Puppetry

I find puppets and puppetry very fascinating and a great tool to use in theatre. During this unit we were invited to participate in a puppet making project with first year students studying on the Technical arts and special effects pathway. The project is led by Grant Hicks. We work in groups of 3-4 and each member makes a puppet character in collaboration with the fellow students in the group. We develop a short performance that we will then present in a puppet show on Friday 13th May in the WCA theatre. The theme of the puppet show is “Circus, Carnival & The Grotesque”.

We had a lecture about the history of puppetry by puppet maker Tim Garrett.

At the beginning of our puppet making we had a two-day workshop with puppeteer Mark Down from Blind Summit theatre company. He gave us really good advice and we made some sketch puppets that we then developed further in a workshop with puppet maker Keith Fedrick. Both Mark and Keith are extremely talented and it has been a great peasure working with them.

Workshop with Mark Down.

First rehersal of our performance. My group decided to base our performance on a tune that my sister composed, played by a violin and an accordion. The story is about lost love backstage in the circus, and the puppets are musicians and a ballerina. Password: puppet