So, much as I love my job, there are days when things go wrong. Today is one of those days. Now, I say this, knowing that in fact, the first part of the day went very well. I installed the heads and controls on four puppets and then, as a minor miracle, figured out how […]
I installed the moving mouth mechanisms in two of the puppets today. The female version works great and can be operated with one finger inside the head, but the male one is going to wind up needing to be attached to his rod. There’s something not quite right about that sentence… Today’s comments included, “I’m
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 »
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
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 »
Friday, October 16, 1998Day Eleven Today started at 6:30am. It’s our last day in Seattle so we had to pack our luggage into the van. Fortunately we both pack light. The show itself was in a small town outside of Seattle. We found it with no problems, but it was an old school so Joe
Life with a touring puppeteer: 1998, Day 11 Read More »
Thursday, October 15, 1998Day Ten Today began at 7:00am for me. Joe got up at 6:30 to handle his e-mail. You will all be happy to know that we found both of our schools without incident. The first school had a really lovely loadin. Notice the covered area next to the door. Unfortunately the students
Life with a touring puppeteer: 1998, Day 10 Read More »
Wednesday, October 14, 1998Day Nine Today we got to sleep in, til 7:30 am. Oooo. We’re staying with some friends of Joe’s (Shawna and Steven) that live in Seattle. In tour talk, this is a “home stay”. Tears of Joy gives us $40 in per diem for food and hotel, but we get to keep
Life with a touring puppeteer: 1998, Day 9 Read More »
This is what I have on my agenda for the weekend. Arabian Nights scenic design Repair Kids on the Block puppets Pack house Design two websites Clean for new housemate’s arrival
Sunday, October 11, 1998 Our day together started at 9:40am. Joe came to pick me up in the touring van and we drove to TOJ to do one last run-through of the “Brer Rabbit” part of the show. I was still shaky on some of the lines. Then it was off to Beaverton to set
Life with a touring puppeteer: 1998, Day 6 Read More »
Tuesday, October 6, 1998 We’ve now had day two of rehearsal. I say rehearsal loosely, because most of it was spent repairing puppets. In addition to Sungura’s ears, the other challenge we faced today was admitting that one of the puppets is missing. We’d hoped yesterday that it would show up, but no- the small
Life with a touring puppeteer: 1998, Day 2 Read More »
With the move and everything, I’m feeling a wee bit overwhelmed so I’m going to use the wayback machine to post my online journal from a tour in 1998. At the time, I was touring with Tears of Joy, the second largest puppet theater in the US. The tour was a short one, only two
Life with a touring puppeteer: 1998 Read More »
My company owns a set of Little Shop of Horrors puppets which we rent out to different venues. I just called my storage facility to arrange a visit to the plants so I could check for damage before sending them out on the next rental. They aren’t there. They were never returned. I’m trying to
Feed me. Feed me now. Read More »
Well, gentle readers. I’m cleaning house and have a whole passel of puppetry t-shirts ranging from new to very used, and they all have very cool illustrations. Rather than taking them to Goodwill, I thought I would see if any of my puppetry readers wanted them. I’d like to see them go to a good
Free Puppet T-shirts to good home Read More »