A few pictures from the rehearsal process of Fabulas Mayas at GALA Hispanic Theatre:
The setup behind the shadow screen, with projector and puppet tables.
One of the backgrounds for shadow puppets, drawn by Amy.
Cast member Jose Pineda, trying out one of our percussion instruments.
Playing with a shadow puppet on the projector.
The cast, director and stage manager who somehow all managed to wear blue on the same day.
We’ve been hard at work building lots and lots of puppets for our show Fabulas Mayas, which opens next week at GALA Hispanic Theatre. Here are a few pictures of the process:
Lots of paper mache mice waiting to be painted.
Snail’s base, getting a first coat of paint from Genna.
There are SO MANY shadow puppets in this show.
The head of a child puppet, waiting for hair.
The Light Princess, a new musical with puppetry at the National Theatre in London.
A quick note here with a VERY short September grab bag. We are in the midst of building puppets for Fábulas Mayas and battling illness as well as stubborn cardboard and dull X-acto blades. However, I wanted to highlight two puppet projects from the UK; one of which I saw in Edinburgh this summer and another which just opened at the National Theatre in London.
1. Bunk Puppets is a one-man operation with several shows in repertoire. Slapdash Galaxy, which I saw as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, tells the story of two brothers who leave their home planet in search of a new home. The puppets are shadow puppets, but projected from the front onto a screen, rather than from behind, the way all our shadow work has been created. At the end of the piece, 3D glasses are handed out and the shadows turn three-dimensional in an impressive display. If you find yourself at a festival or in a city where Bunk Puppets is performing, be sure to check them out.
2. A much larger project is The Light Princess, an original musical by Tori Amos and Samuel Adamson based on the 19th century fairy tale by George MacDonald, which just opened at the National Theatre in London. Part of the creative team worked on War Horse at the National Theatre and this new play also includes puppetry. The story of a princess who cannot cry and is in danger of just floating away, this sounds like a magical new piece that I would definitely see if I were lucky enough to be in London this fall! Amos talks about the process of writing the show in an article here.
Looking ahead to the fall and next year, we are thrilled to be able to announce two collaborative projects we will be working on next season with two different DC area companies.
First, we will be creating puppets and objects for Under the Canopy, a theater piece created for children age 0-2 by Tia Shearer and Matt Bassett for Arts on the Horizon. This project will have a workshop in early August and a full production next February. Tia and Matt have done some lovely work for little ones in the past and we are excited to get to work with them on this rainforest inspired, multi-sensory experience for families. We are looking forward to learning lots about how to best reach our youngest audiences!
We will also be designing and building shadow puppets for Fabulas Mayas, the first show of the GALita season for children at GALA Hispanic Theatre. Written by Cecilia Cackley, this bilingual show is adapted from Guatemalan fables of the Maya tradition, and features the Creator and Shaper of the world along with various animals who play tricks on each other and in general cause trouble. We are also looking at possibly touring this production to area schools in November. We are excited about sharing lots of new puppets and stories with DC this year! See you at the theater!
Our puppets Kismet and Mophead taking a break on the set.
We’re heading into our last few rehearsals before tech starts later this week. New faces, new movements and even some new puppets! We have loaded our cabinets, drawers and lots and lots of paper into the Mead Theater Lab at Flashpoint and are figuring out how Kismet’s story fits into this space. Looking back over the past months of rehearsal, here are a few (very tiny) videos of our experiments and ideas from this crazy journey.
So many things, if you are a puppeteer! After taking apart LOTS of umbrellas for various puppet projects this winter, we have a much better understanding of how they work–and why they break so easily! Fortunately we can use the broken pieces in many different ways. Here are a few of them:
We take large broken umbrellas apart and use the spokes as controls for shadow puppets.
An in-progress shot of a puppet from Cabinets of Kismet that uses the joints of a broken umbrella.
And here it is again a little further along!
Our efforts have been focused on paper puppets for the past few weeks. With the help of Matthew McGee and puppeteers Heather Carter, Amy Kellett and Russell Matthews, we’ve created some new citizens of Paper World, out of scraps from SCRAP DC, local printers and the contents of the recycling bin.
Any guesses as to how these components might fit together to form a paper puppet?
Big or small, everything is made from paper!
Not too many tools needed–just a glue gun and scissors.
Two paper friends, ready to be animated by puppeteers.
How long does it take us to build a new puppet show? Coyote Places the Stars, which is a 5 minute show, took us about two weeks from start to finish. That includes writing and recording the script, designing and creating the puppets, creating the lightboxes and rehearsing all the movement. We divided a lot of the work; Cecilia handled the script, based on an idea from Genna and cut out puppets, while Genna designed all the puppets and sets and built the lightboxes. Here are some photos from the process:
The lightboxes that Genna built. They stack to form a tower.
Puppets in process of being cut out. After they are cut, we add velcro, sometimes to both sides so we can flip them.
Between the puppets and the stencils for the workshop, the living room table got rather messy.
Finished puppets mounted on their rods with velcro, waiting to perform.
We experimented with various lights and gels to get different looks and colors on the different lightboxes.
The final sets in place, with Coyote looking up at the stars and Bear waiting down on earth.
We had a blast at Shadow Family Night at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on February 1st. Thanks so much to everyone who came, watched our show and made shadow puppets with us! Here are some photos from the night:
We had so much space in the Kogod Courtyard–and look at our brand-new sign!
Our puppet-making table, all set up.
A behind the scenes view of our puppet stage.
Lots of busy hands cutting out shadow puppets.
Cecilia and Genna performing Coyote Places the Stars.
Demonstrating the lights and puppets to our audience.
If you missed the world-premiere performance of Coyote Places the Stars at the Smithsonian American Art Museum a few weeks ago, don’t worry. We will be reprising the show (without the workshop) at the semi-annual Mount Pleasant Children’s Puppet Hour, on Saturday February 16, at 4pm. There will be five different puppet shows, as well as live music, taking place at St. Stephen’s Church, 1525 Newton St. NW. The shows are appropriate for all ages and the suggested donation is $5. We hope to see you there!
Wit's End Puppets 