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!