About the Puppeteer
Allow me to introduce myself. I’m a puppeteer. That means, by nature, that I am a pack rat (hey, that old toilet paper roll would make a terrific puppet!), a ham (I’m sorry it annoys you when I perform little shows with the salt and pepper shakers when we go out to eat!), and maybe more than just a little bit schizophrenic (So I’m talking to my own hand? What of it?!).
I secretly always enjoyed puppets. My favorite TV shows as a kid always had puppets in them. I watched Sesame Street (who didn’t?) and Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood of course. I watched Puffenstuff, and the other Sid & Marty Kroft shows. I loved Kukla, Fran, & Ollie. On Captain Kangaroo, Mr. Moose was my favorite character. You might say I was born to be a puppeteer!
In fact, my family has a history of puppetry. Of course, I didn’t know this as a child while I was watching all those puppets on TV. It wasn’t until I was six years old, when my Grandmother gave me my first marionette, that I really discovered my heritage. My Grandfather had passed away a few months before Christmas, and my Grandmother hadn’t gone shopping. She asked my Father if he thought I’d enjoy one of his old toys (the pack rat thing ran in the family too – I got that from Grandmother!). She was thinking about giving me Clippo, his old toy marionette. Dad said he thought I’d love it, and the rest was history!
I learned very quickly that I enjoyed performing Clippo. Even as shy as I was as a kid, I was brave behind the strings. Grandmother (who really DID keep EVERYTHING) began looking for more puppets to feed my habit. She found marionettes in storage and mailed them to me. It seems that she and my Grandfather had actually sold marionette kits through the Boy Scouts of America. The kits included wooden body parts and an unpainted ceramic head, all conveniently packaged in a box that spaced the parts appropriately so the purchaser could tie them together to make a complete puppet. A costume was stamped onto cloth, and the buyer cut it out and sewed it to make their own Cub Scout puppet. Instructions on stringing the marionette, creating different costumes, painting the head, and performance were included in each kit. The puppet kits, called “Bruce and Judy Marionettes” after my Father and Aunt, even sold through a major department store for awhile I believe.
Grandmother didn’t still have any of the complete kits, but she did have quite a few marionettes lying around. At first, I received whole puppets. Her Cub Scout den had done a marionette show, creating their puppets with the kits. Other marionettes were either made from papier-mâché or were adaptations of the kit puppets. I received a snake charmer, Uncle Sam, Tom Thumb, and a few other characters. Many of these puppets were in fairly bad condition, and I ended up remaking them into characters I wanted or needed for various shows. The snake charmer, for instance, became the Phantom of the Opera!
In addition to the whole marionettes, I often received body parts in the mail. I would open a package from Grandmother to find a leg, or arm, or head. I ended up making several of my own puppets out of these parts.
I also started collecting Pelham marionettes. Whenever my family would visit a toy store, my first stop was to look for new marionettes. A dragon mother and baby, an old English Beefeater, and other characters rounded out my collection.
While I was in sixth grade, Grandmother invited my two cousins and I to come stay at her house for a couple of weeks. When I arrived, Grandmother’s planned activities included a puppet show. We stopped at a local store on the way home from the airport to pick out materials!
During those two weeks, Grandmother had us write a script (“Happily Ever After” or what happened to Cinderella after marrying the Prince). We each made two sock puppets for the show. I was Kingsly and Queenella, the Prince’s parents. My older cousin somehow managed the casting coup of securing both Cinderella and the Prince, and the other cousin became the Wicked Stepmother and court jester. We wrote the script, created the puppets, rehearsed, and then performed for the neighborhood kids on the old wooden puppet stage my Grandfather had built. We then did a second command performance when all the neighborhood parents complained that they hadn’t been invited!
I continued to explore different puppet making techniques. In college, I had a wonderful opportunity to take a course on Puppetry, and although it focused mostly on history, we did do some puppet making as well. As a class project, we each were required to make a couple of rod puppets. My bird, made of Styrofoam balls and dowel rods, received an A!
While my Mother was in the hospital, she managed to promote her puppeteer daughter to the PR rep. The hospital did an annual event and the puppeteer who normally performed had quit (and had taken all the puppets with her when she went!). My Mother told the PR person that I’d be happy to do it for the same pay. I ended up hired to rewrite the scripts, make new puppets (I cheated and used some commercial ones I had as well as building a few), and perform. Grandmother again contributed to my habit by donating Grandfather’s old puppet stage, which I was able to clean up, re-stain, and make curtains for. We recorded the shows on tape, with family members playing several roles, and I controlled the whole thing from backstage with an old Dictaphone foot pedal and a tape recorder. Dad made a small light tree for the stage, and I painted a logo on a sign that hung in front. My Brother, Mother, and Father all pitched in on lighting, crowd control, and props. We looked every bit the professional operation, and the hospital ended up inviting us back to perform again at another event.
Creating the sock puppets and rod puppets and performing them “professionally” opened an interest in adding hand puppets to my collection. I was an avid watcher of the Muppet Show, and it seemed easy enough to create a puppet. I played with felt and cloth, creating my first character. He wasn’t exactly what I would call “Muppet-like” and I decided to write a fan letter to my favorite Muppet performer, Frank Oz. I asked him how to make Muppets. I received a very nice reply, indicating that he didn’t really know since he let someone else build them for him. He suggested I write to the head of the Muppet Making Department, Caroly Wilcox. Before I could even draft a letter, though, I received a letter from Ms. Wilcox herself. Frank Oz, she explained, had forwarded my letter, and she was thrilled to share with new puppeteers. I received patterns, suggested materials, and some techniques in written form.
With the help of the Muppets, I created my first “real” foam hand puppet. Miss Millicent was born. Miss Millicent was named after a local Children’s librarian who gave the puppet her first performance location. MM still performs in several shows today, and is frequently my “go to” puppet when I need to do something quick without having time to build, write or rehearse!
After a year on the road with Up with People, I decided to move to Orlando, Florida. During the tour I had visited Disney MGM Studios and was given an opportunity to see behind the scenes at the black light show “Little Mermaid” there. It was hinted that if I moved down to Orlando and auditioned, I would have a really good chance of making it into the show. I moved, and since there were no auditions being held at the time, ended up working at the Muppet Vision 3*D as a hostess. I welcomed people into the theatre, interacted with Statler & Waldorf, and greeted guests as they arrived at the attraction. I even ended up “performing” for representatives from Jim Henson’s family once, receiving a nice complement from Jane Henson (Jim’s wife) herself!
Disney was only a part time job, and I was lucky enough to get a full time job as a walk around character at Sea World Orlando. After the first couple of years, Sea World decided to open a big new show. The show, which would be a “Vegas-style” revue themed around the water, would include singers, dancers, special effects, and black light puppetry created by Errol Mannoff. I auditioned and was welcomed into the opening cast.
During my year in “Big Splash Bash” I operated a large “floating” stingray, a dancing “waiter” fish, and a 7-foot tall crooning lobster. Unfortunately, halfway through the first year the destruction of the city of Atlantis caused a bit larger disaster than the show called for, and a stray spark from the pyrotechnic effects gave the poor lobster the “hotfoot.” All that was left when the fire was put out was one antennae and a shoe!
Since Mannoff had decided that he wanted nothing to do with the show any longer, we rebuilt most of the puppets ourselves when they broke down. He did eventually replace the lobster, but we became responsible for replacing and repairing puppets that were damaged after that.
The show had other difficulties as well, and the puppet segment, which should have been magnificent and magical, had become stale and unprofessional. No one maintained performance quality on that portion, and fish frequently swum out on stage upside down and backwards. After a year of listening to me push for improvements to the puppet scene, the show’s director decided that the best way to deal with the problem was to end MY contract. It had become an uncomfortable situation. When the lead puppeteer left the show, they replaced him with a temporary stage hand that I had trained and who had been cast only because he was physically tall and strong enough to hold the 10 foot tall Grouper puppet in one scene, rather than promoting me. It was apparent that the puppeteers had become a boy’s club, and I wasn’t welcome.
I went back to performing as a costumed character, and the show closed a few months later. While performing as a character, one of my colleagues casually mentioned that he had decided to hire a talent agent to represent him doing freelance costume work. He’d mentioned his friend who was a puppeteer, and suggested that his agent book the two of us in puppet shows together.
The result was StoryQuest Theatre. Although our “agent” never booked a single show (I did get paid for some freelance costume work myself, though), we were prepared for success. I wrote several scripts, and created the puppets. We performed on a volunteer basis for “Give Kids the World,” a local charity that provides theme park visits for disabled and sick children and their families. We even did one paid gig at a Christmas party.
Eventually, our little act broke up, and I lost interest in performing for awhile. I had injured my shoulder doing character work, and puppetry hurt when we did shows of any real length. I missed working with a human partner out in front (Kukla Fran & Ollie – style) and it became too much bother to haul the stage and gear by myself. I retired.
A few years ago, a friend found out I had been a puppeteer. She was organizing a charitable golf tournament, and needed children’s entertainment. Would I help? I would. Miss Millicent came out of retirement with me, and we performed our signature puppet play “Stone Soup” to great applause and gratitude.
More recently, another friend innocently asked if anyone knew a puppeteer. “I do!” I told him, and he commissioned a puppet for an independent film he was making. This caused a spark in my puppeteer’s brain (and no lobsters were harmed this time). I missed it. I missed the foam and the glue. I missed the creativity. I even missed performing.
“Give Kids the World” is still down the street, and my Brother knows someone who does PR there. I have a place to showcase my talents. I have decided not to pursue puppetry for profit. I don’t want to do it professionally anymore. I enjoy it too much to worry about making money at it. Instead I will build, for me. I will perform, for me. I will create, for me. And if other people benefit from my puppets, well so be it! That’s what the Muppets taught us when they freely shared their patterns and materials with a struggling puppeteer all those years ago. Puppets are for sharing!
That’s right, isn’t it Miss Millicent? You BET it is, Diane!