Live from NPF '09: Day Five

Read yesterday’s diary post here.

Day Five:

I slept pretty well last night, which I’m very grateful for; although even today I found myself falling asleep in the chair waiting for the second afternoon show. That’s pretty big for me, as I don’t fall asleep during the day, surrounded by noisy people, with lots of overhead light… that is, unless I’m really exhausted!

First on the agenda today was Lightweight Marionette Bodies using Papier Mache, with Kevin Menegus (otherwise known as Fratello Marionettes, who I’ve somewhat ‘met’ before in mentioning him here). I got there somewhat late, mainly because the campus is so large and the signage so bad, that I almost ended up in the wrong place.

Hanging from a podium on the "teacher’s desk" was a couple of marionettes - check out the Flickr pics for more - and Menegus gave us a short semi-demonstration of building his marionette bodies. He started by showing us his scale drawings of a cat, a profile drawing and then one from the front. Then he took us through the process: a foam body is carved out - floral styrofoam - using the drawings as a template. From there, it is sculpted/sanded, and then a short piece of dowel with a screw eye inserted at the neck and butt. These will be for attaching the strings later - the dowel is glued in place with wood glue (Elmer’s). A fishing weight is also inserted inside the butt area, to allow for more natural movement in the legs/hips. Then the foam body is given a coat of papier mache, dried and sanded. A second coat is added, dried and sanded. At this point, wire with a loop on the end is inserted into the shoulder, the excess removed, and the other end curled into a loop - this allows for attaching the arms, although Menegus points out that dowel and a screw eye works just as well. A third layer of papier mache is then added, dried, and sanded. The body is sealed using shellac or gesso.

Although it wasn’t a building workshop, Menegus had some materials with him, and showed us some of the steps using some pre-built items. It was good to have that, so that we could clearly see how things work; diagrams in this situation wouldn’t have been as good, and at any rate, they had been somehow left out of our workshop notes. Some of the gems:

Use calipers to measure as you carve/sculpt, so you make sure everything is even
Don’t carve/sculpt when there’s overhead lighting; it reduces your ability to distinguish areas that need work. Instead, work with cross lights
Rip your paper before wetting it/gluing it; ripping the paper means no hard edges, and will create a smoother finish on the puppet
Create a snug-fitting wig for your puppet by using cling wrap and wrapping the head. Secure it with some string, and then make a papier mache skull cap. Remove the cling wrap and the papier mache at the same time

Menegus also discussed his neck attachments (a nylon cord that runs from the head, through the screw eye on the body, and back into the head again), his leg/hip attachments (a cloth piece that runs up from the thigh, over and through a U-shaped wire - whose ends are inserted into the bottom of the body - and back to the thigh were it is stitched in place).

Although I enjoyed the info - especially as I’ve not really done marionettes before, especially those using foam I have no idea how to do - I was really hoping to… you know, actually build a puppet. Oh well, at least it was informative, and I’ve got workshop notes so I can go home and make my own. I guess the good thing is also that I could probably make it quite well indeed, now that I know what I’m doing.

my puppets … The second ‘workshop’ of the day was Meet the Artist, run by Allelu Kurten (a very well-known puppeteer, but she has no website, hence no link). This is actually a forum, where Kurten interviews a range of puppeteers; in today’s case (there’s another forum tomorrow), it was Hobey Ford (who we saw perform later in the day; find the review linked below under the ‘related posts’ heading), Paul Mesner (from yesterday’s A. Wolf Story),and Molly and Annie (no last names provided) from Nana Projects, also from yesterday.

We started with Ford, whom whilst I hadn’t seen before, have heard of him considerably via American puppeteers. He talked a bit about his current show, and how he came to make his ‘Foamies’, a selection of foam-based rod puppets (more about this discussed in the review of his show); also about where he currently lives. Then Kurten asked him what he would wish for in puppetry. He replied that (I’m paraphrasing here), he’s gone to scriptwriting conferences and been blown away by most of the performances. And that he comes to puppetry festivals, and isn’t blown away by most of the shows. It was an interesting thought, because I was thinking a similar thing yesterday; that all of the shows I’ve seen so far have technically produced good puppetry - that is, the design and execution of the puppets themselves - but are obviously lacking some scriptwriting and/or editing skills.

At this point Ford left to go set up for his show, and Mesner took over. He discussed yesterday’s show and the development of it - going through different costume puppet heads, the music, the false endings, the demonstration after the show, etc - as well as the size of his company and their current repertoire. He also discussed a weird project his company runs, whereby they produce PG13+ performances based on a Law and Order idea; each ‘episode’ of the show is designed to appeal to the teen/older audience, has a rotating cast of puppets from his other shows, etc. His wish for the puppet world was more money :cool:

Then Molly and Annie discussed their beginnings; they do lantern puppetry, that is parade puppets during annual Halloween festivals. They developed a large gathering of interested people, and wanted to capture that audience for the future. So they developed an overhead project shadow puppet show, and it grew from there. They do both outdoors and indoors performances, and even use a tent to perform in when the weather gets bad. They also explained their creation process, from initial idea to colouring the puppet ‘cells’. Their wishes also involved more money (actually, more money for less work) for the puppetry community.

Finally, the floor was open to questions, and there was discussion on budgets and marketing, business models and how they went from a fledgling company to working full time. This kind of depressed me; everyone here keeps saying they’re working on a shoe-string budget, but then they’re also doing full-time puppetry with their own companies and have to knock back work, and have their own studio/space/warehouse and can still pay other people a little bit of money. That’s not shoe-string; not when you’re like me and am living at their parents house… Anyway…

my traffle item By this time it’s lunch, and before getting some food I finally check out the Puppet Exhibition and Traffle (raffle). Do check out the pics on Flickr, there’s heaps of goodies. There were marionettes - lots - glove puppets, rod puppets, table-top puppets, even a bunraku head and a Vietnamese water puppet (a dragon), and a huge Sicilian marionette. Seriously, I had no idea Sicilian marionettes were that big. It was about two thirds the size of me! Best of all, my shadow puppets were on display, I think one of only two shadow puppet displays there. Many of the puppets were museum pieces (provided by the International Puppetry Museum), or from Phillip Huber’s own collection; he’s also the organiser of the exhibition.

Then I went off to the Traffle area, and decided to bid on one of the items; a Puppeteers of America bag, selection of books, and something else, I forget what. It’s the only thing I was really interested in bidding on, although there was an odd range. Books, antique and collectible posters, glove puppets, some Wayang Kulit puppets, Muppet merchandise, and even a ‘toy theatre‘ version of The Globe - which was enormous! (See the pic!) Plus, there was my very own strawberry shadow puppet on display; I stole a look in the box that you put your raffle ticket into - each offering has its own box - and saw quite a few people had bid on it :biggrin:

Lunch was quickly over, as I spent the rest of it in the Puppet Store, buying up what I had forgotten yesterday. I saw some great stuff for my prize for the puppet competition, as well as a marionette controller which I bought for myself.

Then it was time for the afternoon performances; The Rainbow Bridge and Other Tales and Cinderella in Muddy York. From there it was back to the hotel for a rest, and the evening performances: The Dragon King and El Hombre Cigüeña. Find all of the reviews linked below under the related posts heading. (For those following via RSS or Twitter, I’m writing the reviews backwards as it’s easier on my memory)

A short note whilst I remember: I’m not sure if it’s just me, but the people attending seem to be mostly builder/performers. I’m an odd one out, I only do building.

Read next day’s post here.

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