Greenwood Faire this Weekend

I'll be performing Punch and Judy in Richland, WA this weekend!
Wewbsite
I'll be at the Merchant's Stage performing at 11:30am and 1:30pm.

Come and see us (me and Mr. Punch I mean)!

Toy Puppet Review: Constable

A New Show

For the Aki Matsuri this year, I'm putting together a new show. It's the story of a really short boy who follows his dreams and becomes a samurai despite his size. He shows more bravery than his fellow body guards in saving a princess from a humongous oni.
Proving that bigger isn't better, taller isn't braver, and stronger isn't smarter.
The title is:
The Inch High Samurai
Check back for pictures soon!

My Doctor Bit

My Doctor Bit @ Yahoo! Video

Joan's Hand Puppet Neck

I posted these pictures ages ago and meant to blog it! Alas. Here's the link to the set:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/elly_leaverton/sets/72157617161442246/
Read the descriptions under each picture for what's going on in the picture.
I've refit a few of the Momotaro puppets with this neck and I must say...it's a great improvement.
Joan King just recently gave me a glove puppet body pattern too. I'll try it out and get back to you.

Day of Puppetry for Puppeteers

I’m very excited by the up coming Day of Puppetry for Puppeteers because we will be performing Momotaro for them. This is the first time for Mylinda and Beckett, both long-time guild members, to perform for the guild and so several other guild members have told me they are looking forward to the show merely on that account. There is "gee wiz" about our show that would excite fellow puppeteers…it is a well known folk tale done with a singularly un-mystical form of puppetry—glove puppetry. So the charm would be seeing some of our new members go from interested guild member to performing guild members and that, you must admit, is a truly wonderful thing.
Interested in coming? Here's the details:
On May 16, 2009, the Puppeteers of Puget Sound [http://www.geocities.com/pofps/] will be hosting a Day of Puppetry for Puppeteers in Ballard. The event itself will occur at the Sunset Hill Community Club [http://www.sunsethillcommunity.com/ ] .
Our show will be from 11:30 to 12:15
Momotaro and the Island of the Oni
Puppeteers:Elly Leaverton, Mandy Leaverton, Mylinda Sneed, Beckett Arnold
Also, if you are a friend of my sister, Mandy, keep in mind that she is moving back to Boise this summer. This is very likely the last time you will get to see her perform. She is a very good puppeteer.
Send me an email if you want to attend.

Debut Performance of the West Cascade Puppet Brigade

First I would like to thank everyone who has helped me with the difficult task of coming up with a name, especially Joan King, Rob D’Arc, Wes Thompson, Mylinda Sneed and Frank Reinart. We have picked our name…one of the most difficult and time consuming thing I’ve ever done in Puppetry. It is “West Cascade Puppet Brigade” and the consensus of everyone I’ve told it to that it is a good name. It’s pretty much unanimous, actually—if you can believe that. I’m so glad to have it behind me. It bothered me to have a decision just hanging out there.
The decision was made just in time for the performance at the Tsubaki Grand Shrine of America. It was a fun performance, and very interesting to the group. Visiting the shrine was something they had never done before.

We got an early start and made it up there in good time. We actually got to see the Shrine’s morning ceremony. I tried to keep up with the Japanese chant…it was quite a vocal exercise. We were very pleased to discover that we would be setting up on an Aikido mat, which was soft enough that we didn’t need our knee protection.
The people helping at the shrine were pretty jazzed about the whole thing. We got the standard comment that we all look like ninja in our black clothes…the standard uniform of a puppeteer. Since I’d made us all black Japanese peasant shirts, it probably helped the notion. Barrish-sensei told me that the original look of the fictional ninja, which popular culture likes so much, came from a comic book where the ninja character was a puppeteer and wore the standard stagehand all-black uniform seen on both Bunraku, and Kabuki stages. The Wikipedia page confirms that it is a stagehand uniform, although that article is really messy. So I guess we are in a ninja uniform—sort of…it seems to me that stagehands and puppeteers were using it first.
The Puppet Brigade was included in the ceremony and I once again had to offer the branch to the Okami (I hope I did it right). I wished for a good performance as I did it.
Everyone then was directed to bow and clap with me. That’s a nice feeling.
The show itself started out rocky as most shows do when the performers are overly excited. We knocked a prop off the playboard and…the baby fell out of the Peach. But it snapped into place after that and I can’t think of anything that went obviously wrong from the peach opening to the end.
There were some puppet causalities—Blue Oni will definitely needs some repairs and soon. He has a nasty crack in both pinky fingers. I’m thinking that perhaps his hands will need to be totally redone.
After the show, we could and did receive from Barrish-Sensei and Chika-san gifts from the Shrine for our performance. It was special Tsubaki sake, green tea packets and a protective charm for our arts and crafts activities. Barrish-Sensei later posted this to his Yahoo Group:
“This years special treat for all present was the WEST CASCADE PUPPET BRIGADE under direction of Ms. Elly Leverton presentation of their wonderful puppet show of Momotaro and the Island of Oni...it was really great!!!!”
Here’s a great shot of him posing with our little court noble/toady/Sumo referee Oni:

Once I found out that a Sumo referee wears a similar hat and robe to modern Shinto Priests, I once asked Barrish sensei for a close look at his hat and garb. That was before I found a fabulous Japanese dress from actual museums picture book at the bookstore. There I learned that the hat comes from the court noble dress—which just made it that more perfect for Gold Oni to wear. By the way, what modern Shinto priest wear today looks a lot easier to move in than what the court nobles had to wear. It almost made me wish I’d done Momotaro in Marionettes just for the long shuffling hakama and the hilarious possibilities of a fight in such garb.

Pick-up Rehearsals Have Begun

It is so difficult to “Pick-up” from where you left off on a puppet show way back in September. We must relearn lines and blocking. Also, remembering the configuration of props and puppets behind stage is a challenge. Luckily, with no fore-thought at all, I had taken “Behind the Scenes” shots of the inside of the stage and we were able to use those to re-construct the set-up.

Another difficulty we are dealing with is the fact that we will be down 2 performers at both the May 3rd show as well as the May 16th show. Ushio, we find, was instrumental in more scenes than the one he was in. The boat scene was the most difficult to do without him. Right now my solution is to have one puppeteer control both Momotaro and the Dog so that frees up the other puppeteer to help work the ocean and the flat puppets. However, I’m thinking that I’d like to figure out a way to mount the ocean to the stage so I don’t have to do that. Holding up scenery is not a very good use of a puppeteer.

Here’s where we will be performing at the Tsubaki Shrine:

It’s on May 3rd and our show will begin at about 11:15am immediately following the ceremony called “Kodomo O-harae Taisai”.

What the guild is up to…

This is a question I probably should address on this blog more often considering that the focus of this blog is puppets in Seattle and the local Renaissance fairs.
Since the Pumpkin Puppet carving party, we have had one other event. Brian Kooser invited us all on a back stage tour of his wacky and weird puppet play “UFO the Puppet Show”. Mylinda and I were both in attendance as the officer representation because our dear president is a tad young for the subject matter. It was that to be sure or as Brian himself described it “Very Naughty”. To say I liked the whole thing would be a lie…I have yet to see an adult puppet show I liked 100% of. I’d just rather not go there with puppets or any other medium for that matter. That's not entirely true...I don't mind puppet sex scenes, if they are not just tossed in and do nothing for the plot. That sort of thing gets boring really quick. But that’s just me. Maybe it's a woman thing...most of us seem to prefer romance novels to pornographic movies. Don't we?
As I watched, I focused on the parts I do like in any show…manipulation and puppet look, design and costume. Brian has a very unique style which I tend to feel is very scary or horrific. Of course, since my creation of the Oni for Momotaro, I shouldn’t be pointing any fingers. He is the fellow to which I credit the style of puppets I make with the combination of Papier-mâché and Japanese Paper Clay. The puppets I enjoyed the most were the two robotic characters (one just a head of one of his giant puppets) and the Aliens. I mean…is this not cool:

Or this:

As for the manipulation, at one point the character of Michael Jackson does his signature dance. This was exceedingly well done with a bunraku style puppet. At that point there were 3 puppeteers involved in the motion of the dance. I like bunraku puppets best when they have the full 3 puppeteers. This was no exception and it showed the care and research that went into creating the dance.
In other guild news, we have assembled the nominating committee for next year’s slate of officers. If you are in the guild, you may get a call from one of them looking for puppeteers to fill the officers for next year. I hope by forming an official committee, that no seats will be vacant this coming year. The new slate will be presented at the After-Christmas Christmas Party, which I have confirmed with Jean Mattson for the 3rd Thursday in January.

What did you do on Labor Day, Elly?

1. Sewing sock tubes on to black gloves to make long gloves (3 pair)
2. Creating a palanquin
   
   
3. Sewing two more puppeteer jimbe tops
4. Finishing the green oni’s boning and hanging ring
5. Adding water to the bottom of the boat
6. Creating a ‘How to Make a Glove Puppet’ poster
7. Buying a slide whistle
8. Fixing the Red Oni’s hands
9. Fixing Momotaro’s hair (both puppets of Momotaro)
10. Costuming the Momotaro baby
    

Market Memories

This last Sunday, the puppeteers of Momotaro were out at the Day of Puppetry at the Pike Place Market. Everyone used their main puppet to interact with the passers-by. You see below my sister Mandy, who plays the Gold Oni who ended up getting a long lecture by this girl on how to be scary...

This young lady was not talking to Mandy at all. She addressed and lectured the Gold Oni. Mandy was a bit smiley, but the Gold Oni was taking notes the whole time saying "Ah I see" or "Really? Maybe I should try that!" So cute!
We also handed out a flier for our show at the Aki Matsuri. If you would like to print one and help us, here it is:

If you click on the picture, it should show you the complete 8.5" by 11" page. You can print it landscape, then cut it into three and PRESTO! you have three of our fliers to hand out. Thanks in advance!
In other news, Punch and Judy was presented by yours truly at the Market again this year and what do you see in this picture below?



Look carefully now...












Give up?

Okay, I'll tell you...it is in fact the very green bag full of Swazzles I was lamenting in my previous post! Frank found it not 24 hours after my post--in his car in fact. Three cheers for Frank! Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray! Hip Hip Hooray!

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Thought I'd share a tip. CD holders make great stands for making puppet heads.

Pictured here are the Grandmother, Grandfather and young Momotaro for my Japanese puppet show. It's slowly moving forward. Very slowly...but what can I do? I build shows just because I want to. There's no money or deadlines resting on my speed. Nothing forces me to hurry up.

Plus I get distracted a lot. There are many projects half finished on my plate. My New Year's Resolution is to be a finisher this year--to start getting things done. To reduce my list rather than increasing it.

Wish me Luck!