Although they never really went away completely, it seems as if the Muppets as we old-timers knew them are back, and in full force! When the Walt Disney Company acquired the Muppet properties in 2004, the Muppets had just about faded into obscurity. They were seen around on the occasional TV special, interview show, or direct to DVD movie, but had not been able to reach a broad audience for awhile.
With the 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street now behind us, and this season underway, I wanted to share my thoughts about yesterday’s season premiere. Let me preface my thoughts by saying this: It’s been a long time since I watched Sesame Street from start to finish. I’ve watched segments, seen clips, and read reviews, but I hadn’t actually watched the program on TV in 15 years or more.
This was episode 4187. Yes, you read that right. The four thousand, one hundred and eighty-seventh episode. What causes a show, any show, to last that long? I think there are two answers.
Google helped Sesame Street celebrate it’s 40th Birthday today with a rather unusual (but charming) “Google Doodle.” And what better way to celebrate than with the show’s iconic character, Big Bird, providing the ”L” in the word ”Google?”
Forty years?! Wow! Just think about it. For forty years this show has been teaching children to count. To spell. To sing. To recognize letters and colors and shapes.
If you’re looking for a simple project to introduce puppetry to a group, or just want to create good looking quick rod puppets as extras for a show, these simple rod puppets are just the thing.
The materials listed below are merely suggestions, as you can really do these puppets in many different ways and with lots of different materials, depending on your needs or your group’s skill level or project time.
Some of the best ideas for puppet scripts come right out of literature – and specifically out of fables, fairy tales, and folk tales. The Russian tale of Stone Soup is probably the most versatile, and most requested, puppet show that I perform. It is popular because it is simple, interactive, and has a wonderful lesson built right in.
Another benefit of Stone Soup is that it really only requires one puppet, and can easily be adapted to fit nearly any puppet character you care to use or create. I frequently use Miss Millicent, mostly because she is a hand & glove puppet which gives me the ability to handle props more easily, but it can be done with nearly any type of puppet from marionette to hand & rod puppet, or any puppet you wish. Because there’s only one puppet character, and because there’s not much of a set required for the show, it is a really easy show to pack and perform. As my version of the show requires a great deal of audience participation, it is always helpful to have a front-of-house helper or assistant, but even that is easily adaptable. I’ve used teachers, parents, and even older children as my helpers in the past, with great success, and since the helper doesn’t have to recite any memorized lines it only take a few moments to prep an instant assistant. Of course, you can script a character-actor as your assistant if you wish to. I’ve also performed this tale in a “Kukla, Fran, & Ollie” style with a live actor and puppet actor interacting with the audience and that can add an additional element of character.
For those unfamiliar with the story of Stone Soup, it’s also relatively simple depending on the version you find. In the original tale, a soldier is returning from battle and stops in a small village hoping to find something to eat. The villagers, led by an old woman, are afraid of having their supplies wiped out by strangers, and are thus reluctant to part with any of their goodies. The soldier is clever, though, and tells the old woman that since she has no food to share, he’ll share a secret recipe he learned on the front lines. He picks up a large stone from her garden, and urging her to put a pot on the fire, drops it in. He tells the old woman that he will make Stone Soup. Stirring the pot in front of the puzzled old woman, he raves at how good the soup is beginning to smell. Of course, it would smell better if they only had carrots to add to it. Suddenly, the old woman remembers some carrots she has stored in her root cellar. As the other villagers approach to see what the stranger is cooking, one by one they are inticed to provide the ingredients – meat, potatoes, a soup bone, etc., until eventually the pot is full of a beautiful soup. At this point, the soldier urges everyone to share a bowl of the soup together. In the end, he secretly pockets the stone, left over in the bottom of the now-empty pot. It will surely come in handy in the next village!
For my story, I use a large Halloween candy cauldron for my soup pot. It’s big, and since it’s plastic it’s not heavy to haul around to shows. I have fitted my pot onto a wooden dowel so it can be attached to the front of the stage, but as long as the kettle is within reach of both the puppet and the audience participants, it can really be placed almost anywhere you wish.
The audience becomes the villagers, and my puppet character the “soldier” in the story. Depending on the puppet, my character is just traveling through and in need of a meal. I have used everything from bean bag veggies made out of felt to plastic decorative veggies purchased at a local craft store. I switched to the plastic ones when one of the children in the audience innocently blurted out “I think this is a potato but I’m not sure!” in the middle of the show, pointing out the need for more realism in my vegetable props! I have my assistant hand out the props to the audience prior to the beginning of the show, identifying them by name as they’re handed out to eliminate any confusion when they’re called for by the puppet. I also hand out an empty plastic pitcher to add pretend water to the soup. The only prop I don’t hand out is the stone itself. That is preset onstage in view of the audience.
As the story begins, my puppet indicates the desire for a meal. But where to find one? No one in the audience has anything for a meal. (Of course, the audience has been prompted to refuse to share their props at first.) The puppet finds the stone and drops it into the pot with a loud “clunk”. Using a hand & glove puppet allows me to use a real stone (I buy the decorative kind from aquarium supply stores or garden stores usually as they’re the right size and shape, but you could use any largish stone you find as long as you clean it up really well). If I have to use another variety of puppet, I either use a papier mache stone on a rod and a sound effect, or have my assistant help by dropping the stone in the pot for me.
Watching the stone “boil,” the puppet character is thrilled. Of course, it would boil faster if there was only water in the pot. But where will we find a pitcher of water? Enter our audience member with the pitcher. I use a small step-stool to help smaller children reach the kettle, and I usually suggest giving the pitcher to an older child since it requires a bit of imagination to carefully pour the imaginary water into the kettle without spilling it.
I try to invoke all of the senses at this point: The soup smells wonderful, but would smell better with onions; it sounds wonderful, but would sound better with carrots; it looks wonderful, but would look better with potatoes; it tastes wonderful but would taste better with peppers. As each request is made, the appropriate audience members are called to come up and drop their props into the pot. I carry enough veggies for everyone to have one with smaller audiences. In larger audiences, I ask pairs or groups to share and come up together. Often, this can be done with older siblings helping younger ones recognize that their vegetable has been requested and assisting them with bringing them to the stage.
Once our Stone Soup is finished, my puppet pulls out a bowl and spoon, ready to eat. Suddenly realizing that so many others helped in the soup’s creation, the audience is urged to hold out their imaginary bowls too, so they can share in the soup. A symbolic wave of a soup ladel usually does the trick to serve everyone!
I always end the show with my puppet character thanking everyone for helping to make the soup. It is the simple act of sharing that has brought us all together as an audience, and the simple act of sharing that has turned an ordinary garden stone into a delicious pot of soup! I end by having my assistant fish out the stone, which my puppet character decides to keep for later. You never know when it will come in handy again. Puppet and stone exit the stage, leaving my assistant to do one last walk through the audience collecting any stray props that might have been missed.
As I mentioned in the beginning of this article, I have performed this same skit a variety of ways. It adapts well to Halloween (we make a Witch’s Brew instead of soup, and I use eyeballs, spiders, pumpkins, and the like instead of vegetables) and just about any character you want (I typically use Miss Millicent who is an older woman, but I’ve also used a Witch, a generic male puppet character, and an actual soldier puppet). There’s a lot of room to improvise, so it’s a terrific show to do last minute when there’s not time to refresh lines or rehearse. In fact, Stone Soup is not only an audience favorite, but it’s one of my favorite shows to perform as well!
Diane began performing as a puppeteer when she was only six years old. Her first marionette, Clippo the Clown, a gift from her Grandmother, accompanied Diane to school every year through college. As an adult, Diane began making and performing hand puppets. She writes the shows, fabricates the puppets and props, performs all of the puppetry, and even serves as her own lighting and sound engineer!
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