Disney’s acquisition of the Muppets caused a great deal of stir among Muppet fans. The company was immensely adept at using synergy to promote its various properties:  Promoting their movies and TV shows in the Disney parks, the theme parks in various TV specials and parades, and cross-promoting their characters across all forms of media from TV and movies to music, books, and toys/gifts. There was excitement in the air. Muppet fans eagerly awaited the ambush of Disney promoted Muppet releases. They had to wait a little while.

As with any major acquisition, the Muppets were tied up in existing contracts when Disney purchased them. Disney had to wait a bit, to allow those contracts to run their course, before doing anything extensive with the properties. In addition, the Disney company had another problem. The Muppets were no longer relevant to today’s culture. They had been absent long enough that newer, younger generations were not as familiar with the characters, or as interested in getting to know them. Older generations of fans remembered the Muppets with nostalgia, but could Disney recapture that fandom AND gain new fans at the same time in a culture that grew up with CGI rather than puppetry? Disney attempted as early as 2005 to rejuvenate the Muppet brand, but the company had not yet figured out how best to do so, and instead most projects either died on the drawing board or were lost among the flotsam and jetsam of entertainment promotion.

In 2008, Disney stepped up efforts to reintroduce the Muppets. It’s taken nearly a year to do so, but it really seems as if their efforts this time were successful. Take a look at the recent YouTube video of the Muppets performing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody. The video quickly went viral, and now has over 7 million (yes, that’s MILLION) hits, with nearly 40,000 reviews and a five-star average rating. It was a trending topic on Twitter for a couple of days, and has been the subject of many a blog post (including on this blog!). The Muppets have a history of over-the-top parody and just plain fun. This video brings us back to those days of Muppet humor and Muppet glory.

Now we’re beginning to see the true value of Disney synergy. Kermit the Frog performed a duet with Disney Channel star Tiffany Thornton during the 2009 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Macy’s Boston Tree Lighting ceremony. Last year’s Christmas special, “Muppets: Letters to Santa” has recently been released on DVD and the music is available in MP3 format from Amazon.com. (The special re-airs this Friday on NBC as well)

In the theme parks, the Muppets are also getting some much needed attention. Rumor has it that Muppet Vision 3*D is due for a makeover to Disney Digital 3D in the near future. Updates to the pre-show and queue areas of the attraction in both Disney Hollywood Studios in Florida and Disney’s California Adventure in California are also rumored. David Gumpel, who directed the original pre-show, has posted in his blog that he directed a new pre-show for the updated attraction in November of 2008, but he had no further information on when it would debut. In October of 2009, the queue area of the attraction received new movie parody posters. With titles like “Beak-e” and “Hammah Montana”  the new posters are representative of what happens when Muppet humor meets Disney humor face on!

One can only hope that the current excitement over the Muppets will lead to bigger and better things. Updates to the existing theme park attractions, future performance videos and guest appearances, and an untitled movie in the works for some time around 2012 appear to be in the Muppet’s future. If they continue with the same quality as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” they should snowball into a return to popularity for the Muppets. After all, everything old is new again. Although computer animation is popular, Disney has returned to the good-old-days with hand-drawn animation in “The Princess and the Frog” and 20th Century Fox has returned to old-fashioned Claymation (puppetmation) with “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” both to critical acclaim and audience approval, so perhaps the time is right to return to good, old-fashioned puppetry as well. I certainly hope so!

You can view the Parody posters here:

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.

First, the show’s original concept was good. The research in child development and curriculum before the show aired, and the continuing research into what children were gaining from the show after its debut, helped to keep it alive for all these seasons. A house built on sand won’t last long. You need a solid foundation. The same is true with educational television. A solid foundation is what has kept this show standing all these years.

Secondly, the show is flexible. Change is inevitable, and not accepting change can mean the difference between survival and obsolescence. Sesame Street has continued to research new educational trends and studies, and has continued to survey those who watch, thus ensuring that the program is always fresh, and always current.

The show has changed a lot in since I watched it in the early 90s. I was studying to be a teacher at that time, and wanted to be a professional puppeteer so I watched the show from that perspective. In reality, it was also still engaging and entertaining, even to a 20-something adult.

Yesterday’s premiere was not nearly as engaging. I spent the better part of the evening trying to figure out why. Was it because I’m now a 40-something adult? I doubt that. I still watch as an educator and puppeteer, even though I’m no longer a teacher. I don’t think my personal tastes have changed that much. I still like humor, and still enjoy good puppetry and animation.

The show still has a sense of humor. It still tells jokes over the kid’s heads for the benefit of their parents. In Abby’s fairy school, the word door can be rhymed with “Zsa Zsa Gabor.” Not too many kids caught that (or understood it). Even Elmo’s joke about everything he encounters having a “frog in its throat” is really more for the grown ups watching than the kids. The show still understands that parents are watching and yearning to be entertained along with their children.

There were fewer Muppets, or so it seemed. Cutting the show into only a few longer segments leaves less time for random Muppet moments. Ernie and Bert as claymation were not as bothersome as I thought they might be, but I missed their Muppet forms. Grover makes a brief (and typically silly) appearance, and even Kermit has a cameo, but for the most part the Muppets featured are Elmo, Big Bird, Murray, and a few Muppet animals discussing habitat. With the exception of Murray, the Muppet / Kid interactions are gone. Gone are the days of Erik rhyming with Grover it seems.

I finally decided, though, that my problem with the show today from an adult standpoint was that there were no surprises around the corner. It was predictable. There was a street segment, then today’s letter, then something else, then something else again. The original format, with its live segments interspersed with “commercials” selling letters, numbers, and concepts was more fun.

There, I said it! I have a short attention span! I found myself wishing that they would cut the individual segments shorter, interrupt them with the unexpected. Sesame Workshop has explained that the show’s current style is indicated by current studies in education. Children, it seems, can watch longer segments, and even get confused when story-lines are interrupted or broken up. The constant switching from letters, to street scenes, to cartoons, to numbers, to Muppets was distracting to children and they lost focus on the main lessons.

I can agree with this. The same, however is not true for adults. We like variety. We get bored if a show isn’t engaging us directly. Sesame Street’s original quick-cut format was entertaining to us as adults because we weren’t the intended audience, so we didn’t need to focus on the lessons. Hopefully most 20-somethings already can count to 10 and understand near and far. Our focus was on entertainment, and variety entertains. We never knew which clip was coming next. Would it be a favorite?

I can see Sesame Street surviving another 40 years, and even more after that. It has proven to be capable of following new trends and new understandings about how children learn and develop. What I don’t see happening in another 40 years is an anniversary celebration to rival the one this year. Blogs all over the Internet jumped on the bandwagon with this celebration. They are full of lists of top ten favorite moments. One even did a top forty.

There were a lot of classic moments to choose from and we all had our favorites. The current format doesn’t seem to be made up of moments. Short story segments are better for learning, but the repetitive, colorful, musical, and whimsical “commercials” and snippets from the Sesame Street of my day are much more memorable. How many kids will fondly remember Abby and friends chasing a gerbilcorn or Elmo discussing frogs. I may be wrong, but those elements seem like lessons you learn and then move on.

I’ll continue to watch sporadically this season. This was one episode out of many, and hopefully some of the classic clips are used in the show still. The classic clips are out there as well, on the Sesame Street website, YouTube and even in DVD and video format. A new DVD released yesterday celebrates 40 years of the show with commentary, classic clips, and behind the scenes interviews and is a must-have for any fan.

It will be interesting to see what the future brings. As I mentioned previously, Sesame Street continues to be well-researched. Changes in format are necessary to keep kids up to date with current educational and curriculum trends. I only hope the producers don’t forget that for every child watching, there’s probably an adult in the room too. And those children will eventually grow up and share memories with their children. Keeping the show fresh and engaging will help, but keeping a bit of nostalgia alive won’t hurt either.

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.

I grew up on Sesame Street. I was 3-years-old when it debuted (Sesame Street taught you the math you needed to figure out my age! Just thought I’d point that out!). It was aimed at children between 3 and 5, so I spent 3 years with it as I grew up, learning my ABCs and 123s.

Later, in college, I studied to be an Elementary School teacher. I knew by my Sophomore year that I didn’t really want to teach. I was a puppeteer and very interested in children’s television. I had to do a major paper for a class my Senior year. I decided to do it on educational TV. At that time, there was no cable (at least not as we know it), there weren’t 100+ channels to choose from. Video tapes were not as easy to come by and DVDs weren’t even a thought in someone’s head. All kid’s TV was cartoons on Saturday morning, adult shows that were considered “not inappropriate” for kids, and Public Television. Sesame Street was the center of the hub, and all kid’s TV orbited around it.

I wrote my paper on just that subject. There was Sesame Street, and then there was everything else. Sesame Street was a major research project, three years in the making. It wasn’t just a TV show, it was a study in curriculum, presentation, child development, and educational philosophy. And if Sesame Street was at the core of children’s television, puppetry was at the core of Sesame Street.

From its inception, Sesame Street was intended to include puppets. Jim Henson was really the only name mentioned in early developmental meetings. One article commented that early developers had said that if Henson had declined the offer to come aboard, Sesame Street would not have included puppetry at all. He was that important. Think of your favorite characters from the show, back when you were a child. I’ll bet they were Cookie Monster, or Grover, or Ernie & Bert, or Big Bird. Can you imagine that happy street without the puppet characters? Me either!

There’s an old saying that trees that don’t bend in the changing winds snap and break. TV shows are like that too. They have to bend, or change, to keep up with new trends. Sesame Street is also a study in just how possible it is to keep up with the times. We old timers (did I just call myself old?) fondly remember the days before Elmo, or grow nostalgic for Mr. Looper (um, Hooper), but I can only imagine in another 40 years, OUR kids will be shaking their heads at the digital holo-imaging television sets in their living rooms, telling THEIR kids – “Hey, in my day there was this little red furry monster…”

Without the puppets, would we all have lived on Sesame Street, at least for a few years of our lives? I highly doubt it!

Happy Birthday Sesame Street, and many more happy returns!

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.

Materials:

• Styrofoam Ball (usually 3″ or larger)
• 1 – 1″ diameter Dowel rods cut into 12″ lengths
• 2 – 1/2″ diameter Dowel rods cut into 12″ lengths
• White glue
• A large cotton sock or stocking (or similar material) in any color desired (white is preferable if painting)
• Needles and thread
• A few rubber bands
• Felt, yarn, google eyes, etc.
• Fiber fill stuffing
• A square of fabric approximately 30″ x 30″ or slightly larger
• Craft paint in various colors (optional)

Begin by measuring and marking the 1″ dowel rod at 1″ and again at 1 1/2″ from the end with a marker or pencil. Carefully push the rod into the styrofoam ball up to your first marking, being cautious to push the rod into the styrofoam as straight as possible without overly enlarging the hole. Remove the rod. Pour a small amount of white glue into the hole in the styrofoam. Push the dowel back into the same hole in the styrofoam, pushing past your first marking and stopping at the second, again ensuring you don’t overly enlarge the hole. Allow the glue to dry.

While the glue is drying, prepare your puppet’s hands. Dab a small amount of glue into a small amount of the fiber fill, and place that on the end of each of the 1/2″ rods. Cut a small square approximately 2″ x 2″ out of your cotton material. If you are using a large sock, cut your squares out of the top part. Wrap the cloth around the fiber-fill-glued end of each rod and secure in place with a small rubber band. Allow the glue to dry.

Once your styrofoam head has dried, wrap a large square of cloth or pull one of the large socks down over the ball. Pull the “skin” taut around the styrofoam. Use fiber fill in small tufts to create features like cheeks, chins, eyebrows, etc. by stuffing it up under the cloth. Once your head is smooth and shaped the way you want it, sew the skin in place with a running stitch around the cloth at the base of the styrofoam ball, gathering it as you sew. Cut off any excess cloth at about 1/4″ past where you’ve secured it.

Now that your puppet head is formed, you can decorate it as you wish. Use paint to add features, or glue on felt or plastic eyes, etc. Sew or glue ears, hair, or whatever your character requires onto the cloth covering the head.

Find the center of your square of cloth by folding it in half, then in half again (quartering it). Cut a very small hole in the center of the cloth. Unfold the cloth. Fold it in half and sew up each side (sew on the wrong side then turn the cloth rightside-out) leaving about 1″ unsewn at the fold on each side. You should now have a rectangle “pocket” with a hole in the middle of the top. Slide the head rod into the hole in the center of the cloth. Center the head so it is facing forward correctly, then sew around the “neck” catching a bit of the sock material in your seam as you whip stitch around the neck.

Slide your hand rods into the holes on either side of the cloth so they hang down inside the pocket. Remove the rubber band and sew around each hand, securing the cloth to the hand “skin” with a gathering whip stitch, just as you did with the head. Repeat for the second hand.

You can decorate your puppet’s costume with buttons, or add decals or accessories like scarves, jewelery, or neckties as you please.

Of course, you can alter the puppet pattern however you see fit. Don’t need hands? Let the fabric “fall” around the center rod without sewing up the sides. Only need one arm? Only sew up one side of the costume, or position the puppet’s head at one end and the arm at the other instead of cutting a center hole. Use a white or flesh colored sock or cloth for the head/hands and sew features on, or paint the entire head with craft paint for a different look. The possibilities are endless.

As far as timing goes, the biggest challenge is waiting for glue (or paint) to dry. If you are very limited on time, you might wish to pre-glue the heads onto the rods and pre-form the hands. If you are making puppets over time in a multi-day workshop, you can use the first session to design characters, then end with the gluing of the heads and hands. The second session becomes assembly and decorating, and any final sessions an opportunity to perform with the puppets after they’ve dried completely. In the design phase, I use a worksheet with a rough puppet shape and allow my students to draw on the features. A notes section on the page encourages them to write up a brief characterization for their puppet (Is he funny? sad? Is she old or young? etc.). We put the pages up around the room as reference while we build our puppets.

The resulting puppets in this simple project are not only attractive, but reasonably sturdy as well. You can get quite a bit of expression even without moving parts. The cost of producing a simple puppet like this is minimal as well, so it works well for tight budgets.

*I owe you pictures to demonstrate what I’m writing about, but all of my puppets are currently in storage so I’ll have to take some time to recreate the process. Hang in there – I’ll post them as I take them!

~Diane

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!

I was going to say “no excuses” but then I realized I was just about to follow up with a bunch of excuses, so “some excuses!” ‘Tis rent week, so money is not exceptionally abundant. I decided to hold off doing my build until next weekend, when I have more cash for supplies. I’ve gotten into the middle of a build before and run out of something or needed something in an emergency. I decided it was safer to wait until I could purchase a few things I knew I would need, and have some cash on hand to buy the things I wasn’t planning for, before I jumped into the point of no return and began gluing.

Add to that some family things (my 18-year-old dog passed away last week, and although I think we’ve moved on from the active mourning stage, my younger remaining dog is now decidedly moving into the “happy-to-have-your-undivided-attention” phase!) and sheer lack of will-power, and I didn’t exactly get as much done as I intended.

Building begins in earnest (poor Ernest!) next weekend. Wish me luck. Really!

One of my favorite Halloween books for storytelling purposes is “The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything” by Linda Williams.

The story involves an old woman who is approached by several disembodied articles of clothing as she makes her way home. One by one she admonishes the clothing, telling them that she’s not afraid of them. The clothes, and finally a pumpkin-head, follow her home, where she finds a use for them, turning them into a scarecrow to scare away the birds.

For the puppet version, I use Miss Millicent, my resident “little old lady” puppet. A quick shopping trip to a thrift store turned up matching pairs of pants, shirts, hats, shoes and gloves, in extra large sizes. I begin my storytelling with my front of house “helper” handing out one set of the clothing, including a plastic jack’o'lantern head, to members of my audience. As the story progresses, these audience participants will be the puppeteers of the floating clothing.

Miss Millicent tells her tale, sharing a story of a previous Halloween with her audience. As she mentions each article of clothing, she encourages the child puppeteering that article to come forward and attempt to scare her. In the original story, each item has its own sound effect (One shirt goes SHAKE SHAKE, one pair of pants goes WIGGLE WIGGLE, etc.) and she encourages them to use those sounds and act them out – the sillier the better.

Since Miss Millicent is not afraid of anything, she tells each of them in turn that she’s not frightened, and the child is encouraged to hand their prop over to the helping hand.

Miss Millicent then tells the children that the clothes followed her home. Miss Millicent wonders what to do with the floating clothes that seem to want to scare somebody. She suddenly has a brilliant idea! One by one, the assistant hands the shirt, pants, hat, gloves, shoes, and jack’o'lantern to Miss Millicent, who whispers her idea to them, then passes them back stage.

After all the clothes are all offstage, Miss Millicent lets the audience in on her idea. She’s encouraged the clothes to become a scarecrow, to scare the birds away. As she tells them about her plan, the “clothes” reemerge, on an actor playing the scarecrow! The scarecrow is of course dressed ahead of time in the second set of clothes, with a painted pumpkin face.

We first performed this skit at a nursing home for a Halloween party for the families of the residents. My mother bravely volunteered to serve as the scarecrow, even allowing me to paint her face as a jack’o'lantern! My front of house assistant, a member of the nursing home volunteer staff, gleefully handed out clothing to the kids and gave them their cues. One of the fun things about this story as a puppet sketch is that it really ISN’T scary. In fact, the punchline is just how NOT SCARY the clothes really are, at least to little old ladies (and kids). This makes it an excellent story for younger audiences or mixed audiences where smaller children might be easily frightened. Audience participation makes the story move along nicely, and kids can even team up on things like shoes and gloves to allow everyone to play a role.

Of course, the real star of the production is the scarecrow! Finding someone exciting and enthusiastic who is willing to pop out in outlandish costume at the end of the story is a plus. My mother was wonderful! Having been a school teacher previously, and used to her daughter’s puppetry (my family frequently gets sucked into my shows in one way or another) she was a fabulous scarecrow. As an added bit of audience participation, you could have the kids flap their arms like birds, pretending to be “scared” by the scarecrow, or you could incorporate a crow puppet into the show if you have enough puppeteers (or hands). In my case, the scarecrow made “his” appearance, mingling with the audience, shaking hands and wishing everyone a happy Halloween. “He” then handed out treats and sent everyone on to their next event for the evening.

There are lots of Halloween stories and books out there, but this one is really well-suited as a puppet show. It involves audience participation (always a plus) a not-so-frightening plot that’s terrific for younger audiences, and a fabulous “surprise” at the end. If you’re looking for a book to turn into a puppet script, I recommend this story. Even if you actually create puppets for all of the “characters” it lends itself wonderfully to the world of puppetry!

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!

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.

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Next we’re on to the actual performance!

The StoryQuest dragon shows off his puppetry skills with his “Page Puppet.” The image was created using free 3D rendering software from Daz Studio. Post rendering work was completed using GIMP, another free program.  Sir Dragon’s puppet is a morphed version of one of the Daz Millenium Kids figures.

Not bad for a beginner, huh?