Anatomy of a One-man Puppet Show

[by request]

The Show:

Act I: Dog's Sleepless Night (based on Little Bunny's Sleepless Night by Carol Roth) wherein Dog (a recurring character in the shows) visits one friend after another in an effort to get to sleep.  Squirrel eats noisy nuts in bed; Skunk accidentally "sprays" (this calls for some horrid "air freshener" aerosol for artistic verisimilitude); etc.

Act II: The Eye of the Needle (based on the Yupik tale retold by Teri Sloat) wherein Amik's grandmother sends him out to hunt and he's so hungry that he eats all the catch (including a walrus and a whale) and drinks up half the ocean. When he returns to the hut, he's too big to get in, but his grandmother brings him in "through the eye of [her] ivory needle."  Consequently, everything he has drunk or eaten is squished out and floods the hut.  This requires a squirt bottle that can shoot a thin stream of water a good ten feet [a dish detergent bottle is perfect for this] for optimal squealing of delighted children.  I don't think I've ever done a puppet show without this.  I highly recommend it.  The fish gush out as well and for that I used the fish die-cut to make many many many colorful tissue paper fish.  I grabbed a handful and as I let go, I beat the air with a handfan to spread them out.  They didn't go as far as I'd hoped, but the effect was good enough.   And then the whale belches up more water and more fish, so I got to repeat it for more squealing.
This episode in the show was a logistics nightmare because of Amik's parka.  The velcro fastener decided to attach itself to everything on Amik except the other side of the parka.  It drove me mad.

Sing-Along: Molly Malone (continuing on the fish theme).  I had the lyrics printed off onto a poster and posted to the side of the theatre.  In the pause before it, while children were scrabbling to get fistfuls of tissue fish, I told them to hold onto those fish for the last story.
No one sang. Oh well.

Act III: Have You Got My Purr? (based on the book by Judy West and if I'd had my act together, I would have pulled these books to show to the audience and talk about them before I started) wherein Kitten goes to each animal at the farm in turn to ask them if they have her purr.  Even when two people are doing this, there was not a whole lot of time to change puppets.  This was the fault of the recording (all the shows are pre-recorded and mixed with sound effects and introductory music on a professional grade Akai mixing board that just happens to be lying around our house - ahem) and there was nothing I could do about that short of stopping the tape, but I'd still need a third arm for that.  At the last minute I decided that Kitten would just not have a hand up her bottom so that I'd have a free hand to put the next puppet on.  Mind you, this is all visible to the audience, but I wore black and explained before I started that the black meant they weren't supposed to see me; they should just pretend I'm not there.

Act IV: Hot Hippo (based on the book by Mwenye Hadithi) wherein Hippo goes to ask the god Ngai to let him live in the water where it will be cooler.  I stopped the tape and told them that when Ngai mentioned his "little fishes" and the bell tinkled, they should wave their tissue fishes or toss them in the air.  Ngai grants permission on condition that Hippo come out at night and Hippo offers to show his mouth is empty and stir up the water with his tail to show he hasn't hidden any bones.  He happily runs back to the water (blue tissue paper with cuts to give it shape stretched across the stage floor which was also used for the shore where Amik caught fish and that vanished bit by bit as he drank up the ocean) and jumps in with a mighty splash that requires one last squirt of water.  Hippo dances happily and I pointed at his bottom when the tape said "The End!" to much laughter from the adults.

Recessional (to get the audience up and moving out): Choo-Choo Boogaloo (love that Music for Little People stuff!)

Special effects: Anything that will reach out from the theatre into the audience will delight them.  The squirt bottle is a must.  The air-freshener for skunk spray is a crowd pleaser, although it takes a few seconds before the scent actually reaches them.  Some type of confetti fanned out (snow, flowers, bugs, the fish) is popular, but messy.  The fish - well, the children were delighted to pick them up and even throw them away for me!  Will use that more.

I know not everyone has a huge mixing board or a computer program that will mix layers of sound and then burn it to a cd.  However, I achieved similar effects years ago by using two tape recorders.  I'd put the sound effects (or dialog that would be going on at the same time as other dialog, as in an argument for example) on a tape and then play it back while I was recording the main dialog.  It's not as clear and timing is fiddly, but it works.  Always keep in mind while recording the amount of time it takes to change scenes (cover with music) or to change puppets (imagine going through the motions in your head ... then add a bit).

Voices: Dog was the first puppet I bought.  He got on my hand and wouldn't get off.  I came up with a voice for him and I can only use that voice for Dog (it's based on a co-worker from Boston).  Some puppets are like that.  Cat, purchased at the same time as Dog, just has a cat nasal drawl.  Skunk has a French accent while Hedgehog was English.  Hippo and Bear sound a bit too much alike, but being in different "plays" no one notices.  Pig sounds like Ronald Colman, sort of, and Cow like Marilyn Monroe (which I key into before recording by singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" and Pig has "'Tis a faa, faa bettah thing I do than I have evah done").  Fox wasn't in this show, but when he appears, he sounds like Bob Dylan.  Come to think of it, most of them sound like Bob Dylan.  I'm sure you know people with distinctive speech/accents you could harvest for characterization.

Theatres:

We have this beautiful dedicated theatre now.

The Purple Stage

We started with a stage made from two stepladders and two one-by-six planks.  It was "portable" if you had a full-size station wagon.  My Corolla station wagon was too short.  We staple-gunned velcro around the edges of the planks and sewed the corresponding velcro to the purple cloth (which was on sale apparently)  The cloth on the upper plank only goes down as far as the next plank and should be made of thinner material so you can see through it.  As long as there is more light on the stage side, you won't be seen.

You can also purchase lightweight portable theatres.  I was looking for the one we had to share a link, but I can't find it.  It is made of the fat PVC piping used in plumbing and fits in the artificial Christmas tree storage bag I found on sale.  To me, the important part is the stage level.  I don't want to have to hold my arms over my head.  I prefer a stage at elbow level.  What I liked about the purple stage that I couldn't say about the portable one was that the planks were flat and sturdy and held props and tired arms.  You don't get that with PVC.  I had to adapt props for a rounded stage base by attaching strips of paper that drape over the rounded pipe and are weighted on the other side by something equivalent.  Oatmeal boxes were great for this.  They not only provided ballast, but you could put additional props in them that made it look like they were in the actual prop.

Never go on the road without a long extension cord.  Never do puppet shows outside.  Forget it.  You would need a professional PA system instead of a nice, cheap boombox and the outdoors will still swallow the sound.  And I can tell you from experience that outdoors is just plain hazardous.  I've had pinecones drop on my head.  And don't even mention bugs or heat.

Happy puppetry!

Stepping Out of the Comfort Zone

It was probably five years ago I resolved to add more music to my storytimes.  I'd done the "add more puppets" and the "add more creative dramatics" but I wanted to add music.  And I didn't just want to give the boom box more to do.  I had purchased for the library some rhythm sticks, enough to handle 30 kids, each with two hands.  Yep, that's a lotta rhythm sticks.  I acquired research material (Musical Story Hours: Using Music With Storytelling and Puppetry by William M. Painter) and presumably read it.

Last year, around January, I apologetically announced to my brilliant fingerstyle guitarist husband, Husbob, that I had ordered a ukulele.*  It was my plan to learn to play it a bit and use it in programming.  So far I've learned "Lola" by the Kinks and a bucketload of Beatles' tunes.**  I like to think my storytimes are slightly subversive, but I can't see a "Lola" singalong.

But today I launched the first in a month-long string of storytimes where I will put weapons and noisemakers in the hands of small children.  It wasn't half bad.

 

There was a bit of the Kodo drummers playing on the boom box as a processional.  I started with the "If you're happy and you know it" song, because I always do and this year I am finishing with the "MackChicken Dance" by Greg and Steve - because I like to have something familiar to open and close.  I chose three books, and augmented one with items for the flannelboard (for my pre-school walk-ins who like to put things on and take things off the flannelboard): Bring on that beat by Rachel Isadora, The cha-cha chimps by Julia Durango, and Max found two sticks by Brian Pinkney.  I printed off some little chimp faces from clip art and then one larger one I stuck a bow and some lips on for the momma chimp.

After the Brian Pinkney book, I got out the basket of rhythm sticks and began with the warning that We Do Not Hit Other People with them.  We did "This is the way we tap our sticks," "She'll be tappin' round the mountain," and "The sticks on the bus go tap-tap-tap."  Then I put the Kodo drummers back on for some freestylin'.  No one hit anyone else and they were all happy to put the sticks back in the basket.  I sent them away with 2 popsicle sticks each (a quieter version) and their teachers said that they would decorate them when they got back to their class.

I was thrilled to hear that.  I hand out stuff to other groups that come to storytime and they just send it home with the rest of the stuff they've accumulated during the day.  They are definitely going to get better than hand-out sheets if I'm doing something more elaborate with the walk-ins.

I had time constraints, but we got out early enough for my co-worker to set up for her baby storytime and they looked like they were having fun.  Next week I'm going to add some jinglers and shakers and we'll make jinglers with jingle bells and chenille stems and shakers with cups, rice (maybe), duct tape, and stickers.  And the moms will hate me.  Yaaay!

Here is a link to Richard G's Uke website which has a great selection of ukulele songs, including some Jefferson Airplane. Woot!  "Teddy bear's picnic" and the like can be found on Dr. Uke's site.  The ukulele came from Music for Little People, which has terrific kid cds and occasional deals on instruments for kids but I'm currently annoyed with them and the company that does their fulfillment. 

 *Oh, look!  That's him on the left in the video bar!
**Okay, and also "Inch by inch: the garden song" and "Teddy bear's picnic."  And I can do the opening chords to "Smoke on the water" - which people my age recognize and find hilarious.