While attending college at Illinois State University, I was lucky enough to enroll in a Puppetry Arts class. The class was fairly basic, and included some of the rich history of puppetry, some basic performance skills, and some very basic puppet-making. One of the “projects” we did involved very simple “Balloon Marionettes.” We did a group performance using these very simple puppets as part of our assignment.

After college, I had the fortune of traveling with the group “Up with People” for a year. We traveled all over the United States and Europe, performing in a musical show and performing “community service” activities in the places we visited. One of the things we frequently were asked to do was to appear in local classrooms, discussing our group. If you are unfamiliar with “Up with People,” their main purpose is to bring the world together through music and performance. We frequently discussed diversity and tolerance of those who are different when we went into those classrooms.

I was asked by a school teacher in Germany to “teach” a class for her while I was visiting. She wanted a simple workshop that would tell her students what the group I was traveling with was all about. I had told her that I had studied Elementary Education in college, and had even taught for a short time. I also had told her I was a puppeteer. A light bulb went off over my head, and a simple puppetry workshop was created.

The first step? Build the marionettes!

Balloon marionettes are among the simplest of puppets to build.

Required Materials:

• Assorted Balloons (multiple shapes, sizes and colors are best)
• 2 Identical balloons (Any color, size, shape is fine, but the two should be the same)
• Card-stock
• Construction paper, tissue paper, or any type of drawing paper
• Crayons, markers, or paint
• Scissors
• Clear tape or glue
• Yarn or string
• Popsicle sticks or unsharpened pencils
• Anything else you’d like to use for decoration (buttons, beads, etc.) as long as it’s small enough and light enough to be taped or glued to a balloon.

For the instructor’s puppets, make two identical marionettes. It is easiest if you make one ahead of time, then duplicate it’s creation as instruction for the class.

• Blow up the balloon. Make sure it’s large enough to work with, but don’t over inflate it or it will pop. If a balloon breaks, try again with another! Knot the end.

• Draw feet onto a piece of card stock. If working with younger students, it can be helpful to have them pre-drawn and ready to cut out. The feet should be slightly larger than the balloon. Older students can get creative and make webbed feet, paws, shoes, sandals, or bare-feet. Whatever they feel inspired to create!

• Cut out the feet and use a small dab of glue or a loop of tape to attach them to the bottom side of the balloon (the side away from the knot). This should allow the balloon to stand up on it’s own. (Remember that glue takes awhile to dry. If you are short of time, use small pieces of clear tape to hold the feet in place.)

• Draw, paint, or cut out eyes, noses, ears, and other features. Painting or drawing directly on the balloon takes longer to dry and can cause the balloon to pop if you press too hard. If your marionette pops, it is easier to rebuild if you don’t have to draw or paint a second time. Use clear tape or a dab of glue to fasten the features to the surface of the balloon.

• Cut a piece of yarn or string so that it is long enough to extend from the floor to about waist high. Again, string may be pre-cut for younger students. You may also choose to use a table top as a stage. Make your string enough to extend from the tabletop to about shoulder high if you do.

• Tie one end of the string to the knot on top of the balloon. Fasten the other end to a popsicle stick or unsharpened pencil as a control.

Performance is rather simple with a balloon marionette. Walking involves a “bouncing” movement. Practice bouncing your marionettes, turning them to speak to one another, and generally moving them around. Lengthen or shorten strings as necessary and reattach any features that cause problems.

Next we’re on to the actual performance!

Now that you’ve built your marionettes, it’s time to perform your show! The concept is simple and mostly improvised. The following “script” is a loose outline only:

Instructor:  (using two identical balloon marionettes - Puppets enter stage and begin to interact)  How are you doing? How have you been? What game are we playing? etc.

Each student enters the scene with their marionette, one at a time.

Student:  (to the instructor’s puppets) Hey, that game looks fun! Can I join in? (or something similar)

Instructor:  No, you can’t! This game is only for blue balloons (or whatever). Go away! You’re too round (or red, or your eyes are too big, or you have bare feet, whatever).

The student takes their marionette to another part of the stage away from the insructor’s puppets, and begins to “play” (bounce).

One by one, each student approaches the instructor’s marionettes, is turned away, and goes to join the ever-growing group of puppets “playing” (bouncing) over to the side.

Instructor:  (in conversation between the two identical puppets)

Puppet 1:  Hey, this game is getting boring!

Puppet 2:  It sure is. What else can we do?

Puppet 1:  I don’t know, but look at that group over there! They sure look like they’re having a good time!

Puppet 2:  They do! I’d rather be playing with them!

Puppet 1:  Me too! Do you think they’d let us?

Puppet 2:  I don’t know. Let’s ask them.

The instructor’s puppets “bounce-walk” over to the group

Puppet 1:  Hey, your game looks like fun! Can we play?

Puppet 2:  Yes, we’d like to join you!

Either as a spokesperson for the group or all together, the students should welcome the instructor’s marionettes into their group. The entire class then ends up “playing” (bouncing) together in a bunch!

After taking bows, ask the students to take their seats with their marionettes for a post performance discussion!

Of course, the main purpose of this activity is to discuss diversity. Depending on the age of the students, and where you are teaching this workshop, you may want to ask some follow-up questions to get discussion going.

• How do you think your puppets felt being told they weren’t welcome to play because of their color or shape?
• Why was the group at the end more appealing than the two puppets playing together alone?
• Have you ever been in a situation where you weren’t welcomed because of who you were?
• How did you feel?
• What did you learn from this workshop?

The best part about doing a simple workshop like this is that, when you are done, each student gets a marionette to take home as a reminder. The puppets are simple enough to make that you can create them and perform in a reasonably short amount of time.

It is helpful to have a few backup puppets pre-made in case a puppet pops during the performance. This allows everyone to participate.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this simple puppet workshop on making and performing balloon marionettes. If you use it, please share your results! We’d love to hear about it!