While some of the characters in this show, such as Kismet, have changed very little over the last year and a half, others have gone through lots of transformations. Darwin would probably be unimpressed with the random ways our puppets tend to mutate, as it tends to follow comments along the lines of “Does it look right?” rather than any natural selection. Here are some photos tracing the evolution of one object puppet, the Swirl Dancer.

I added the wood cutout to the melon baller. The way the circles at the top and bottom echoes the spiral is nice.

Painting the swirl blue helps and the purple yarn hair brings focus to the top circle. The little purple scarf adds color.

Puppets can be fragile. After a couple of early rehearsals, the wooden swirl broke off. We still liked the hair, but we wanted to give her a skirt–at this point we were all thinking of her as a dancer character. But a skirt made from what? A sponge? Paper party blowers?

Genna ended up making a skirt from a scrunchie like fabric and layering it with a sparkly filigree decoration.

She’s perhaps a bit more sparkly and princess-like than when she started out, but we like her!