Next Shows

This blog post will be forever updating and moving forward in time--so don't be surprised to see it over and over again.

Issunboshi at  at the Aki Matsuri at Bellevue College
Date & Times: Sat 9/10/2011 at 12:30pm or 2:45pm at the Carlson Theater,
Sun 9/11/2011 at 1:45pm or 4:00pm in Room E129
Please Note the times and locations are not the same both days

Punch and Judy at Glastonbury Faire
Toledo, OR
Date: May 12th and 13th, 2012

Punch and Judy at Ye Merrie Greenwood Faire
Richland, WA
Date: June 30th and July 1st, 2012

Lessons Learned This Year

1. There is no big enough room in all of Bellevue College to have the puppet shows.
2. No more paper-mache hands for my glove puppets--you can't hold anything with them and they get damaged easily.
3. Signs not fliers
4. Bring a CD player every time just in case.
5. Children's imagination is boundless...they didn't believe there was no small Issunboshi puppet, they saw it.
6. A standing stage was a good fit for the room
7. My lights are too bright...need to work on that.
8. 11am show might be too early to start
9. No one can plan for every possible negative set-back...no matter how my engineering heart wants to disagree, I must admit that.
10. Flat fans not folding
11. Never use another neck besides Joan King's comfort neck
12. Always check you have the right backdrop up before the show begins. *sigh*

That's it for now!

Some Snapshots of Saturday

Before the show

The shrine scene

The Exercise Scene

The Daimyo Meeting

Yojimbo Meeting

Oni Fight

After the Show

Finding Us at BCC

Yes, once again we have been moved...this time to a room that can hold 100 people (because we busted the fire code limit on the last room). I made a map to the room we will be in (E-129):

Click on the image above to get the full sized map.

Akandoji

Reprising his most acclaimed role as the supreme oni will be the Red Oni. After being soundly put down by Momotaro, he has decided it would be safer to pick on Princesses and really short samurai. Good luck with that! He will be the 6th puppet seen on stage.

He can be seen in his second show: The Inch-High Samurai, at 11am on 9/11/2010 at the Aki Matsuri held at Bellevue College, in Bellevue, WA.
That's tomorrow!
I'm sorry we don't have time to introduce you to the rest of the characters. Unfortunately, if you want to see them, you must come to the show. It's free...and there is also free parking. We won't even hit you up for money...well okay, we might hit you up for some raffle tickets but you can say "no". Also there is a t-shirt we might try to sell you...and a donation box you could contribute to. Also tons of really good Japanese food you can't get anywhere else--we might try to sell you that. Hmmm...well, let's just say, it's as free as you want it to be.

The Princess

After I finished the Shrine Maiden and the Daimyo, I had a good pattern for the puppet kimono so I was dying to build the Princess. She is the one type of character I had yet to make for one of my Japanese shows and I looked forward to it.
Here she is:

She will debut in her first show: The Inch-High Samurai, at 11am on 9/11/2010 at the Aki Matsuri held at Bellevue College, in Bellevue, WA.
She will be the 4th puppet seen on stage. Be sure to see her start!

Daimyo

Here is the Diamyo, a Japanese Lord. He is the first character to meet Issunboshi, The Inch-High Samurai when he arrives in the big city.

This puppet was also created by me in time to make the display at Puppet-o-rama. So he was the 2nd puppet completed. He will be the 3rd puppet seen on stage.
He will debut in her first show: The Inch-High Samurai, at 11am on 9/11/2010 at the Aki Matsuri held at Bellevue College, in Bellevue, WA.
Be sure to see his start!

Okasan

The second character I'd like to show you is The Inch-High Samurai's mother, which he lovingly calls Okasan:

Her head was done by me, but she was costumed by Pam Clark. She was the 4th puppet finished for the show and will be the second puppet seen on stage.
She will debut in her first show: The Inch-High Samurai, at 11am on 9/11/2010 at the Aki Matsuri held at Bellevue College, in Bellevue, WA.
Be sure to see her start!

First Character

The first of my new puppets I'd like to show you is the Shrine Maiden:

She was the first puppet completed and will be the first character seen on stage. She was entirely created by me in a huge hurry so that she could be in the display at the Puppet Festival: Puppet-o-rama.
She will debut in her first show: The Inch-High Samurai, at 11am on 9/11/2010 at the Aki Matsuri held at Bellevue College, in Bellevue, WA.
Be sure to see her start!

My Stage Ready for Aki Matsuri

I am so happy to have a new stage all ready to go for Aki Matsuri next weekend. It's the debut of the "Inch-High Samurai" and we will be performing at 11am and 1:45pm way over in the E building. It's going to be real work to spread the word that the puppets are moved over there. But the rooms which are big enough for a puppet show audience were limited.
It should be a fun show. I know I have not talked much about it on my blog. I have been very busy making the puppets. I will introduce you to the characters in the next few posts. So check back!

I got 2 Puppets Done in Time

I got these two puppets from the up coming "Inch-High Samurai" done in time to put into the exhibit at Puppet-o-rama this last weekend. They aren't main characters because I want to perfect my kimono pattern before finishing the main characters:

The Lord and the Miko

Heads Up

A picture of the Inch-High Puppets in progress:

Oh and have you seen our new logo:

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!

Lessons Learned from Momotaro this Year

1. When you say you have sound stuff to sound guys, be sure to tell them if you like it or not. When you say “I’ve got a wireless headset mic.” They hear: “I must use my own mic, because I love it and you must make it happen.” When you really meant: “I’ve got a lousy cheep-o karaoke wireless headset mic that we can use if we don’t have the budget to get everyone the cool ones.” Communication…it’s key.
2. A thin cotton sheet for a rug…secured down…is the perfect medium to muffle rolling stools.
3. Duct-Tape is not adequate to secure said cotton sheet. Need to do something else…
4. If you are performing during the day by a bank of windows but holding your dress rehearsal at night…don’t turn off the lights in the room.
5. Dress rehearsal went to late again. Must start earlier if possible.
   
6. A blanket on a classroom floor for kids to sit on is a safety hazard—Near-Miss City, I tell you. No wonder they use those foamy interlocking things in pre-schools.
7. Never hang a rod puppet upside-down by the rod. Just…don’t do it.
8. We need speakers outside of the room so the people at the window can hear.
9. The classroom idea was golden but two stages up at the same time takes up a lot of room. Not sure what to do about that.Having us bother there was a double draw.
   
10. The show times this year were better than last year especially on Sunday
11. Never write a script that is 100% dependent on four puppeteers…make them more flexible in the future
12. Music between scenes = Major Plus
13. Lights + Dimmer = Another Major Plus (Thank you, National Puppetry Festival)
14. Really small props are unnecessary
15. Rod puppets are nice...but they always require two hands for realistic movement. I don't think I'll mix the two styles again.
16. Strapping the whizzer to the prop stick I'm holding at the time was a good idea.
17. The playboard skirt looked ever so much better.
18. Joan's comfortable puppet necks were a major improvement
19. Don't do hard hands in a puppet show requiring fight scenes and major prop manipulation. Unless I feel like making hands and repairing hands over and over again.

I'm sure I'll think of more later...

Final Shows of Momotaro at the Aki Matsuri

What? Yes, I plan to build a new show next year, so this last weekend was the final time you could have seen Momotaro at the Aki Matsuri.
You’ll never do Momotaro again?
I’m not saying that. In fact, it looks like a group in Spokane is interested in having us perform. Also, if Sakura Con has us perform at the next one, it’ll be Momotaro because I don’t think I could have a new show up by Easter. Also, there’s some talk of a road trip to Boise, ID to do a show for Mandy’s class.
So, perhaps this last weekend might not have been your last chance. Of course, if you are my mother, Frieda, Matthew, Marsha, OR anyone who came last year, then you have nothing to worry about.

My Hero
This year my sister was difficult to replace. We tried to replace her with three different puppeteers but something or other caused them all to not last. It got to the Thursday before Labor Day weekend and I had no one. I despaired of my predicament and vowed never to build a show that couldn’t--in an emergency--be done by just two puppeteers. There turned out to be two places in Momotaro that we just couldn’t do it all with only three puppeteers. I also bent the ear of the fellow Bob found to do our sound: John Utz. He mentioned that he had a 9-year old daughter who might like to help. By this time we’d divided Mandy’s puppets: Dog – me, Gold Oni – Mylinda and to make that work it required that Beckett take Green Oni. It also required us to manipulate each others characters a bit. For example, I had to take Gold Oni during the sumo match and Beckett took the bird to drop the stone on Gold Oni.
When Eileen Utz came on board, it was too late to give her one of Mandy’s character. But she was able to do a lot of the behind the scenes prop management and she took on the flat puppets during the boat scene. At the climax, she manipulated the dog for us. Without her, we could not have done it without major script revisions. So she really was our hero of the weekend.
Eileen turned out to be a very competent prop manager. She also was fearless of going out and handing out fliers to help us drum up an audience. (Perhaps a little too fearless…because she and Beckett went in two different directions alone at one point and that worried her father.) She has a strong voice and a dedication to be admired. She also expressed an interest in puppetry which I found gratifying. I hope that she will join us again.

The room turned out to be too small but I think if it got much bigger, we'd be lost to the back of the room. Our puppets stand at around a foot tall if held up correctly. Nearly every show done in the cafeteria at the Nat'l Fest was lost to the back of the room.
What's my solution? I'd rather do three shows a day than put us on a main stage.
I'm rather pleased that the puppet fest we are planning for Seattle University next August has a black box for the shows. That's ideal in my mind.

We are the [Fill in the Blank] Puppeteers

It is time.
My Japanese folktale puppet group is getting more and more shows. I’ve been asked several times what my group is called. Heh.
Right now we are called: Aki Matsuri Volunteers in association with Puppeteers of Puget Sound, a guild of the Puppeteers of America. What a mouth full! When we got to the Aki Matsuri, the schedule read “Momotaro by Elly”
So I have been thinking for some time now about a name for our group. I don’t want to go with a name in Japanese because that might be to limiting but I wouldn’t mind a name that works in both languages. For the longest time I was thinking of “The Umbrella Town Puppeteers” which has a cute sound in Japanese “Kasa Machi Puppeteers” but when I ran it by a Japanese person, she told me it sounds like the Puppeteers are waiting for umbrellas rather than a name.
*Small Sigh*
I love the name “Seattle Puppetory Theater” so I called up Joan, one of the members of that theater to ask her how they came up with such a great name. We got to brainstorming names. She had lots of ideas. Some of which included names from Shakespeare like Rosamund, Rosaline or Puck Puppet theater. She said she saw a puppet company in Japan that had a name similar to Puck…it was Pouk or Pook Puppet Theater. That’s rather cute. Starting with a “P” is good for alliteration. Trips off the tongue…which is an element that Joan says a good name should have. If we are considering cute “P” words in Japanese, I like the sound of the famous candy “Pocky”…the y at the end makes that one, and I’m not sure Pooky or Pucky would do as well. Horse-Pucky happens, you know. With Pocky you must pronounce it with the oc forming the English A: Pah-key and not the Japanese way: Poh-key…that’s too slow a word: Pokey Puppets. Doop-de-do.
At the Aki Matsuri meeting, I put forth this question to them and the only suggestion I got was to name it after a famous deceased person. This is difficult to do with performers of any type because they have groups and foundation and estates. You just don’t tribute name a group of performers with the name of performers. If you think about that, it’s true.
Last night Wes and Frank weighed in. They thought I should go with something like “Small Spirit” in Japanese. I’m not sure exactly what that would be. Chibi Gami? The word for puppet in French is Marionette, which means “Little Mary” so small spirit would fit. But it sounds a bit like an anime.
*Deep Sigh*
Maybe Jean and Joan will let me join their theater and be an affiliate: Eastside Puppetory Theater.

First Aki Matsuri Team Meeting Owarimashita

In case you hadn’t heard or I hadn’t told you…Momotaro will be presented once more at the Aki Matsuri. Hopefully with better sound, and I learned at the first team meeting that the Sound Guru has put mics for puppeteers in the budget. Yay!
There are a few other things I’d like to do for the show this year including back-drops, doing the peach opening right and perhaps a new puppet or two. I’d also like to add a soundtrack for in between scenes. I need some sort of smooth transition between scenes and right now I don’t have it.
Also at the first meeting, I learned that we will be facing a challenge. It seems the L-building has been water damaged and is schedule for repairs this summer. The Aki Matsuri team has been instructed to plan as if that building will not be ready in time for our use. So our show must be moved to a different location.

We were planning on moving it to one of the class rooms in the L-building due to the large audience and sound problems we encountered. This just means an entirely different building will need to be considered. I just hope we are not so far out of the common paths as to be difficult to be found.

Some Onsite Lessons Learned

I've been meaning to post this for a while now...

Aki Matsuri Lessons learned:

• Start dress rehearsal on Friday sooner…the room gets locked at 8pm
  
• Submit names for badges only…I felt bad when I learned the Aki Matsuri people made badges for puppet builders who weren’t in the show
  
• Do the shows at 11am and 4pm both days
  
• Use between scene music
  
• Having everyone wear the shirts and look the same was a really good idea.
  
• Drilling lines right before the show was a really good idea
  
• Having a green room was also a really good idea
  
• Put a microphone on everyone and control the volume at the board.
  
• We had problems with the knee pads…even the really good ones. I think we should’ve gone with the foam puzzle pad idea instead.
  
• Record the show using a digital video camera not an old VHS camera from the 90’s
  
• Use metal rods, not wood—wood breaks
  
• Having a puppet first aid kit was a good idea
  
• Put nothing tall on the playboard
  
• Order the poster sooner
  
• Windows magnify noise of conversation, and the audience was big enough that next time we should claim seating space all the way to the window and perhaps face the window squarely.
  
• We needed a large “Next Show at…” sign
  
• Marking the foot location of the stage was a good idea
  
• Having a violin player was a good idea

A Puppeteer at the Consulate-General of Japan’s reception

I got dressed rather early for the Aki Matsuri reception at the residence of the Consulate-General of Japan in Seattle. I’d already checked my outfit with Nora on Thursday before the last rehearsal started. She couldn’t go this year but she has gone several times. She gave me the idea that the little black dress was in good order and that wearing my michiyuki over it would be just fine.

They included both a map and written directions in with the invitations…and they were easy to follow. I left early too because the invitations had words like “things will begin promptly” and “6:30pm Sharp”. I ended up a whole ½ hour early. The house of the Consulate was old and beautiful with brick paths and Tudor windows and exterior. There were two greeters outside and just inside I found a table with a name badge all prepared for me. The room was downstairs and it had a door out to the back garden and lawn. Standing out there you seemed to be on the very pinnacle of Queen Anne, looking down on to the Seattle and the Puget Sound.
I felt a tad awkward on first arriving, because it seemed that there was no one I knew yet arrived. But Tom was there and he introduced me to the Senior Aide for Information and Cultural Affairs who was so kind enough as to give me his business card so I can tell you for a fact that I just reported exactly who he is. There were many introductions after that which put my Japanese to the test. I said ‘nihongo ga dekimasen’ because I learned to use dekimasu in Japanese class two years ago in March and I wanted to use it…sort of like Eliza Dolittle “The rain in Spain stays mainly on the plain.” How sad my Japanese has become! I found myself understanding a lot more than being able to reply—which is frustrating. There were many speeches at first—which naturally were spoken twice, once in each language.
Then we all went outside to watch the sword demonstration. I remembered as I fished in my purse for my camera to turn my cell phone on silent mode…this was a good catch because I do have a Monday calendar event. I would’ve been mortified if it went off during the demo…it would’ve too. I took quite a few pictures of the demo, but I was only pleased with a few of them.

After the demo, we were invited back in to toast the Aki Matsuri and partake of the banquet of food. I tried a little of everything. It was rather good. I sat with several women in the chairs along the walls and enjoyed good conversation. I heard several reports of children enjoying the puppet shows and got several compliments on the large crowds we gathered and entertained. However, all the folks in attendance were organizers and they all were manning tables or running errands during the puppet shows. One person did say he stopped to watch briefly and several mentioned that their children enjoyed it. Everyone was in agreement that it was a really good location for it.
Towards the end of the evening, several of the younger crowd had a little fun helping each other get pictures of ourselves on our own cameras. That was nice. I think everyone was glad to get a proof-of-attendance picture. People seemed more relaxed then. Alcohol was being served and even if you don’t actually imbibe, does allow the atmosphere at a Japanese function to relax a little.
All in all, this puppeteer enjoyed herself and felt welcomed and appreciated by the event.

Speaking of appreciation, I would like to thank the following folks for attending the shows on Sunday:
• Christy and her friend
• Pat
• Diana
• Scott
• Frank
• Don
• Diana

Mimibunko also did us the honor of watching our show Sunday morning. They gave me hugs afterwards as well as good feedback!. It was a pleasure to share the stage and the green room with them.

Behind the Scenes of Momotaro

I went to bed at 8:30pm so now I'm up at the crack of dawn with plenty of time before the shows this afternoon. So I thought I'd make a blog post and show you things from our point of view.

Here's a shot of the puppet and prop rack behind us:

In future productions, I think I'll lower this prop rack. This is a good height if we were standing, but being on our knees, we have to unhook the puppets, lower them and then put our arm in them.
The props on top are sitting on a lovely gadget I got at Daiso. Did I mention I love Daiso?
Here's a shot of Stage Right:

Right under the playboard is our cheat sheet for the words of the Japanese song. By now though, I don't think anyone looks at it.
Those S-hooks you see there, Mandy picked up for me at Daiso as well. I hereby nominate Daiso as the official store of the puppeteers. I originally thought that pink s-hook was going to be too long, but it's not at all when you are kneeling.
Finally, here's a shot of Stage Left:

That's a flat omni-directional microphone next to the fence prop. Sound has been our biggest issue. I never taught projection and I should have. Lesson learned.

Oh guess what! So many people I know showed up to see the Saturday shows and support our effort. So I'd like to thank the following folks for coming:

• Marsha and her sister
• Barb
• Randy
  
• June
• Jon
• Diana
• Don
• Dannielle
  
• Mary
  
• Frieda
• Matt
• Vicky
  

You guys are the best!

I'd also like to thank our stage crew:

• Bob
• Wes
• Frank
• Jason

My heroes!