Also, the capital of Rhode Island, which is where our story starts.

Dave was a stranger when he e-mailed me a week or so back.  He had heard of me from Roxie at PST, and wanted to know if I was interested in bringing a show to the Blood from a Turnip Puppet Salon in Providence, RI.  At this moment I feel I have exactly one show in my repertoire that is capable of going anywhere, and that is The First Person to Consider the Sun.  It’s a lovely show and I am happy to take it anywhere it’s invited, but it takes a lot of people to perform.  I put Dave on hold and called those people up.

Corianna and Phil said yes right away.  Tyler said no, as he’s inside a wall of other rehearsals right now.  Emily said no because she was going to Mexico.  We all paused for a moment to think about how much we’d rather go to Mexico than Providence.

Two out of four was pretty good.  I called Dave back and told him we were in.

Gaps in the casting were filled by Nina, who had done Emily’s role before, at the First Light Festival in Brookline, and Claire, who had seen the show and was conveniently standing next to me when I learned that Tyler couldn’t do it. Since Tyler normally played the role of “Man” we had a brief moment thinking we should make the puppet into a woman if Claire did his voice.  I made some repairs to the puppets, but in the end not that one.  I was okay with this bit of gender confusion.

And on Friday night we drove to Providence.

Dave greeted us, and I met Amanda, who was the stage manager.  We were sharing the stage with Ergot Players (who I later learned was led by an artist, and they had built the show out of paintings she had lying around), and Liz Joyce.  LIz, we discovered, presides over Goat on a Boat puppet theatre in New York and was making the journey to Boston the following day for the Puppet Showplace Slam.  Phil, who was on time for load in,  had a beer with her and her partner, Alex, while the rest of us parked on the snowy streets.

And when it was 10pm, and everything was set up, and we had practiced a bit, and the audience had come in, we did the show.  And they clapped.  And it felt good.

After the show we all went for a beer at Trinity Brewhouse.  Amanda and Liz and I talked about theatre and puppets and the slam network.  Amanda introduced me to her own company, Sleeping Weazel, which is miraculously based in Boston. Liz and I joked about what was to come the following night, when we were all due at Puppet Showplace for another raucous adventure.  We made friends.  I added to the sensation of feeling part of a community.

And that is how an e-mail from a stranger became a demonstration of providence.

My past self, which appears before me like this some times, is very different from my current self.  She is Trouble, with the capital T.  She has drinks at Konak with friends and sits, giggling to herself drunkenly, on the bench on the corner of Foster waiting for the 39 bus.  She flirts with the boys and the girls indiscriminately, to everyone’s confusion, and revels in the confusion.  She is confused herself.  She drinks coffee everywhere and any time, starting with it at 8am when she gets up for work, and again with lunch, and again before the house opens at the theatre, so she can pace the lobby with her blue ceramic mug (which she regrets leaving behind when she left that theatre job).  She goes to parties with her best friends, her wing-men, and they stumble home through the wet streets at dawn.

Life in Boston is different.  Call it “maturity.”  Call it “abandonment.”  Or maybe somewhere in between the two.  Add the fact that the current significant other is perhaps the most significant of all and there’s  a strong desire to do this one right, without the messes that may have happened to the previous self.  And the job here… quite a bit more decorum-inspiring to work with the religious than to work with the drinking, smoking, cursing technicians who hung out the back door with their styrofoam cups of black coffee.

The past self is in there, don’t you worry.  Adventures like that don’t just go away, and neither does the spirit that made them.  It just doesn’t come out very often any more… call it “reserved” for late in the evening on wet nights after great shows.

There’s a Web site (and if there’s a Web site you know it has to be real) called the Puppet Slam Network, which is the umbrella organization under which Slam sites exist.  It reads:

“Underground puppet slams are popping up everywhere. They feature contemporary short-form puppet and object theater for adult audiences, often late at night in small venues, nightclubs, and art spaces.  Puppet Slams exist at the nexus of vaudeville, burlesque, and performance art through the intersection of experimental theater, art, music, and dance as a viable alternative to the culturally homogenous digital mass media.

Spearheaded by IBEX Puppetry, The Puppet Slam Network aims to catalogue, connect, support, and raise awareness for the Puppet Slam Nation.  The Puppet Slam Network fosters connections in the growing field of independently produced puppet slams, cabarets, and showcases so that puppet artists know where they can perform, venues can find puppet artists, and audiences can enjoy this intimate, tactile, and compelling form of entertainment.”

The closest Slam to me, both in proximity and in my heart, is at Puppet Showplace theatre in Broookline (M.A.).  I’m been working with them for almost a year as the official Slam Tech, which means I help get each performer’s sound and lights and set pieces and puppets loaded in, set up, cued, ready to go, and amazing before the audience shows up (or, right before the audience shows up.  or, heck, sometimes while the audience is there, in hushed voices, frantically, backstage).  That’s really the best I can do to describe it and, let me tell you, it’s a rush.

But why – oh why – would a Puppet Slam be good for YOU?  If you’re still wondering, take some inspiration from puppeteer Carl Weiting (reprinted from the Puppet Showplace Theatre Web site):

Why do adults need to see live puppet shows?

Because the Internet can’t heckle you back.

Because it’s fun to see the soul of an old lady in a tomato.

Because if you watch talking furniture onstage it’s less likely you will start talking to your own furniture.

Because the revolution is never over.

Because it’s fun to watch adults in a state of arrested development.

Because it’s healthy to arrest your development for short periods of time.

Because nothing out of Hollywood can actually reach out and touch you.

Because old memories need to be kept young and new memories need to be made.

Because where else can you see 4,083 uses for felt & the common coat hanger.

Because even though you can’t see the puppeteer’s hands, you know what they are doing with them.

Because the world has too many televisions and not enough storytellers.

Because it’s nice to know your trash is being put to good use.

Because instead of dumbing down, puppets smarten up their audience.

Because if you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em with a stick (says Mr. Punch).

Because the news doesn’t run enough happy stories.

Because most puppets are actually smarter than most politicians.

Because the worries of the world never stop, but you can put them on hold till the end of the show.

Because why should kids have all the fun.

Well, I was intimidated by Ilana Brownstein.  I had gone to the first C1 Playground, and proposed this puppet show based on the Nativity story because I couldn’t get it out of my head, and everyone was very “ooo” and “ahh” about it.  And then I had to do it.  When people “ooo” and “ahh” over your idea and it’s not even on paper yet, you just know, you know?  That, and I felt like after saying something out loud, if I didn’t do it, would anyone ever believe me proposing something again?  The fear was enough to make me go forward.

So I went forward and made Mary and Joseph.  Their heads are newspaper, covered in tin foil (which, really, was just because I didn’t have any masking tape in the house), covered in Celluclay.  They have a hole in the base of the skull where I put a wooden dowl, and, in the original version, the down went inside a PVC tube, so that the neck and head could twist independently of the body.  The arms were 1″ strips of green upholstry foam that ended in Celluclay hands shapped like mittens.  Each mitten had a paper clip embedded in the palm, and each had a control rod tied to it with a twist tie.

The Celluclay was recommended by… someone.  I don’t remember.  And at first I hated it.  It was very lumpy, and the lumps made it difficult to form into a smooth skin.  When I first made them I imagined I’d eventually make up something else and end up re-covering both Mary and Joseph more smoothly.  That’s why I took them to the C1 playground all willy-nilly, in my laundry bag.  They were proto-puppets at that point, never intended to become real.  You can see them here.

It was Lacy Campbell, a fellow puppeteer working in Chicago, who corrected my Celluclay technique.  The trick, it turns out, is to break up the lumps pre-water, and stir with a fork, for greater decomposition.  Warm water, of course, helps too.  And then you sort of mash it against the side of the bowl until it really does, eventually, kind of get smooth.  (Lacy, I might add, is working on an amazing project of her own, The Story Story, which you can read about here: The Story Story

Once I got the hang of it it wasn’t so bad, and the Shepherd quickly joined Mary and Joseph.  After that came the Innkeeper, who is shorter and more hunchbacked.  And finally, the most challenging, the Magi.  My Pastor tells us that there is no evidence that there were three Magi, or that they were kings.  Still, the storytelling part of me is stuck on the idea of three of them. And the puppeteer part of me wanted them to all be played by one person.  Thus, the three-headed Magi was born.  Body built on a paper towel dispenser so it’s free standing, three independent heads on three independent rods so they can be moved separately, and only two arm rods among them, to lessen confusion. They fell over a lot.  I swore at them.  In the end, though, they looked ok.

Everything looked ok.  Everything looked remarkably, amazingly, magically perfect.  Despite all the challenges and problems along the way, it was really very good.  And hopefully, it’ll be back next year.

And well over 40 hours of build time.

There were about 3 pounds of Celluclay, mixed at 2 cups to 8 oz. of water.

There were scraps of fabric.

There were frantic emails.

There were at least 10 pages of scanned music.

And when it was all done, there was a puppet show about the Christian Nativity.

And it was good.

Mary and Joseph, expectant

Roxie works with the Shepherd

Mary, thoughtful, patting her tummy

]]> http://allieherryman.wordpress.com/2012/01/11/and-then-there-were-puppets/feed/ 0 allieherryman mary & joseph compressed Roxie and shepherd mary in the window http://allieherryman.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/turn-to-your-team/ http://allieherryman.wordpress.com/2011/10/26/turn-to-your-team/#comments Wed, 26 Oct 2011 15:15:07 +0000 allieherryman http://allieherryman.wordpress.com/?p=492 ]]>

*note: this post contains content not suitable for children*

When you’re stumped on a puzzle and can’t seem to figure out the next move, what do you do?

You do what our director, Megan, did the other night.  “Look at this group of very smart people just sitting here,” she said, gesturing over those assembled at the top of our first day of tech.  “Let’s ask them.”  So we turned to our team, pitched them our problem, and let the discussion begin!

In the .2 seconds of breath between the end of my explanation and the beginning of the brainstorm that followed, I could feel the energy swell.  Everyone’s brains begain to bubble with the situation, the content, and all the collected theatre knowledge between them.  There was a TD, an LD, a few PMs, a costume designer, and a handfull of carpenters all puzzling it out with me and the director, and helping us feel supported.  No longer was the problem mine and Megan’s.  It was all of ours.

And what were we working so hard to solve?  How to make a female actor appear to have her period on stage on cue (and leak through her shorts).

Of course all of us ladies know that there’s no cuing Mother Nature.  In fact, most of the time things like that happen in the most inconvenient way and time possible.  So how do we make the appearance of accident happen with complete intention?

“Diffuse it through cotton,” said one voice.

“Slit the tubing, so there are multiple exit points,” said another.

“The shortest possible run of tubing, too, to limit pressure,” said a third.

“And try a different material for the shorts.”

All of the above later, in a bathroom spattered with chocolate/cherry flavored “blood” and remnants of dissected maxi pads, the costume designer and I finally worked out a system that we think is going to work reliably over time, be sustainable over the lenght of the run, and give the impact the director wants on stage.  We could have probably arrived at a solution on our own, but certanly not as fast as we did with the support of the whole team, or with as much energy and creativity.  By turning to our team we got a lot of folks on our side, and now those folks are rooting for us.  It’s a good feeling (and makes me feel a little better about what I’m about to have to rig to this actress).

potential tubing hookup option (?!?)

It starts this week, when Metro Stage’s production of the musical Chicago loads in to the Cambridge YMCA.  I’m propping this one, and the major prop so far has been 7 cafe chairs.  I tried to rent them from various sources, but had no luck (“We have some, but you’d have to do some serious reinforcing if they’re going to be Chicago-ed on,” wrote one potential candidate.)  Finally I found some on Craigslist, but was unable to get approval for the spending and go get them before I headed out camping.  Luckily the artistic director was able to swoop in and fetch them all the way from Salisbury, MA.  On Saturday, as part of load in, they’ll get a coat of shiny black paint and little rubber feet, and then have vast amounts of dancing applied to them.   What else am I working on for that show?  Well, you’ll have to show up and see.

Second, I’ll roll into part 1 of Company One’s production of The Brother Sister Plays, In the Red and Brown Water.  It loads in Oct. 23, and is the most prop-heavy and complicated of the three.  I was unable to make the most recent production meeting, and I’ve heard that the tech schedule was discussed in detail (note to self: don’t miss the meeting where they discuss the tech schedule).  Now I’m feeling a little lacking in knowledge, but fortunately only in knowledge.  I actually have the props really together for this one and, pending some tests of the bleeding aparatus, should be in position to hit this load in head on.

As the month comes to a close, I’ll spend 2 days (and by that I mean probably 36 hours straight) with Puppet Showplace Theatre getting ready for their Halloween event, Spooky Story Station.  We’ve turned the theatre on it’s head, designing a space where people enter through the back door and proceed into the waiting room of a curious train station populated by puppet creatures of all sizes.  There will be man-eating plants, a little zombie serving up brains at the cafe, and an elaborate projection of a train ride by none-other than the amazing Freedom Art Retreatant Jason Weber.  As I’m serving as the prop-technical-organizational-facilito-manager for this one, I imagine I’ll spend most of the day and night crawling around with cables and handing people gaff tape.  The longest titles always get the most glamorous jobs.

And finally, as pumpkins give way to fall leaves and cold breezes, Company One will put the second and third Brother Sister Plays, The Brothers Size, and Marcus, up on the state in rotating rep with the first one.  It has been a long time since I teched anything that worked in rep, so I’m really looking forward to this experience.  So far everything seems to be aligning to give us the best possible outcome for this, but it’s always different when things actually get rolling.  I’d have more to say, but with so many things in between now and this, I hardly have a chance to form an opinion!

Throw in to that Claire’s birthday, all sorts of Halloween parties, and the beginning of NaNoWriMo on Nov. 1, and I’ve got a fall that makes my pumpkins spin! Whee!

I went over to Corianna’s house, where we have been rehearsing our shadow puppet show for the Puppet Showplace Puppet Slam, which is coming up this Saturday. Corianna had done all the things she had said she was going to do in terms of puppet prep, Emily had tweaked and e-mailed the script, and everything was right where we left it.  We walked in, we ran it, and it WORKED.

Then Phil showed up with wine, cheese and crackers.  It was such a nice treat and a great break time.  We talked about some things we wanted to adjust in the “staging” and then, out of the blue, Phil says, “do you want some music for this?”  I thought he meant recorded music, which I had been avoiding because it’s hard to time.  But no, he pulls out his guitar and just starts strumming.  He just found a nice groove and improvised and by the time we ran it again, I couldn’t imagine what it had been like without music any more.  Gold stars for snacks and tunes.

Also last night, in the land of The Brother/Sister Plays, we were trying to come up with starting blocks (the things runners use) for a photo shoot that’s happening Wednesday.  Who has starting blocks?  People with running tracks.  Where are they doing the photo shoot?  At the track at Brookline High.  Brilliant.  A few e-mails later I reached the contact between Company One and Brookline High, and suggested that he put me in touch with the Brookline Athletic Director.  In fact, he made the contact himself (!) and sure enough, we now have starting blocks for the shoot.  Thought + Email + initiative and we get success!  I’m real happy that it worked out so easily!

Hi Emily and Allie,

Puppet show auditions are around the corner!  Let’s dust our puppets off and get ready.

Emily- could you put the puppet script in the dropbox or email it to Allie and I?  Thanks!

Allie and I were thinking of getting together sometime this week as auditions are coming in a week.  I can’t do Wednesday night because of Bro/Sis plays, I can do Tuesday or Friday night, would that work?

best,

Corianna

Proof positive that now that the balls are rolling, there is no escape.  So, we go forward… together.

Start with The Brother/Sister Plays at Company One.  It’s by far the biggest project I have this fall. (Not the biggest project ever.  That award is still held by Cunning Little Vixen.)  And on top of being big, it’s also interesting, and engaging, and (so far) filled with people who actually return my phone calls.  So I would say I’m in a pretty happy spot with them, despite the hugeness that is about to occur (very likely this weekend after the first stumble through of the first play of the trillogy).

Then there’s some lingering Freedom Art stuff.  Most notably that I want to get The First Man to Consider the Sun up to performance quality and hopefully get it into a Puppet Showplace slam one of these days.  There’s one coming up Sept. 17, but I’m waiting to hear if there’s room for me.  And if there is, I have to storyboard it, rebuild the puppets, and get some rehearsals in the space on the calendar.  On top of that, there’s Meron’s project of adapting Rudyard Kipling’s poem Tomlinson into a puppet/poi experience.  Puppets and poi in the same show?  Heaven.  But I have to build the puppets.

My personal pet project, Blue Nativity, is also still around.  And when I say “around” I mean the draft puppets are living on my kitchen table.  I was afraid that if I put them away I’d forget about it, and I don’t want to forget about it.  There is reasonable energy behind a puppet nativity at the church where I work, and it’s definitely enough energy to sustain my desires to finish building the drafts, and continue pursuing the rights, and really make it happen.

Throw into that list the two things that happened in the last 24 hours: I discovered that Metro Stage is looking for someone to do props for Chicago, and my fellow artist (photographer) Ashlee, offered to pay my registration fee for JP Open Studios.  At this point, I haven’t even processed what these things might mean.

Excitement.

Fun.

Wonder.

and So. Many. Things.