Creepy

I repeat: CREEPY.

A Smattering

 Is this a puppet?  (Assuming the captives are the ones responsible for moving the appendages.)

 I always admired these when I was a kid...

 ...they are really, really difficult.

Simulacra!

Kim W. on Object Theatre

This kind of thing is seen more often in Europe right now, but there's a subset of puppetry which turns various found objects into puppets. Aficionados and practitioners call this "Object Theatre" most often, but it's also been called "object puppetry".  We all sometimes do this kind of puppetry on a small scale: when trying to describe a complicated event to a friend, we spontaneously may have reached for a couple of random things on the table to help illustrate our point: "okay, let's say this salt shaker is me, and the ketchup is the car I saw -- and the pepper mill is the bike.  So if I was standing HERE, then the bike swerved out of the way of the car like THIS, and then..."

I found a blog maintained by one Richard Allen, who's pursuing a PhD in this very discipline; or, in his words, "on the practice and research of objects in performance."  He's got an exhaustive, if somewhat opinionated, definition of "object theater" on his blog:

"Object Theatre is a term that has been ghettoised as a sub-category of puppetry, often used to describe a performance style that contains the animation of tilitarian, or pre-existing 'found' objects rather than those constructed for theatrical effect (such as the puppet). As a result, practitioners of 'object theatre' commonly share what I consider to be the key principle of puppetry: the transformation of an object into a subjectified character (a box of spoons becomes a village, a sieve the head of a girl). Puppeteers often claim that it is precisely the puppet/object's lack of a programme of acting or conscious ego (it's very object-ness) that makes it such a potent tool for the theatre, yet paradoxically, the process of puppetry often imposes it's own programme of acting propelled by the will of the performer. The objects are rarely allowed to act for themselves; the subject is forcibly imposed onto them, as they become a medium for the performers and audiences subjectifcation. The object adopts the role that character performs conventionally  for the actor.  I would argue that this ghettoisation misrepresents what thinking through a theatre of 'objects' might mean."

http://richobject.wordpress.com/

There are a handful of people here in the U.S. who work with Object Theater; one company, LorenKahn, is based in New Mexico, and is a two-woman company, offering shows incorporating not just traditional puppets, but feathers, life rafts, glasses of water, and themselves.  LorenKahn's site has a collection of videos of some of their works:

http://www.lorenkahnpuppet.com/

Closer to home, New York is home to Tiny Ninja Theater, a company born when founder Dov Weinstein -- who's studied puppetry -- became fascinated with little ninja toys that started turning up in vending machines in New York in 1999.  Something prompted him to get a bunch and use them to perform a rendition of Shakespeare's MACBETH; that debuted at the Fringe Festival in 2000.  Tiny Ninja has since gone on to do adaptations of ROMEO AND JULIET as well as three original works, all
using tiny dime-store plastic toys as puppets.

http://www.tinyninjatheater.com/company/

Here is a beautiful video that reminded me of some things we talked about last weekend:

Hammock - Breathturn from David Altobelli on Vimeo.

In Which Kim W. Has An Epiphany

I was contemplating the response viewers had to Cookie Monster's puppeteers being visible at show's end; most viewers said that they honestly hadn't noticed the puppeteers, because they were too busy looking at Cookie Monster. Could it be, I wondered, that we've somehow internalized the idea that you're "not supposed to see them" that even when you do see puppeteers, you don't "see" them? This is how it's done with Japanese bunraku, after all -- the puppeteers manipulate the puppets in full view of the audience, but they dress in black so they sort of "fade into the background." Originally, bunraku used this technique because the low lighting in most performance spaces really did let a dark-dressed puppeteer fade into the background; and audiences just were used to the convention even as lighting improved.

But then I realized that it is very likely that a blue furry monster is simply just more attention-getting than a human. Any puppet is probably going to be more attention-getting than an actual human, even the very realistic ones -- because with a realistic puppet, audiences would be watching to see just how "lifelike" it is. So audiences may have simply tuned out the puppeteers because of "ooh, it's Cookie Monster, that's different!"

Anyway. Speaking of bunraku, here's another clip -- this made the rounds of youtube a few years back, where a team uses puppetry techniques not just on puppets, but on people, to do a sort of Matrix "bullet-time" sketch about a ping pong game.

Kim W. on Puppet Current Events 2

I'm finding that puppets are turning up in some arguably unusual places lately.  Cookie Monster showing up suddenly on SNL last weekend was just one example.  But I've found some others:

• Triumph the Insult Comic Dog is old hat by now, but probably raised a couple eyebrows when he first debuted in 1997.  He's arguably enough of a hit that NBC made sure he was one of the "intellectual property" items that Conan O'Brien couldn't take with him when he left the TONIGHT show.
• The Sci-Fi show "Farscape" was an Australian/American show that ran in the early 2000's.  The Henson company was associated with some of the special effects -- and two of the regular characters, "Rygel" and "Pilot," were Henson-company designed puppets.
• Craig Ferguson's LATE SHOW has been traditionally doing very, very silly things with the show's opening; before they run the opening credits, they usually have a musical production number, featuring Craig Ferguson and his cast either singing or lip-syncing and dancing to a particular song.  Sometimes the song has something to do with the show (they wrote lyrics for the DOCTOR WHO theme song when the show's star, Matt Smith, was on recently), and sometimes, it...doesn't.  And just to cap off the silliness, these segments are often introduced by a bunny puppet, named "Sid", and sometimes they feature shark or camel puppets to join in the action.

My own favorite clips are below: Craig and his cast -- including three puppets wearing fezes -- lip-synching to They Might Be Giants' cover of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)"...

...and Sid the Bunny introducing Adam Savage and Jaime Hyneman when they joined in on a rendition of Modern English's song "Melt With You".

Kim W. on Puppet Current Events

Don't know if anyone noticed, but a Muppet made it back on Saturday Night Live again this past weekend.  The host for the night of December 18th was Jeff Bridges -- and in his opening monologue, he brought out...Cookie Monster.  There was some flannel about how Cookie Monster had "always wanted to host the show," and he and Jeff Bridges sang an alternative version of the song "Silver Bells."


Today's NEW YORK TIMES arts blog pointed out something else interesting about the event, though.  At the show's end, when the cast was assembled onstage for their final bows and goodnights, they also brought out Cookie Monster -- and the two puppeteers who were working him, who were letting themselves "be visible."  The TIMES blog made a big deal of that -- they hadn't ever remembered a Henson puppeteer let themselves be SEEN working a puppet.  However, most of the readers comments on the blog all said the same thing -- "...honestly, I didn't really notice the puppeteers, I was just looking at Cookie Monster."


[EDITOR'S NOTE:  Most people are calling this a random sort of appearance, but in point of fact the Sesame Street folk created a parody "petition" video a few weeks back - a la Betty White - for C.M. to host SNL.  I suppose this was the closest he was allowed to get.]

A R C

I have a problem with letting people learn. I feel I run things best by myself. On the show I did most of the puppeteering and voices. It's just easier that way. It takes too much time to sit somebody down and go through the steps. And they'd probably do it wrong anyway. Soooooo.

Here come these 2 girls that are bothersome to the point of me actually getting off my keister and helping them with some crap they were harping about. We've gotten to a point where I am actually incapable of manipulating the puppets. Physically immobile. I have to step by step get these girls to do my work with the puppets. It goes horribly wrong at first but I find they're actually better than I first thought. In fact they're great.

Now I'm mobile again. We come to another "test". This time it's 3 puppeteers versus the world.


Also I think it'd be cool if I show off some of my old characters to the girls and it turns out all my voices just end up being my same yonko voice. The girls shyly have to tell me that my characters all sound the same. I get mad but end up realizing they are right and have to invent new voices. OHHHhhhh the layers of interpretation!

Character Arc: Elizabeth

I start off a little too brash, loud, and fast for my own good. I am a young woman who is so "inter-connected" that I don't know how to actually connect or relate to people on a 'human' level. However, that is all I want. The whole reason why I am as "inter-connected" as I am is that it is a safe way connect, while still protecting my heart. It allows be to be one step out of myself while I connect to 'people' via the web, technology, etc. What I want is to open my heart, slow down, and make a real human connection.

I think perhaps early on in the show, having an interaction with a puppet starts to slow me down and open me up to the open heart and humanity that I am lacking. The fact that it is one step removed from a 'real' human, allows me to feel safe around it, and I start to soften, slow, open.

From this place, as I open up more through the puppets and my heart begins to feel life again, I realize that I am absolutely completely in love with Bob. Pitter patter pitter patter pitter patter . . . ga-gunk, ga-gunk, ga-gunk.

Now, if I could only get the damn puppets to help me get him to love me back . . . or have the puppets been him all along . . .

Through my journey, I find my heart, my humanity, my presence. (Sounds a lot like acting, huh?)

Character Arc - Leonoria

I think my overriding problem is letting my fears get the better of me. I want to find my courage. I discover my courage and that I need the other two to help me do that.

We've played around with me discovering a ferocious voice through a puppet. I think it should take me a bit (3 beats?) to understand that this voice came from me and that I can say what I need though that.

I think I can get carried away with that and pick a fight or the like with Conor that is more than I can handle, but only realize it way to late and have to back peddle.

I also see me inappropriately taking charge, letting the strength go to my head.

I want to end up with balance and friends.....

Need to elaborate on this but to hungry. Going to eat. Will be back later.

Pareidolia or Simulacra? 1

Wait for it....  Found here.

Dagnabit

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N01aTvi7ef4
Atspriddygood.

Is This a Puppet? 6

Found here.

Is This a Puppet? 5

Are These Puppets? 4

Found here, amidst several supposedly nutsy patents.

Assignment photo thing about whos awhat now

So the first image was found by googling "children's show 1958" it's Captain Pugot or something. #2 is from googling "mash potatoes on a plate". #3 is from googling "lots of stuff".
So Bob was a local kid show host from the days when stuff was always broken and not polished. One take from one camera and you can hear the camera man coughing.
The tv dinner is how he lives. Nothing depressing about it just that he is a survivalist and doesn't need much. He also seems to be the only person who can still get Tv dinners that ;look like this. The basement is top to bottom with the collection-boulder of his life.

Images of Leonoria

Image of me: I think this is a rather impish photo and I like the glasses for Leonoria. It's playful, yet current.

Yarn: Leonoria’s hair and brain.

Lion/Kitten – what lurks behind the soft exterior. www.merchantcircle.com

Running Gag: Threshold Conflict

This is a running gag between Leonoria and Elizabeth. It happens when Elizabeth gets frustrated with Leonoria because she is too scared to enter the super's apartment, or go in another room, or "step it up." After trying to convince the scared Leonoria to take the step, Elizabeth tries a) pulling her into the space b) moving her legs for her (this reminds me of puppeteers with their puppets) and then finally c) pushing her into the space which causes them to both go tumbling in towards the super in a loud and roly-poly way eventually landing at his feet. Harumpf!

The Shalimar

"'I believe the theater can be a metaphor,' Messick concludes, 'for the wonderful life experiences and stories that many people have that — if you take the time to listen — you'll be able to discover.'"

David sent me something he was reminded of when I sent him our show description.  The concrete details of this are not a direction we're necessarily heading in but - Conor - you may find some interesting parallels in building Bob up.

Our Zone

Cropped from image found here.

This is wildly divergent thematically, but I read a quote recently about The Twilight Zone that seems to me to contain some important wisdom for us in shaping this show.  To wit:

“The Twilight Zone was shaped by Rod Serling. His instincts led him to a pattern he & I agreed upon as the bottom-line basis for buying stories for adaptation and for his own originals:

"Find an interesting character, or a group, at a moment in crisis in life, and get there quickly; then lay on some magic. That magic must be devilishly appropriate and capable of providing a whiplash kickback at the tag. The character(s) must be ordinary and average and modern, and the problem facing him (her, them) must be commonplace.

"The Twilight Zone always struck people as identifiable as to whom it was about, and the story hang-ups as resonant as their own fears, dreams, and wishes. Allow only one miracle or special talent or imaginative circumstance per episode. More than one and the audience grows impatient with your calls on their credibility. The story must be impossible in the real world. A request at some point to suspend disbelief is a trademark of the series. Mere scare tactics will not fill the bill. A clever bit of advanced scientific hardware is not enough to support a story. The Twilight Zone was not a sci-fi show.”

-Twilight Zone producer Buck Houghton (via Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone)

Special thanks to Old Hollywood for the inspiration.

Lest the myriad readers of our 'blog (Hi mom! [My Mom: "What's a 'blog?"]) think I'm trying very hard to make Zuppa's first horror play, let me clarify that I'm not interested in exploring madness or weirdness for the sake of weirdness.  That's not the connection I make with this.  The connection I make has to do with fantasy.  We are leaning in some respects toward building a fantasy, and when I use that word, I do not mean the bookstore section.

The first thing this quote reminded me of is another favorite of mine from Mr. Buster Keaton: "You could write the whole plot on a postcard. We do the rest."  In other words, it's more important that the plot be simple and straight-forward so that we can build elaborate structures off of it.  That's what the grounded nature of the guidance from Serling reminds me of.

The other thing I take from this and appreciate is the idea that there is a singular piece of magic, or imaginative circumstances (great term).  For us, this is the puppetry, and how it can transform interactions and influence reality.  The puppetry is the thing - and the only thing - that carries us into Oz, so to speak.  And once we get there, it's all about our fears, dreams and wishes.

Running Gag -

Don’t know how this fits, but here’s an idea

Running gag of the pillow fluffing
1. Leonoria offers whomever a seat. They go to sit, but the cushion on chair is not quite right and she snatches it away at last second to fluff it. Person sits with a thump.
2. Oh, I am so sorry, please take a seat. She offers another chair. Same thing happens, person A sits with a thump.
3. Person A grabs pillow fluffs it her/himself, carefully places it in chair, keeping her/his eye on me for the whole time and goes to sit down. The other character (B) needs chair for some reason, takes whole chair away at last second. Person A falls to the floor with a crash.

Albrecht Roser

Okay, so this guy might not be as ancient as we were looking for, but he seems much more relevant and interesting. The characters described remind me of commedia . . .

Albrecht Roser (born 1922 (age 87–88)) is a German master puppeteer based in Stuttgart, Germany. Roser has made a major contribution working with marionettes. He first came to public attention in 1951 with his marionette, Clown Gustaf. Another of his characters, Grandmother, is outwardly charming but savagely humorous in her observations about all aspects of society and the absurdities of life. Roser's work was admired by master puppeteer Jim Henson, who made a film on Roser's work.

Information from Wikipedia . . . but of course, you can find it all on the inter-web . . .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albrecht_Roser

I WANT I WANT I WANT I WANT

Mr. Melvin: I want you to take some responsibility and fix the wiring between our two buildings. I am tired of losing my inter-connectivity. You are after all the superintendent of units 2 and 3 and you need to begin to act like one. I read on the internet that I can sue you for negligence . . . oh dear, mr. melvin . . . I think . . . I want . . . YOU!

Leonoria: I want you to understand me. When I speak to you, I feel like we are speaking two completely different languages. I don't understand where you have been all this time, but I am pretty sure that unless you catch up, you and I will never be able to communicate. I've read about that happening . . . many times.

Laurent Mourguet

Is an early French puppeteer credited with creating the hand puppet. His work caused the French government to require all shows to be scripted and ban improvisation. This site had a lot of cool information about subversive puppetry.

http://www.rogueruby.com/radpup.html

Wants

Mr. Melvin, I want to know where you hid my wool socks. You’re always taking things and I do not think that is very polite. No, not polite at all. What? No, it had to be him. LOOK at this place!

Miss Elizabeth: Can you teach me how to be connected? You seem to know so much that light just shoots out your fingertips. I want to be like you.

Welcome to the Mainstream

Somehow actually even a bit more risqué than your usual Simpsons episode, right at the end.  Check some of the inside-jokes on puppetry and in particular the Muppet form of it.  They get Cookie Monster's behavior and Ernie's laugh in there.  I would say all the pop culture references in here have strong commedia dell'arte archetype roots.  (Even Katy Perry.)

The Cell Phone Lazzi

My phone gets taken by Conor who is interested in it as a new artifact for his room of junk. As he looks at it and shows his discoveries to Heather, my character gets more and more frustrated and a variation of monkey in the middle ensues, in which they are so into their new discoveries with this new piece of technology and showing each other things that I simply can't get my phone back which sends me into a panic - feeling cut off, disconnected, oh, the pain! Of course, they don't even realize what is happening with me. The fact that I can't get the phone back is all coincidental with there movements.

What We're About: Part 1

Just wondered if we could make the climax of our show a moment when the characters all tell one another what they're really thinking, face to face, with no puppet intervention, mechanic or ulterior motive.  In other words, what if the show is about trying everything else, just to get to this moment?  It may be a bit too neat to be practical, but it;s a direction I'm considering.  Our discussions of characters and themes seem to revolve a bit around the inability to connect face-to-face, after all, and each has their own way of doing that.  Something to think about.

Also, there's this, on empathy:

Riddley Walker

....My apologies, all -- Jeff and I had a conversation today in which he (very, very kindly) mentioned that the Jim Henson clip I was so excited about...was one of your first posts. Oops.

So to make it up to you -- a book recommendation. This is definitely in the realm of "tangential, but still interesting;" a science-fiction book I've gotten fond of, in which Punch and Judy puppets are key elements.

Riddley Walker, by Russel Hoban, is set about two thousand years after a nuclear apocalypse. Mankind has managed to survive -- but has been living at a stone-age level of technology ever since. It's a coming-of-age story for the title character, in which he also comes upon a secret plot to try to redevelop and rediscover gunpowder.

What this has to do with puppets is in the cultural backstory Hoban's created for the characters. By this time, Hoban imagines, all history is an oral history -- based on half-remembered news reports and half-understood relics of this world. And in the world of the story, people have created an entire religious ritual out of Punch and Judy puppets. In the novel, one of the rituals is what the people call "the Eusa Show" -- pairs of puppeteers travel from town to town, setting up a puppet show to re-relate their own cultural history. The "Eusa Show" is a very ritualized re-telling of the nuclear conflict and the story of how people survived and came to live as they do in the world of the book; each town also has a sort of shaman figure who helps to "interpret" the show for the audience.

In the book, the main character Riddley also comes across a Punch puppet of his own. Another character tells him that the Punch puppet is related to the puppets from the "Eusa show," but that it's a very different character -- and the stories Punch tells aren't part of the Eusa narrative, they're supposed to be...for fun. It's the first that Riddley hears that there are puppet shows that tell different stories.

One word of warning if you do try reading it -- the language is really tricky at first blush. Hoban doesn't just imagine that culture would change, he imagines that language itself would also change, and the whole book is written in a sort of pidgin based on the phonetic sound of the Kentish accent (the book is set in what is now Kent, England). So it takes a few pages to get used to the language and make heads or tails of what on earth everyone's actually saying. But once you get past that -- it's fascinating to see how Hoban thinks a culture's idea of puppets and puppetry would have changed in those two thousand years, and how they interpreted and synthesized things that, to people in those conditions, would have been mysterious relics. (I've read it through three times, and it wasn't until the third time that I figured out that something Riddley was describing in one chapter was a "Green Man" gargoyle in a ruined cathedral.)

But especially interesting for the puppeteer project is how Punch is treated a little differently from other puppets, even still...the other puppets in the "Eusa Show" are based on other minor puppets from Punch and Judy, but Punch is different. And not because he's unknown to the culture -- Riddley shows the Punch puppet to an older mentor, who recognizes it and tells him that yes, this is a puppet like the others, but his stories are different. Riddley actually tries putting on an old Punch and Judy show using the Punch puppet, and the townspeople he shows it to are very disturbed by how unlike the regular "Eusa show" it is.

It's a very dense read, but a fascinating one.

Pareidolia

Halfway through the "puppet seminar" below, it struck me that a human quirk works to the puppeteer's advantage: that of "pareidolia." This is the term for perceiving a "pattern" in random stimulus -- and it most often manifests in seeing a random -- and often minimal -- series of shapes and thinking "that kind of looks like a face."

The mop was what struck me -- all you had to add to make it look like a face was add three balls to it, one for a nose and two for eyes. Look at it from another angle and it still wouldn't look like a face. But hold it a certain way and two balls suddenly became "eyes."

Some researchers believe that we're genetically inclined to respond to faces. Carl Sagan argued that being able to recognize faces at a distance, with only the poorest of visual cues, was a genetic advantage - being able to pick off a friend from a foe at a great distance was sometimes a matter of life or death, as was being able to even just see that the thing sticking up several yards off was a person rather than a tree, say. So the better humans were in responding to "facial features" without needing much detail, the better off we were. Even newborn babies tend to pay more attention to "faces", or objects resembling faces, than anything else around them.

So we're kind of hardwired to see "faces" in things with only the most minimal of cues, which is why if you hold your sock in a certain way it makes people say, "hey, it's a mouth."

A PUPPET MAKING SEMINAR FROM JIM HENSON!

This just in: A fifteen minute "how to make your own puppets out of stuff you have around the house" lesson from Jim Henson. And the "stuff around the house" are things like fruit, potatoes, wooden spoons, socks, rubber bands, mops....

The Lazzi of the Pile of Junk

The room is filled with "junk". Conor is looking for something and keeps picking up pieces and discarding them by tossing them behind him. One of the other characters picks up the pieces as they're being tossed and puts them on as there is no other place to put them. That person becomes unrecognizable and giant puppet made of junk.

ETC Article: November

Wonderful Weirdness & OZ

When I was growing up, we had one regular option for movies beamed directly into the house, and it was called UHF.  (Those of you under the age of 25 might want to Google it.) Sure: VHF had actual reception quality and lots more interesting toy commercials, but only UHF had channel 50, which showed a movie just about every night and several on the weekends.  I love movies, so I endured the constant static and frankly terrible films, but when the holidays rolled around (and for me, “the holidays” start with Halloween)  I didn’t have to.  Holiday-themed films would enter heavy rotation on the VHF stations, and two Hollywood ones would air over and over again: It’s a Wonderful Life, of course, but also The Wizard of Oz.

It’s weird: We’ve had some head-spinning progress with the development of The Puppeteers in the past month.  As quickly as we lost an actor from the show, we gained one of Scranton’s favorites: Heather Stuart.  After some lost time from that kerfuffle, Heather, Conor, Elizabeth and I managed to rush to the theatre in a weekend and determine a tremendous amount about characters and the play’s direction, so that we are now creating the story itself.  The actors even brought along their own puppet creations, thereby effectively doubling our cast.  The designers are working right alongside, adapting brilliantly to what we come up with in the room, and there are some exciting possibilities percolating toward promoting the shows in an interactive way.  You can as always follow this behind-the-scenes business (and join in the conversation) at The Puppeteers’ development ‘blog.

One defining moment in our development that weekend at the theatre was in discovering connections between the story that is sprouting up around our characters like a field of poppies, and the vast world of Oz created by L. Frank Baum.  There’s the superficial similarities of course - the old-fashioned puppet-show aesthetic reminds us of Professor Marvel’s wagon and Oz’s colorful cast of characters - but there’s also a deep thematic resonance.  Our story is about strangers with problems finding one another and exploring a weird new world together.  We’re going to be taking our audiences along with us into an uncharted territory of transformation, laughter...and maybe a little fear?

It can be easy for me to forget how I felt about the antagonist - that weird wicked witch - in that old movie when I was young.  Now she seems little more than a caricature comprised of some long-forgotten Salem misconceptions.  However.  When I really cast my mind back, I can remember part of what I looked forward to all year was the utter thrill of that witchy theme music, and what it might portend.  The giddy border between terror and excitement is a place we love to to explore when we’re young.  We give it names as adults.  Nerves.  Anticipation.  Stage fright.  It’s all the thrill of the unknowable.

The unknowable is what we embrace and return to over and over at this stage of things.  The poet Rainer Maria Rilke has some much-quoted (and often truncated, not to mention translated from German) advice on that: "...[H]ave patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.  Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language.  Do not now look for the answers.  They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them.  It is a question of experiencing everything.  At present you need to live the question.  Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day."

The days of our next meetings in Scranton are December 11th and 12th, and 18th and 19th, and by the end of that we aim to have a sequence of plot to follow.  In a little under a month we’ll begin rehearsals in earnest, and in a little over a month we’ll have our last piece of the puzzle - you, the audience.  It’s going to be improvisation, so the thrill of the unknown will still be there for all of us, but by January we’ll all be having our own journey to Oz in technicolored VHF clarity.  We can’t see the details yet, but what’s coming through is weird in the most wonderful ways.

1. Grover first made his TV debut on the "Ed Sullivan Show" in 1967 when he was known as "Gleep" and was a monster in Santa's Workshop?

2. Telly Monster was originally the Television Monster when he debuted in 1979. He was obsessed with TV and his eyes would whirl around as if hypnotized whenever he was in front of a set. After a while, producers started worrying about his influence on youngsters, so they changed him to make him the chronic worrier he is now.

3. Miss Piggy is apparently from Iowa.

4. Gonzo was raised by chickens.

4 puppet things from Heather

· Some use for puppets have been discovered in almost every civilization. Small white figurines were found in tombs of ancient Egyptian children.
· Commedia dell’arte troupes incorporated some hand puppets into some of their scenarios. The puppets were able to say even ruder things than the actors.
· The oldest puppet known was found in a cave in Mexico. It was made of whale bone.
· A Chinese playwright created elaborate wooden puppets, known as Bunkaru puppets and wanted to replace actors with them.
· A mummer is an olde English term for “mime artist”. It also refers to a parade in Philadelphia where old white men dress as women on New Year’s day and parade down Broad Street.

4 puppet tings

1. On Ed Sullivan, Topo Gigio was voiced by Mel Blanc (the voice of Bugs Bunny).
2. Sherry Lewis insisted on having a separate plane seat for Lambchop.
3. Kermit was originally made from Henson's mother's coat.
4. Boglins were popular puppet toys in the 80's that looked like monsters.

How "Real" Are They?

I'll admit that this post is on the borderline between "this could be helpful" and "this is just freakin' cool," but.

Back when Jim Henson was developing the first Muppet Movie, one of the things they wanted to check out was how the Muppets would look on camera "in the real world," outside of a studio. The only way to check that out was...to do some live-action "screen tests.

Like this.





Kermit and Fozzie get downright existential in part two.

Now, no one was ever supposed to see these other than the filmmakers. But you can tell that Henson and Oz are having an absolute ball with this. I found out about these clips from an online forum I belong to, and the discussion prompted by these clips was especially lively -- and someone made an especially telling comment:

What always blows me away in the unscripted muppets things is that they never break character. NEVER. There's no swearing or anything. It's just...Kermit and Fozzie, hanging out.

Another person said this:

There's something about a puppet that requires suspension of disbelief from the audience. The puppet is clearly a real, physical object that exists in the actual world, but it is also an imaginary creature, and when we treat it as alive we enter into a sort of conspiracy with the puppeteer that's very childlike in its way. For children it's easy to go back and forth between a play world where teddy bears and stuffed frogs can talk and the real world of rules and obligations, and for the rest of us believing in puppets (if only for the length of a youtube clip) is a reminder of that time.

Another commenter reported that he was watching the clips on an iPod on commuter train on the way home from work, using headphones, and halfway through the second clip burst out laughing -- and had to explain to his startled seatmate, a stranger to him, what he'd been laughing at. "Here, let me show you, he said, showing him the clips. And then the second guy started laughing, which attracted even more attention. And by the time the train finally pulled into the station, he was playing the clips through a third time for a small audience of eight total strangers all huddled around his iPod window, all of them laughing. They stood on the platform for a good three minutes in lively conversation about "what was that and where did you find it?"

The clips, and the thread, were a wonderful testimony to what Henson just got about what puppets could do, and why they work. The comment about how kids just sort of accept that stuffed bears and dogs and staplers or what-not can sometimes talk is dead-on, I think.

One last clip -- okay, now I'm verging into "I just want to post something cool" territory, but it also has a good statement about Henson's legacy. At his memorial Harry Belafonte first spoke a bit about Henson's legacy worldwide, and then sang a version of his song "Turn The World Around," which was apparently Jim Henson's absolute favorite Muppet Show sequence.

Bob Melvin

Uh... Hey...S'goin on? Jeez, I never really get people down here, ya know? It's usually just me an the boob tube. Yeah. Just sittin' back and fixin a lil' sumpthin to relax an' ya know, jus' sittin. But, hey, ya know, yas come don here an' ya got some kinda problem er' sumpthin...that's alright ya know. Cuz, look we get goin' and keep goin back further into the cellar and well, dont be tellin' no one dis but tings get a lil' weird. Tings change a bit ya see. Like evn you an me. Like dat's why I don't come upsatirs much because when I'm down here I can go back to the way it was for me. An look at this over here I bet you didn't think dat deez ol' puppets could talk n'stuff. Oh yeah nuttin really makes sense but it has some sort a way of workin' out. You'll see. So you gonna take that drink?

Leonoria (Heather)

I really have no idea. None at all.  I want more than anything in the world is to find my place in it.  And my really good pair of wool socks.  I lost them several years ago, somewhere in the house and haven't been able to find them since.  This "show" feels revealing.  Revealing. Who is behind that curtain anyway?  And will it eat me?  I awoke this morning and knew today would be different, if I could gather enough courage, but it seems to have gone the way of my wool socks.  Hopefully I won't freeze like I normally do.  Perhaps I should try singing my woes? What's that?  Shhh.  Shhh.  NOT NOW!  That doesn't happen until the second act, and she's not really my evil twin, that's just what "they" say.  Maybe I am looking for my inner child.  She was frightened by the monster under the bed and she never came back.  The monsters are real, you know.  The monster at the end of this book.  And you were so scared...

Elizabeth

Hi, my name is Elizabeth. I live in Scranton building unit #3 and I am a media engineer. I basically can tell you everything that is going on out there in the world; from the latest with Brangelina to how to install just about anything onto your computer. I am currently learning how to play the piano, break dance, sing gospel, learn German, Spanish, and Latin all off of programs that I have found on the internet. The internet is such an incredible tool. Really you can do anything: order in online, meet people online, find people online, create people online. I find that I am happiest at home on my computer. I really don't need anything else. I can get my work done from my computer, I can catch up on the news, I can be at my desk and have the world at my fingertips: complete access. And what else I love, just love love love about the world is that now that my phone can do everything my computer can do (and more) even when I lose access because of the bad wiring between my place and the building next door, unit #2, no problemo. Those days used to be the worst, when my connection got cut short, but no more, infinite phone access! . . . see . . . like right now . . . my signal . . . keeps going in and . . .o . . .u . . .t, but because I have my phone I can still get everything done that I need to get done . . . and look . . . four bars . . . see . . . oh / / / no . . . my phone didn't charge last night . . . my outlet is dead . . .shit . . .and my internet is on the fritz . . . shit . . . i am going to go next door . . . see . . . what those . . . loons / / are / / / /doing / / / /with / /////////our ///////////////// shared wires. This is all unit 2's fault!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cratemen

Something about this reminds me of an aspect of our aesthetic.  Recycled materials, humanoid forms and transforming the mundane.  Also reminds me of an image (below) I found inspiring in my initial research for the show.  In that we might be addressing storage and puppets constructed from found materials, I wanted to share.

The Puppeteers meets Legal Snarls

Are These Puppets? 3

Found here.

Is This a Puppet? 2

Found here.

7 Stories

There's a popular theory that supposes that for all the entertainment we've created over the course of human history, all the songs we've sung and tales we've told, there are but seven stories in the world.  (Here you can find an article that purports to list them.) We just synthesize and deconstruct and borrow and graft elements of these same seven (or six, or nine, depending on who you ask) stories over and over again.  I don't know if I hold to this particular theory, but it's an interesting idea when approaching the raw stuff of story-building.

In the spirit of story-building, I'm thinking about what role The Wizard of Oz and other Oz stories in general might have in our construction of a show.  Taken to its core elements, it could be said to be a story type that involves traveling to a strange land, changing the land and you forever, and returning home.  I'll list other stories of this type below.  Please edit this post to add your own:

1. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass
2. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
3. The Time Machine
4. The Odyssey
5. The Lord of the Rings
6. Pinocchio
7. Charlie & the Chocolate Factory (Dahl sort of specialized in this type of "children's story")
8. 
   

Plastic Bag Ballerina

From YouTube user oceanchildd.  Note that the ballerina's feet are actually the puppeteer's big toes.

Is This a Puppet? 1

Found here.

Kim W. on "Raised by Puppets"

Kim is amazing and research-crazy and I've asked her to contribute information to the 'blog.  She's also responsible for the study guide content ETC produces.  She also has some 'blog access problems so, for now at least, she post through me.  Below is a sort of response to my post of October 27.


Puppets.  Jeff pointed out how this lead to AVENUE Q -- part of how that came about was a sort of meta-commentary on shows LIKE "Sesame Street," which sought to teach kids using puppets.  The creators of AVENUE Q were speculating on, "well, what would it look like if someone used puppets to teach more adult concepts like 'how do I handle an adult relationship' or 'how do I figure out my life's purpose' or 'what is the Internet'?"

Plus, there's something titillatingly subversive about puppets - something that culturally we all think of as "kids' stuff" -- singing songs like "The Internet Is For Porn".  ...Although, AVENUE Q isn't even the most "adult stuff with puppets" that's out there -- there's also the all-marionette movie made by the guys who did SOUTH PARK -- called TEAM AMERICA: WORLD POLICE.  This was a spoof of action films, complete with a "love scene" that would have been graphic enough to flirt with an NC-17 rating if it were real people.

Found here.  Warning - some disturbing puppetry at link.

Then there's something called MEET THE FEEBLES, a very early film by Peter Jackson.  (In his Oscar acceptance speech, he briefly mentioned it, only to thank the Academy for turning a blind eye TO it.)  It's kind of a cult classic now, and....well, the person who showed it to me described it to me beforehand as "Imagine a cross between THE MUPPET SHOW and HOLLYWOOD BABYLON."  ....That's not too far off -- I'd say it's more like, what THE MUPPET SHOW would have looked like if they were doing a burlesque show rather than a vaudeville one, and Jim Henson had done an internship with PLAYBOY MAGAZINE.  It's...quite something.  (I hesitate to recommend it to you for research purposes, for fear of really skewing the show in some unforeseen way.  However, once you've opened the show, maybe see it then, for amusement's sake.  And have a bottle of something very strong by your side when you watch.)

I suspect that this is another aspect of having grown up with puppets -- it's so much a part of all our childhoods that the idea of taking something so "of childhood" and putting into an adult realm makes it subversively funny.  And I wonder if we may be the first generation for which this would have worked; don't forget, the very first season of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE had Muppets in the cast.  But the audiences then -- all of whom would have been little kids in the 60's -- didn't really seem to go for the idea, and the writers also loathed working with them.  (An early writer on the show came up with an oft-quoted response when he was asked to write a sketch for the Muppets for one episode -- "I don't write for felt.")  So the Muppets were retired after that first season.

Then again, shows like HOWDY DOODY and KUKLA, FRAN, AND OLLIE were on in the 50s and 60s, which seems to kill my theory.  Perhaps the media saturation was not as great?

Just What Do We Think We're Doing: Part 1

The following is a summary I prepared for all involved behind the scenes of The Puppeteers.  It expresses pretty well what the show is going to be like, and represents an enormous step forward in the process.  The usual reminders apply - ALL IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE - but enjoy some somewhat concrete details below:

We are looking at a story set in the current day wherein three characters who do NOT communicate well become trapped together in a superintendent's basement apartment.  There is the resident of the first floor (Heather), who is a frightened and excitable middle-aged woman whose family used to own the house before economic concerns forced them to break it up.  There is a young woman who is a computer/Internet junkie (Elizabeth), hyper-kinetic and absurdly "connected."  And finally there is an aged superintendent and fix-it man (Conor) who used to be a puppeteer.

We don't have a specific scenario yet, but what we're looking at is a story wherein the three have to deal with vast generation gaps and trying to manipulate one another to fulfill their various wants and needs.  In their efforts to communicate/manipulate - and just to keep their spirits up - they begin to puppeteer with both true puppets and improvised ones from various objects and furniture collected in the super's seemingly vast dwelling, eventually becoming puppets and puppeteers themselves.  They tell stories, imagined and from their pasts, and both.  There's an element here of The Wizard of Oz - a story about being plunged into an unfamiliar world, and searching for reunion.

So - that's where we're aiming.  That's the general idea.  Of course remember, for all this lovely conceptual language, this will be an ecstatic physical comedy.  Some specifics:

Research:  There's a few different ways we're approaching puppetry in this context.  The commedia connections and Drake's design are specific to Punch'n'Judy, which is great, but we want to if not use than at least be informed of every variety we can.  I'm thinking of approaching it with a similar philosophy as we do to commedia itself - approaching it as a "living tradition," something interconnected that never left but evolved and continues to inform contemporary forms.  I've put some links to research on puppetry forms on the 'blog already, but it would be nice to consolidate or organize that kind of thing in some accessible way.  And we're always interested in history, of course, both global and whatever might be specific to North Eastern PA.  Perhaps the vaudeville circuit had some famous or local ventriloquists?  And just as a possible side note, Baum wrote a lot of Ozian and non-Ozian things as well, which might yield some interest.

Marketing: Everyone, please refer people to the 'blog and talk about the show as something anyone can be involved with in its development.  I hope for the month of December to have up Twitter and Facebook Puppeteers accounts linked directly to online ticket sales.  We may also send out Puppeteers holiday cards, if the theatre approves.

Set:  I wish you guys could see it now, but hopefully we'll have an image up on the 'blog soon.  Drake and the cast had a meeting about it, and it's an exciting sort of abstraction of a seaside Punch-n-Judy tent, with a human-sized "puppet" stage to match the real-size version.

Lights:  The theatre is somewhat limited in equipment, and I defer to the lighting designer entirely.  I always love actor-controlled lighting sources, as well.  Maybe after next time I'm in Scranton (12/10-12) we'll be able to say a bit more about this.

Costume:  Some commedia dell'arte character analogues to consider: Conor as a crafty (literally) Pantalone, Heather as a painfully shy Isabella (a contradiction, I realize) and Elizabeth as a sort of eager servant (Pedrolino/Columbina) or an innamorata.  It might be helpful if they all dressed somewhat of the period of their youth (E: contemporary, H: 60s/70s, C: 30s/40s or older) and then we could transition them to more commedia accents as the show progresses like we discussed, but obviously I'd want to hear our designer's ideas.

SMS! SMS!!!!!

Just had this insane idea that I had to put down.  What if we can make Elizabeth's "iPhone," or whatever, actually a TracFone and put the number in the program?  This way, the audience (both present and after they've seen the show) can interact with the action of the story.

I think I just had a glee heart attack.

Process is Change

Those who remain.  Photo by Jeff Wills. (Yup; all my fault.)

Well, in the past month we've had some changes with The Puppeteers.  I've said "all is subject to change" before, and I meant it.  During October it became clear to Todd - due to changes in his situation and in spite of our best efforts to circumvent it - that participating in the show wasn't going to work.  Not this show, not this time.

It's easy to write that, and it does make me feel better to write it.  But of course, losing him from the show is a major loss.  Todd's talent is enormous, and he's a fellow founding member of Zuppa del Giorno, and it was an absolute joy to work with him again.  We'll miss him.  There are no hard feelings.  (If anyone understands the amazing effort and sacrifice it takes to commit everything to a theatre show, even without living thousands of miles from the theatre, anyone would be me.)  The truth is, too, that he'll be in the show.  He can't help it.  His work has already influenced The Puppeteers in very significant ways.

We have another comfort, too.  Todd's absence is being filled by Zuppianna (sp?) extraordinaire Heather Stuart.  I can't say enough good things about Heather.  She's been my creative partner-in-crime for all things comic for six years; we've worked on five full-length shows and created three of those, as well as two shorts, together.  Together she and Conor are arguably the most popular actors in Scranton.  She's funny and smart and, best of all, true.  This is going to be fun.

And so we bid adieu to one member of Zuppa del Giorno, and welcome the participation of another.  It's kind of wonderful for me, actually, because I get the pleasure of working with two of the old guard on one process.  The process itself is all about change - finding what works is important, but so is finding what doesn't.  To bid dear Todd a fond farewell, I present one of my favorite improvisations that he created with Elizabeth and Conor at our first developmental meeting:

Bring a Puppet

Our next developmental meeting is this Sunday, and it's short one, so I have asked our actors to do a little homework assignment.  I present the assignment  here for your admiration or ridicule.

Bring a puppet.

• Can consist of 1-3 items
• Must read from stage (something that occupies more space than just a hand)
• Must have a mechanic; a plunger won't work, but a plunger with a cracked suction cup that flaps (mechanic) will
• Must be untraditional (e.g., NOT sock, paper bag, classic marionette, stick puppet)
• Must have:
• Distinctive voice
• Three repeatable signature movements (think Muppets/commedia characters - this is how this guy nods, runs, plays the fiddle)
• Ability to monologize
• Does not have to have:
• Life history
• Smooth or finished look
• Immediate recognizability (this is a man, this is a dog, this is a furry monster)

The ideal way to make this puppet is to find it, utilize something extant to its full absurdity.