this writing automaton so it’s fairly amazing to see it in action. In the eighteenth century, 200 years before little ASIMO started to walk or to climb stairs, the great Jaquet-Droz built an automaton which could scrawl
Fogonazos: The writing automaton Read More »
Tuesday, October 20, 1998Day Thirteen Sorry about the hiatus in updates, but I have the power cord for my computer again. A quick summary of Tuesday. I thought I had fixed Sungura and he was mostly better, but of course, broke again. I just don’t have the right tools on tour to fix him. But
Life with a touring puppeteer: 1998, Day 13 Read More »