This is a little object puppetry workshop created by me and my partner, Presley Ellison. The goal is to create an easy introduction to thinking about the way an object's shape, size, color, and movement influence its character and performance. We ran through this workshop with participants in our first Trash-to-Life Puppet Night, and it definitely works much better being directed alongside a group. But, you are welcome to try the exercise yourself, or use this as a template for your own workshop (in that case, please email me, I would love to know more!). Each step should take a minute or so, don't overthink it!
- Step 1: Pick an object. Don't think too hard about it. If you can, tell people to pick the object before telling them the theme.
- Step 2: Start with a simple vocal/movement warmup.
- Step 3: All of these objects are secretly dogs in disguise. Without moving, look at your dog. What kind of dog is it? How does the size and shape of your dog tell you about its personality?
- Step 4: Any dog needs a front end and a back end. Pick up your dog. How does it stand? Which end is which? How does its personality affect how it stands?
- Step 5: Time for a walk! Now, without moving from the spot, how does this dog carry itself? Does it move fast, slow? Let your dog explore around your immediate area, without interacting with other dogs.
- Step 6: The walk is over. Where are we? We’re at the dog park. And there are so. Many. other. Dogs. here. Hold tight to the leash! Let your dog notice its neighbors. How does it feel about being in such a large crowd?
- Step 7: Finally the leash has been taken off. Let your dog interact with the dog next to it. Be nice! Biting will get you kicked out of the dog park.
- Step 8: I have an important announcement. I have just received word that there is an imposter, a cat has infiltrated this dog park. But you do not know who it is. Your mission, to sniff out this interloper. (If you wish, you can secretly choose one dog to be the "cat")
- Step 9: Okay, okay, the cat has been captured. We can all calm down. Remember when I asked what the personality of your dog was? I want you to think about that, one word or core personality, like if your dog was one of the seven dwarves.
- Step 10: Right now, your dog is 100% that thing.
- Step 11: What does 50% of that word look like?
- Step 12: What does 20% look like?
- Step 13: Now what does 0% look like?
- Step 14: 150%!
- Step 15: Now you're done! Take a minute and think about how you came to the conclusions you did, and anything you might have discovered.
My favorite thing to think about with puppets, what to me is most important and sets them aside from any other medium, is that you have full control over their construction visibly and structuraly, and both of these inform the character and performance and vise versa. A puppet made of flowy light fabrics not only looks etherial and soft, it also moves with a wide range of motion, and requires precise control. A puppet made from wood allows you to have more detail in the carving and painting, but may be limited in the range of motion, and even be heavy enough to affect how you perform with it. The materials, the type of joints, and the style of manipulation are all variables that give puppets an infinite expanse of possibility.
Next time you pick up or see a puppet, think about how its contruction was built for the type of story it is telling. Some are big, some are small, some allow for fine and subtle movements, some create big sweeping spectacle, some allow for many to be used at once. There are many, many different kinds of puppets, from object puppets to rod puppets, hand puppets, direct manipulation, shadows, infinite kinds that defy explanation or boxes, and even more waiting to be invented!