Christmas show

You won't want to miss this season's brand new marionette extravaganza: "Christmas Around the World." Elf Jingle gets the ride of his life when he can't resist Santa's magical time-and-date-keeping gizmo.

His trip is your passport, too, for a whirlwind tour of such countries as Sweden, Ireland, Germany, Mexico, Gambia and Italy -- among other places! (Just think: You won't have to take off your shoes or pass through a metal detector.)

The flight leaves at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 5 and Dec. 12 as well as 2 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 13 and Tuesday (yes, Tuesday) Dec. 29. Note: there is no performance on Sunday, Dec. 6, during Hazel Green's Christmas Walk. But we just might be in the parade that day -- if it's not 20 below zero.

Tickets are $5 for adults and $4 for kids 12 and younger. We don't sell tickets ahead of time, but if you want to reserve seats for a large group, please do call ahead.

Puppet Getaway

Puppeteer friends: And the hobby horse could yodel!!

Last weekend, we had our favorite annual puppet getaway: The Great Lakes Region (of the Puppeteers of America)'s annual "potlatch" --- a sharing, like a potluck -- at Pokagon State Park in Angola, Ind. It's at the Potawatomie Resort within the state park. (See lovely sunset against the bare branches above.)

Puppeteers gather from all over the region: Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin, as well as a few from other states and even Ontario. There were about 100 people.

This is Chuck's 4th and last year as director of the region, so he is in charge of this mini festival. As a potlatch, puppeteers are not paid but agree to share their performances and knowledge (through workshops). We performed our "Bunny Cotton-Tail" show and Sandye did a short workshop on writing press releases for the changing newspaper scene.

We had a wonderful time reconnecting with puppet friends, including Joan McCarthy, of Madison, Wis., who came with her husband, John.

The lodge is on a lake in the woods. We added an extra day to our long weekend this year in order to enjoy walks in the woods (it was 60 degrees!) AND the indoor pool, which, of course, makes it perfect for Chuck. Sandye likes looking for bargains at the puppet flea market.

Then it was back to Benton to begin work on our brand new Christmas show!

Halloween Show

We will celebrate the Halloween season with a brand-new marionette show, "Frankie's Halloween Story."

Performances will be 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 24; 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 25 and an extra matinee -- 2 p.m. on Halloween, Saturday, Oct. 31.

Big green clumsy Frankie has always called Witch Hazel Green his Ma. But this Halloween, he's decided he'd like to know exactly where he came from. It's a big mystery that Hazel and his aunties, the six dancing witches, try to keep secret from him. He's determined to find out, with help from the Goblin, Mr. Bones Jangle and the Pumpkin Head Ghost, among others.

Tickets are $5 adults and $4 for children. Audience members are welcome to come in costume.

September Update

The top photo is our recent program at Dubuque's Voices from the Warehouse art exhibit.

The middle photo is a scene from "The Cloud Princess," an African fairy tale.

The bottom photo is from the Labor Day parade. Chuck is inside the giant Witch Hazel Green and 2 of our granddaughters walked along throwing candy to the kids while I carried the big Pinocchio.

Whew! With our Halloween shows only a month away, I thought I'd better post a quick update.

We're working on:

"Frankie's Halloween Story"

11 a.m. & 2 p.m. Sat. Oct. 24

2 p.m. Sun. Oct. 25

AND 2 p.m. Sat. Oct 31

More about that in a future post!

Meanwhile, I must tell you all that our Labor Day weekend shows were a rousing success, with wonderful crowds -- we pretty much had a full house on Sunday, which forced us to set up some more chairs at the last minute. That's a problem we love to have!

No one complained that we raised the ticket prices by $1 at the last minute. Thanks!

Our 5th anniversary in the opera house passed with little fanfare. But then last year, we made a big deal out of Labor Day being our 15th anniversary in puppetry and the 5th Labor Day in our wonderful home. Pretty soon we'll be marking another special milestone -- more about that later!

While we practiced "3 Bears etc." for that weekend, we were also furiously working on "The Cloud Princess" on our new handpuppet/shadow puppet stage. That brand new show was ready to roll the next weekend at the Bell Tower Theater in Dubuque -- a paying gig!

We were pretty nervous about our debut there with a "world premier," but all went fairly smoothly (except that the shadow puppet Cloud King's arm fell off which just about gave us a heart attack. Hopefully, we covered it up quickly).

Anyway, the Bell Tower folks loved it and have invited us back next fall to do another show.

"The Cloud Princess" is available to travel, as is our spring show, "The Tale of Bunny Cotton-Tail."

As if THAT wasn't enough to keep up busy!!!-- The NEXT weekend, we did a little marionette show, "Marionette All-Stars" at Dubuque's Voices from the Warehouse with a storyboarding workshop to follow. That was kind of a last-minute gig that was on a freewill donation basis. A small but enthusiastic crowd attended -- many of whom have not been to the opera house. So maybe we made a few converts.

This crazy month isn't over yet! This weekend, we travel to West Liberty, Iowa, to be part of the Eulenspiegel Puppets' Children's Festival. Monica Leo (who performed "Willy the Woolly" at our Day of Puppetry) asked us to lead the puppet parade that will cap off a day of puppet shows. it's all outdoors and last year it was gorgeous. This year there's a chance of rain. We're bring the Chinese dragon and the 6-segment caterpillar and a few other creatures.

Labor Day Weekend Show

For our 5th anniversary in the Hazel Green Opera House -- can you believe it?! -- we are proud to present our whimsical take on three fairy tales rolled into one wacky adventure:

"3 Bears, 3 Pigs, 3 Billy Goats Gruff"

11 a.m. & 2 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 5 and 2 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 6

at the Hazel Green Opera House, 2130 Main St.

Note that we are raising the ticket prices by $1 --- that is, $5 for adults and $4 for children. It is the first time we have raised prices in 5 years. Our costs have gone up and, even in these stressful economic times, I think you'll agree that these are still bargain prices.

You're going to love the story. Goldilocks skips her way from one fairy tale to another in a case of mistaken identity. The kids will love the animals and their favorite bedtime stories and we're sure adults will chuckle at the jokes that go over their heads.

It's a fun way to say good-bye to summer. Hope to see you there!

Summer workshop in Benton

Where has the summer gone?!

I can't believe it's June since I blogged. Then again, yes, I can.

Here is a picture of the 4 fabulous marionettes that my summer mini-class at Benton Elementary School made. I taught the class as part of the summer rec program. We met for an hour and a half each morning (I arranged to spread a day of vacation across the week, so that I could do the workshop during the day.)

Only 4 kids signed up, but that proved to be just right. They had to apply Paper Clay (a papier mache product) to heads, hands and feet that I pre-cut. After a night of drying in our garage where the temperature was toasty, the body parts were dry. They sanded and painted. They chose the fabric for the bodies and I sewed the bodies (trunks), which they stuffed (with pennies in the gottom to weight down the butts). We made the arms and legs out of toilet paper rolls that we rolled tighter and covered with fabric.

They had to sew the arms and legs to the body. "I CAN'T SEW!' they wailed. But they sewed.

I made the wooden controls and then allowed the last day for the complicated process of stringing. I pre-cut the fishline and even knotted certain lengths ahead of time and that really worked well.

The end result: a Cowardly Lion and Tinman (they couldn't talk the other 2 into making the Scarecrow and Dorothy), a Princess and a Dallas Cowboy.

If they've survived the last couple of weeks (the puppets, that is), I hope they'll walk with me in the Labor Day parade.

I view the whole experience as a test run for workshops to be done at the opera house. I think adults would enjoy this project. Also, it would be good to have more time (we were pretty rushed every day) and do it as a weeklong Puppet Camp.

Any thoughts?

Have Bunny Will Travel

We took "The Tale of Bunny Cotton-Tail" to Platteville on June 14 to perform outdoors -- another first for the traveling stage -- at the first-ever Bunny Cotton-Tail Day at the Mitchell-Rountree Stone Cottage. The cottage was the ancestral home of Laura Rountree Smith's family. She was the Platteville author who wrote the Bunny Cotton-Tail books. 

Here is our stage in the great outdoors and a photo of our Bunny Cotton-Tail meeting up with a real bunny, a Cinnamon, not a Cotton-Tail, at the petting zoo.