NPF ‘09 Gallery NPF ‘09 Itinerary

Read yesterday’s post here.

Day Four: Cute Dogs, Wolves, Witches… Lions, Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Today started horribly, with all of a few hours of sleep - thanks in part to a late night of shows, and partly to taking ages to write up my diary post and reviews. I slept in as much as I could knowing that getting as much as possible would defray any stress/travel anxiety; it didn’t really work. I didn’t even have enough time to get a proper breakfast before my first workshop, which started at 8.30am. (Remember, Georgia Tech is a huge campus, and you have to allow 20-30 minutes of time to walk to workshop locations)

The workshop to start off the festival was Word-working: Dramatic Dialogue for the Puppet, run by Conrad Bishop and Elizabeth Fuller. The 1.5 hour class went through the basic concepts of using language in puppet shows. It was a combination of discussion, short writing exercises, and short improv dialogues in groups/pairs. Some of the highlights/gems: 

• What makes something funny is the surrounding events and/or reactions of the characters, not necessarily the lines themselves
• You should write for the style of puppets you are going to use, not for the human who will be speaking it
• Paraphrasing one line, or finding a new way to say it, can change the meaning/emotion/motivation of that line
• A good line implies its gesture (eg. "I don’t know" implies a shrug), and a different gesture changes the meaning/emotion/motivation of the line
• An obvious one, but bears repeating: the character’s need drives the text/plotline
• If the audience has a low attention span, repeat, repeat, repeat
• Restraints on the character (ie. Wile E Coyote trying to catch Roadrunner on other side of canyon) affects the relationship of the characters and the possible ways to resolve the scene

Whilst I didn’t get what I’d hoped out of the workshop - mainly, I have great difficulty going from an image in my head to a puppetry script of good length, something I don’t have problems with when working on ‘normal’ theatre - but I did find that I solved a few issues with an idea I’ve been brainstorming for a script. 

The next workshop was Costume Puppet Character Design and Performance by Kevin Pittman. I’ve not done anything involving costume puppets before, and this was the reason I took this workshop. Mainly it consisted of Pittman taking us through each of his designs (he had the puppets with him, and started the workshop by wearing a white wolf costume puppet and doing some performance) and explaining basic precepts/building/performance issues of working with costume puppets. The gems:

• Costume puppets are different to mascots: mascots don’t offer as much animation/movement, and aren’t really for creating performing characters, but stilted caricatures (I’m paraphrasing, so I hope that makes some sense)
• Think differently about creating costumes: instead of having that old standby of the person play the back end of a horse by bending over, create a riding box (a la elephant riding) so the puppeteer can stand up
• SAFETY FIRST - the costume must be able to be removed easily and quickly by the puppeteer; if they need help in an emergency, that’s not a good thing
• There are different types of costume puppets, from mouth (Bear in Big Blue House) or rod (Big Bird), or quadraped (the Landriders in The Dark Crystal, although they are also stilt-walkers)
• As you design/build, you need to consider the materials, the puppeteer’s comfort, the movements required by the puppet/character, and the working conditions (ie. outside/inside, winter/summer, etc.)
• You also need to consider sight and breathing. It gets hot and stuffy in costume puppets
• Padding and/or building around the puppeteer creates the dimensions of the character; in other words, build the costume to fit the body, not the other way around
• Anatomical design can be fudged, in preference to comfort and ease of movement from the puppeteer’s point of view
• If the puppeteer gets tired, they should find some way of resting whatever limb/whatever needs relief, but by finding something in keeping with the character (ie. a funky character can chill out by leaning against a wall, which can relieve some of the gravity and strain of keeping their arm up in the air)

We got to see a lot of costume puppets, including: a stork with cable-controlled beak; the white wolf (quadroped); a mouth puppet dragon; a mouth puppet kangaroo (who’s accent and patter confused me. Do I sound like that? ); and a quadroped goat. Although we didn’t go into a lot of detail of how these puppets are made, there were lots of good tips and for a beginner like me, it was quite interesting.

One thing that strikes me about the National Puppetry Festival is the shortness of the workshops: at UNIMA 2008 (a festival for which, UPDATE 30 July 2009: the site is no longer available), most of my sessions were at least 3 hours long (some were longer, some were shorter, depending on what the session involved). I think that the National Puppetry Festival organisers sacrifice more workshop time in order to fit in more performances. I’d prefer that to be reversed. If this is a festival by puppeteers for puppeteers, I really don’t care to be sitting in a theatre for 75% of the day - don’t get me wrong, it’s important to see what each other is doing, and to be challenged by what others are doing, or to just enjoy and support other people’s work. It’s just that if you’re going to go to a festival to learn, then the program needs to be more focused around that. But then, I’m looking at this from an outsider’s POV: for most of the attendees, I’m guessing their main aim is to be around their peers, catch up, and to refresh or tweak their skills. 

… Anyway, once this class had finished, it was lunch time. I had decided to go to the Puppet Store; my mum really wanted one of @staceyrebecca’s finger puppets, and yesterday when I was looking at them (hey, she offered!) I noticed only one of the ones my mum wanted. I thought it was a good idea to try and buy it before anyone else did, so I headed down to the Store. 

Located in a small room, it was jam (!) packed of all sorts of stuff. Finger, glove, rod, shadow, muppet-type… even a range of marionettes were there. (Oh, there were a couple of awesome ones being put up as I was paying, and I went to take some pics of them but they had been sold by the time I got my camera out!) There were books of all kinds, mainly stuff you can find at Amazon or at the Puppeteers of America online shop, but some were secondhand programs from previous festivals. I bought a copy of last year’s workshop notes. There were Wayang Golek puppets, plenty of Folkmanis, lots of Muppet stuff, and even some sealed bags of fabrics. I picked up a table-top puppet wooden control and a spool of black string (for marionettes), along with a present for my sister and dad - plus my mum’s pressie - and a @staceyrebecca finger puppet for myself… Oh, also a DVD of the last NPF, which I’d tried to buy about six months ago online, but the POA’s site rejected my credit card. I spent quite a bit of money… and I forgot two things (presents for my friends Jeany and Susan), but it was all stuff either that I could use or was for someone else. 

Then was lunch, and happened across Einstein’s (not something we have in Australia, but I keep hearing it recommended), and for my sister, the following is for her: I had a turkey bagel, with lettuce, a soft cheese, tomato, and probably something else. Also a blackberry lemonade, which was nice, but way too sugary for me. 

Lunch being over, it was time for the Blue group to head to the Ferst Centre for the first of the afternoon performances (the red group went elsewhere, and then we swapped).  You can find the links to the reviews below in the related links area. The afternoon performances were: Alonzo’s Lullaby and Danny the Diver (two short shows by the same group, hence the one review for both); and The Box? A Show of Feelings.

By this time, I’m feeling quite exhausted and in pain - my feet were practically normal when I woke up, but the combination of heat and sitting/walking all day means they’ve swollen up pretty well again - so I head back to the hotel.

Finally, the day finishes with yet more shows: The True Story of the Three Little Pigs; Panther & Crane; and the festival’s Potpourri, where anyone can sign up and do short skits, I’ve missed - it’s late and three hours of sleep is taking its toll now. Again, find the links to the reviews below.

Read next day’s post here.

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