This past Saturday I began my puppetry internship with the Open Hand Theater (OHT) in Syracuse, NY. OHT was founded in 1980 and provides adult and children puppet theater, puppetry workshops, a summer circus camp, educational outreach programs, and more.The red-brick castle built in 1890 houses OHT as well as the International Mask and Puppet Museum, which opened in 1999. Their current museum exhibit is Puppet Arts of India.
I volunteered for Tom Knight's 11am showing of Library Boogie. Tom sang songs like The Garbage Monster where a scary beast puppet made entirely of plastic, aluminum, glass and paper materials i
s destroyed through the environmentally friendly act of recycling, and The Solar System where Tom placed what looked like the skeleton of an umbrella strapped to a bike helmet on his head and began adding planets to the umbrella arms, one by one, all the while spinning around and rocking his head.
The thing I enjoyed most about the event was that it existed, that there is a place where imaginations run amok, where men with silly blue felt birds on their hands can sing "So my pretty purple pumpkin was squished
just like a squash" to a row of dancing children, where adults screech like monkeys and children flit about from one shiny toy to the next. For whatever reason, the show made me think of a pufferfish sitting on the deep sea floor, looking extremely silly with those baggy cheeks and that fixed gaze, just sitting there, stone-still. A shark slid by and that pufferfish rounded out, filling its elastic tummy with too much water, sucking us all in past his slimy fish lips; first the blue felt bird, then the children, metal chairs, some live zebra I hadn't noticed before, then me. It was so quiet inside the belly. Then the music cued up, and, oblivious to the world outside, we all clapped loudly as Tom shouted: Alligator jump, Alligator slide!
s destroyed through the environmentally friendly act of recycling, and The Solar System where Tom placed what looked like the skeleton of an umbrella strapped to a bike helmet on his head and began adding planets to the umbrella arms, one by one, all the while spinning around and rocking his head. The thing I enjoyed most about the event was that it existed, that there is a place where imaginations run amok, where men with silly blue felt birds on their hands can sing "So my pretty purple pumpkin was squished
just like a squash" to a row of dancing children, where adults screech like monkeys and children flit about from one shiny toy to the next. For whatever reason, the show made me think of a pufferfish sitting on the deep sea floor, looking extremely silly with those baggy cheeks and that fixed gaze, just sitting there, stone-still. A shark slid by and that pufferfish rounded out, filling its elastic tummy with too much water, sucking us all in past his slimy fish lips; first the blue felt bird, then the children, metal chairs, some live zebra I hadn't noticed before, then me. It was so quiet inside the belly. Then the music cued up, and, oblivious to the world outside, we all clapped loudly as Tom shouted: Alligator jump, Alligator slide!
2 comments:
kids make it happen, man. Imagine the scene with no children present. Oh, and no drugs. It's funny how we imagine we are teaching them something.There is a quote from someone (and I know I'll get it wrong)about how children come into the world as a completely full vessel and our job is to make sure none of it spills. I am eternally pleased with the possibilities of your new project. I know you'll approach it with a steady hand...
Another war story. I once had a guy working for me that carried hand puppets in the squad car. When he arrested someone and placed them in the back seat, he would get in the front seat, turn around and face the prisoner, and then raise the puppet just above the seat back. He would then proceed to have a conversation with the puppet about "should we" or "shouldn't we" take the prisoner to jail. When the first two citizen complaints came in, we thought they were nuts. After the third, we thought the copper was nuts. Needless to say, he took our offer to quit and go on stage or wherever.
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