Puppets Take Strathmore

puppets
Strathmore Education Guide
June–August, 2013
take
Strathmore
“As an art form, puppetry has always relied on its ability to surprise people.”
—Molly Ross, Artistic Director, Nana Projects
STRATHMORE®

A Unique and
Strathmore Performance Guide
We’ve got puppets! Or perhaps they’ve
got us—that’s the mysterious thing about puppetry.
Sometimes puppets capture our imaginations in
surprising ways. And if you look around, you’ll see that
puppets not only serve as children’s entertainment
but also as powerful tools for storytelling and for
communicating ideas to people of all ages. The
Puppets Take Strathmore festival will be exploring all
that and more. This performance guide will help you
get started.
About Strathmore
Our Vision
Transcendent moments that ignite the human spirit.
Powerful Art Form
When humans take any inanimate object and give it lifelike
qualities—movement, feelings or expression—they
have created a puppet. People have used puppets for
thousands of years to tell stories, teach, entertain, protest,
perform rituals, sell goods and more.
Artists and performers turn to puppets for many reasons.
Puppets:
• can tell stories in interesting and surprising ways.
• engage the audience’s imagination and sense of magic
and mystery.
• can be anything—from a plain fork to an elaborately
painted wooden figure, from a simple shadow to a
digital animation.
• allow greater artistic freedom because they can be any
size (huge, life-sized or small) and do things no human
actor can do (like fly or shatter into multiple pieces and
come back together).
• are interdisciplinary, integrating performance with visual
artistry such as painting, sculpture, woodwork, costume
design, collage and more.
Blue Sky Puppet Theatre
Our Purpose/Mission
Strathmore presents and produces exemplary visual and
performing arts programs for diverse audiences; creates
dynamic arts education experiences; and nurtures creative
ideas and conversations that advance the future of the arts.
Eliot Pfanstiehl, Chief Executive Officer
Monica Jeffries Hazangeles, President
Shelley Brown, Vice President, Artistic Director
Georgina Javor, Director of Programming
Lauren Campbell, Development and Education Manager
Betty Scott, Education Program Coordinator
Harriet Lesser, Curator
Sam Younes, Visual Arts Assistant
Special thanks to Colette Searls, Associate Professor of Theatre
at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC), for her
help with developing this Education Guide; The Puppet Co. for
background and co-producing the Puppet Slam; Molly Ross, Artistic
Director of Nana Projects for background; and Blair Thomas, Artistic
Director, Blair Thomas & Company for background.
Puppetry frees artists to play with scale, like in this vast ocean
scene from Eleventh Finger by Blue Sky Puppet Theatre.
See it on July 20!
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Giving Puppets Life
Bringing a puppet to life can be as easy as putting a sock
on your hand and making it talk. But strong puppetry
performances involve a great deal of skill, problem solving
and imagination. Here are some of the main roles. Often
one does many of the roles single-handedly.
Blair Thomas
& Company
Writers begin the process by creating the story and
characters.
Directors coordinate how everything will look on
stage and guide the overall vision.
Nana Projects
Puppeteer Blair Thomas performing a scene from Hard Headed Heart.
See it on August 4!
See the design work of Nana Projects during several events at
Puppets Take Strathmore.
Puppet Designers/Builders plan how
the puppet will look and how it will work. They choose
the materials—typically cloth, foam, wood, plastic, paper,
leather or metal. They figure out the mechanics (such as
how limbs will move) and construct the puppet so the
puppeteer can operate it.
Puppeteers operate and keep the audience’s
attention on the puppets, creating big movements, such as
running, somersaults or flying as well as small motions like
breathing, crying, blinking, laughing and of course, talking.
Audiences also play a role. For a puppet to have life,
the audience must believe it does. Good puppeteering
makes this easy.
Cashore Marionettes
Think about…
Unlike actors who are limited
by gender and appearance
for the roles they can perform,
puppeteers can play any
role—any size animal or
supernatural creature and any
size, gender or age of human.
“Puppetry is everywhere, but we don’t always notice it.”
—Colette Searls, Associate Professor of Theatre at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
33

Type Casting
Puppets represent humans, animals and spirits—they just need a shape and form and the ability to be
moved by a human in order to do it. Here are the main types of puppets.
Folkmanis Puppet Company
Marionettes are usually designed as full human
or animal figures and frequently have painted faces and
detailed costumes. They are operated by moving strings
attached to different parts of the body (sometimes with
rods as well). Operators typically control marionettes from
a platform above the stage or by standing over a
miniature stage.
Bring home a Folkmanis hand puppet from the Puppets Take
Strathmore festival, and create your own shows for friends and family!
Hand Puppets are worn on and operated by the
hand and fingers and often feature just heads and upper
bodies. They are often made of fabric or foam, but can
also be made of paper, wood, metal and other materials.
Rod Puppets are operated by wood or metal rods
attached to different parts of the body and sometimes
have a central rod through the body.
Blue Sky Puppet Theatre
Jonathan Timmes
Cashore Marionettes
Nana Projects
Don’t miss this scene from Cashore Marionettes’
production of Simple Gifts on June 30!
Jonathan Timmes Matt Cashore
Molly Ross of Nana Projects performing a scene from
Alonzo’s Lullaby. See it on July 27!
Shadow Puppets are usually flat, rod-operated
figures created to cast either a black or colored shadow
when moved between a light source and a semitransparent
screen.
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Blue Sky Puppet Theatre founder Michael Cotter,
featured throughout the festival, is a rod puppet master.

Object/Found-Object Puppets are
created with everyday objects, for example, a toothbrush,
a blanket or a hubcap.
Bunraku (pronounced boon-RAH-koo) is an ancient
Japanese-style of puppetry that traditionally involves a
half- or three-quarter-size human body puppet operated
by three puppeteers visible to the audience.
These photos* of Bunraku, Object and
Over-Life-Size puppetry are the work
of Richard Termine, featured in the No
Strings Attached fine art exhibit, June 22
through August 17. Don’t miss it!
Digital Puppets are relatively new and their
definition is still under debate. Colette Searls, who teaches
theater and researches puppetry at the University of
Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC), describes digital
puppetry as when an actor/puppeteer wears a motioncapture
suit or uses a game-like controller to make a
computer-generated animation come to life—a sort of “live
cartoon” that can interact with other performers or even
the audience in real time.
Over-Life-Size Puppets range in size from a
full body puppet that completely encloses the puppeteer
like a costume, to huge puppets, like a parade balloon
requiring multiple puppeteers.
* Bunraku puppet image taken of The Mud Angels created by Luis de Robles Tentindo,
part of Labapalooza! Mini Festival of New Puppet Theater from The Lab, presented
by St. Ann’s Warehouse, Brooklyn, NY; photo: © 2009 Richard Termine. Object/Found
Object puppet image taken of (2004) Muppet Video Workshop at the National Puppetry
Conference; Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, Waterford, CT; photo: © 2004 Richard
Termine. Over-Life-Size puppet image taken of Prometheus Within, conceived designed
and directed by Theodora Skipitares, Skysaver Productions; April 2012 at The Ellen
Stewart Theatre at La MaMa ETC; photo: © 2012 Richard Termine.
Many see the character Gollum from The Lord of the Rings as a
Digital Puppet, though such a designation is controversial with
some traditional puppeteers.
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Puppets Grow Up
in America
Native American Puppetry
Traditions
Between the years of 300 and 600, Native American
peoples used puppets in their ceremonies and rituals
(and sometimes as toys). Hand and later rod puppets
represented gods, demons and animals. Native Hawaiian
tribes notably used hand puppets to make fun of politics
and everyday problems.
European Arrivals
Hand, rod and marionette puppets—following closely the
traditions established in England, France and Italy—were
the stars of puppetry performances through the 1800s and
early 1900s. Audiences watched them in theaters and as
part of traveling vaudeville (variety) shows, such as Punch
and Judy. These shows often used comedy and appealed
to children, features that puppetry took to television
starting in the 1940s.
Kermit!
Then came The Muppets. These beloved hand and rod
puppets created by Jim Henson (who began his puppetry
career on local television in Washington, D.C.) became
stars of the still-running public television show Sesame
Street, which debuted in 1969. Not only did they create a
unique and internationally renowned American brand of
puppetry, they started to open people’s eyes to puppets’
greater potential as art and grown-up entertainment.
To the Streets
In 1963 in New York City, German immigrant Peter
Schumann founded Bread and Puppet Theater (which later
moved to Vermont), making puppets intended for outdoor
performance and even political protests. You can see
adaptations of this style at rallies like one for Occupy Wall
Street held in New York City in 2011 that featured a Statue
of Liberty puppet.
Jim Henson and
Kermit the Frog.
Puppeteers and costumed actors perform a scene from
the award-winning musical War Horse. The puppets,
created by Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones of Handspring
Puppet Company, earned a special Tony Award in 2011.
Since the 1960s, puppets have become a popular tool
for political protest, like this Statue of Liberty puppet
from a rally of Occupy Wall Street protesters in 2011.
A Puppet Renaissance?
66
American puppetry has continued to evolve. New
generations of artists have been adapting puppetry to
fit modern times and techniques (computer graphics, for
example) and mixing and matching styles to create both
small shows and blockbuster visual spectacles. The success
of the 1997 Broadway musical The Lion King, featuring
different styles of detailed puppets, and the success of
shows after it like the hit play War Horse (which debuted on
Broadway in 2011), showed that American audiences were
embracing puppetry as a broader and more sophisticated
art form. Puppetry has continued to expand its reach in
live performance as well as film, where directors rely on
innovation in creative effects that involve puppetry to bring
more interesting and engaging creatures to life on screen.
Some call puppetry’s new visibility on the cultural
landscape a renaissance or rebirth. But it might just be
another high point in puppetry’s ongoing process of
reinventing itself—and advancing the art of storytelling..
Puppets Around the World—For a tour of puppet
history and traditions around the world, visit us online
at www.strathmore.org/puppets.

Puppetry’s Gifts
Puppetry has influenced American theater and culture—
and life—sometimes in unexpected ways. Puppetry and its
creative artists can take credit for:
• inspiring other art forms, such as drama, dance and even
the circus, to incorporate puppetry and greater visual
elements.
• attracting new generations of budding artists to study
puppetry and the profession.
• spurring new scholarly research in puppetry that can help
us understand its impact on the arts and other fields.
• providing a way to represent provocative ideas and
promote change, such as through satiric puppet
performances or political protests.
Did you know… Beyond performance and protest,
puppetry has become a valuable tool in therapeutic and
educational settings, where puppets can be used to teach
or help people discuss emotional and physical challenges.
Strathmore Artist in Residence alumna ellen cherry’s hauntingly poetic
song “Pickett’s Charge” inspired shadow puppet artist Katherine Fahey to
design equally stunning graphic animation to accompany the music. See it
performed live at the Puppet Slam on August 2.
Puppetry Up Close—
Prepping for Puppets Take
Strathmore
Keep Discovering Puppetry
Look for area workshops and puppetry slams
(check for slams at The Puppet Co. at Glen Echo
Park, D.C.’s Puppet Underground or Baltimore’s
Black Cherry Puppet Theater) year round, as
well as performances featuring puppets at local
theaters. Visit the Strathmore Mansion Shop for a
variety of puppets for your collection. In addition,
see these books for a scholarly and comprehensive
look at puppetry:
Puppetry: A World History by Eileen Blumenthal
Strings, Hands, Shadows: A Modern Puppet
History by John Bell
Michael Ventura
At Puppets Take Strathmore, you can see all different kinds
of puppets, puppet artists and puppetry. Pay attention to:
• the mix of puppetry styles in a single performance.
• the use of music and how it helps tell the story.
• the variety of materials used to create puppets and how
those materials impact the effects and personalities of
the puppets.
• the differences in how closely the puppets look like what
they represent—and whether a very close match makes
the puppet more or less believable to you.
Here are some questions to ask yourself before, during and
after the festival:
• Where do you see puppets in your daily life?
• How does puppetry uniquely capture our attention and
convey stories and ideas?
• Does it break “the magic” when you can see the
puppeteer on stage moving the puppet? Why?
• How can you try puppetry? (Here’s an idea—start with
a simple object, like a pen, wallet or notebook. Then,
try moving the object to show actions, feelings or
characteristics.)
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Performances
Art Exhibit
Puppets Take Strathmore features five performances so
you can experience different kinds of puppetry:
For Families
The Cashore Marionettes performing Simple Gifts
SUNDAY, JUNE 30, 1 & 3PM, best for ages 6 and up
No Strings Attached
JUNE 22 THROUGH AUGUST 17
See how big the world of puppetry really is by viewing
puppets from local and national artists, learning more
about the history of puppets and bringing some puppets
to life yourself in the interactive exhibits. And be ready for
a few surprises!
Blue Sky Puppet Theatre performing
Eleventh Finger
SATURDAY, JULY 20, 1 & 3PM, best for ages 5–12
Nana Projects performing Alonzo’s Lullaby
with original music co-written and performed by
Strathmore Artist in Residence alumna ellen cherry
SATURDAY, JULY 27, 1 & 3PM, best for ages 6 and up
For Adults
Blair Thomas & Company performing
Hard Headed Heart
SUNDAY, AUGUST 4, 1 & 4PM, best for ages 14 and up
Puppet Slam, a widely popular puppet performance
style that presents a series of short pieces by different artists.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 2, 7 & 9PM, best for adults,
co-produced with The Puppet Co.
Please join us for these special exhibit events in the
Mansion:
Opening Reception, Thursday, June 27, 7–9PM, Free
Guided Family Tour (with art activity), Saturday, June 29,
10:15AM, Free (tickets required)
Guided Tour for Adults, Saturday, June 29, 1PM, Free
Or come on your own and see the exhibits at your own
pace and as often as you like during regular Gallery hours:
Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, 10AM–4PM
Wednesday, 10AM–9PM
Saturday, 10AM–3PM
Free (no tickets required)
SPECIAL THANKS
John Bell and the Ballard
Institute & Museum of Puppetry
The Puppet Co. at Glen Echo
Education Workshops
Learn how to build and operate puppets
plus much more from featured festival artists:
Marionettes: Brought to Life!
Cashore Marionettes
SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 4:30PM, Free, all ages
Jonathan Timmes
Create a Shadow Puppet Show!
Nana Projects
SATURDAY, JULY 27, 10AM–12PM, Best for ages 8 and up
The Puppet Tells the Story
Blair Thomas & Company
SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 10AM-12PM, Best for ages 8-12
Puppetry in Contemporary American Theater
Expert Panel Discussion
SATURDAY, AUGUST 3, 3-4:30PM, best for adults
See the work of marionette creator Don Becker and many others
at the No Strings Attached fine art exhibit!
www.strathmore.org/puppets
Copyright © 2013 Strathmore