Canterbury Renaissance Faire

If you are planning to come to Salem OR to see me perform Punch and Judy this weekend, here are the show times:
10:30am
2:30pm
Website:
http://www.canterburyfaire.com

G-RAIN-wood Faire

Well, we had wind, rain, temperatures over 80, small stinging insects and one injured actor, but it still was a great faire.
It rained hard right before my second show on Saturday.  I stood in my puppet stage with a huge golf umbrella over it, but by the time I got there with the umbrella, there was a lot of water already soaking everything.  I figured I'd have to cancel the second show.  The rain stopped about 5 minutes before I was supposed to perform but the trees were still shedding drops down on us and the benches for the audience were soaked.  But people showed up anyway and sat in them.  I grabbed Punch and Judy and put them up to sing "Rain rain go away" and suddenly the benches were full!

So we pulled the stage into position and with the golf umbrella still up, I did the show.  I added a lot of rain and wet jokes.  People seemed to love that.  Two of my puppets have feathers for hair...they looked more wet than the rest for sure, but no one seemed to mind.  After it all, the stage manager said that my show was the first back up and I had 56 people.  Some people ran across the green to come see it even.  I felt pretty good about the whole thing!

 Clay Martin was also there and I was glad to catch two of his shows.  He had a new toy theatre piece to try out and I enjoyed seeing all the new flat puppets.  He gave them all moving somethings...heads, mouths or eyes because he didn't show his own face as Toy Theatre performers usually do.
I'm looking forward to the next Ren Faire I'm doing in Salem on the second full week of July!

By the way, if you have just come to this blog from the card I gave you at Greenwood.  This is the best summary post for the Puppy Puppet: http://ellyspuppetblog.blogspot.com/2011/07/new-puppy-puppet.html

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)!

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

My Doctor Bit

My Doctor Bit @ Yahoo! Video

Friday Workshop

I just took one today. I went to the Instructional Center to learn about Italian Punch—Pulcinella…for a bit…until we all were informed that Georgia Tech had once again double booked the class room. Allow me to say that again emphasizing the key points: The Georgia Institute of TECHNOLOGY once again double booked a classroom. Now, that’s just sad, isn’t it? I mean…we do have the scheduling TECHNOLOGY to not do this…it does exist. But I digress.
The workshop was lead by Philip Farah and called “Pulcinella and Commedia dell’ Arte hands on techniques”. Pulcinella is a bit more stylized than its English counterpart. He also looks a great deal different. He wears all white clothes and a black plain (for Commedia dell’ Arte, that is) mask. His motions involve a lot more rhythmic hitting and slapping of the playboard—with not only his hands, but also his face and the back of his head. The characters he plays with are different as well. For example, there is no wife—only a beautiful fiancé which he loves and wants to marry but never gets to. This is not stock, however, because sometimes Pulcinella is not male. In Italy, Pulcinella isn’t just ‘Every-man’; he’s also ‘Every-woman’ depending on the skit at the time. Odd…and difficult to wrap one’s mind about, but true.
He faces off against Death rather than the Devil, but that’s one war he can’t win…just put off for another day. His neighbor is a true villain…and like in England the story really has no non-villains—except possibly the fiancé who isn’t a glove puppet like the rest. She is single stick rod puppet with very little controls and looks like a doll on a stick. Now there is an authority figure that sends Pulcinella off to the hangman, which is the same to a point. For the scene with the hangman is extremely bawdy in its use of the hole presented by the noose. Never thought of that before, I assure you.
There are no huge noses in a Pulcinella set…because there is a lot of beating of the heads against everything: the stick, the playboard, the heads of other characters, etc.
The Italian system of the passing of the torch involves Apprenticeships, which Philip described in great detail. The most striking task being the using of a huge swazzle to make one’s mouth bleed until one’s palette develops calluses. Ouch. I’m glad that I could make my swazzle for my mouth rather than adapt my mouth to a swazzle!

My Judy Bit

So here's a little bit of my Punch and Judy show. This was taken about 4 years ago at Greenwood Faire...this is the first crowd bright and early in the morning. First show I did that year too.

BTW: Violence Guaranteed!

No Swazzle on Wikimedia FIXED!!

I cannot believe that not one of my fellow practitioners of Punch and Judy has put a swazzle sound file up on Wikipedia or Wikimedia! Well, fear not, for I have fixed the problem thus:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Punch_Swazzle_Thats_the_way_to_do_it.ogg

See...Creative Commons...now it can be somebody's ring tone! Actually, if you are my friend, just ask me, and I'll send a little swazzle right to your phone. Custom sayings even!

Ah the perks!

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!

The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of a Missing Swazzle

It’s a sorry and sad tale to tell but I can not find my favorite swazzle. I made it by hand like I did all my other swazzles and like all my other swazzles, its sound is unique. So unique, in fact, that I tie each one together with a different color string so I can tell them apart. This one was my first and most successful swazzle—it is tied with pink thread. I just made the others in case I swallowed or lost this one. The adventures of the Pink Swazzle are quite long and dazzling. Its debut was in ‘Puppets, Puppets, Puppets” a variety show I did with Thistle Theatre. Punch and Judy was a puppet show within a puppet show and was performed toward the end of the show—only the Judy and Baby Bits. It was for this show that I made the first spare swazzle and during one show I spat out the pink one (yes, sometimes I get so excited that I spit out swazzles) and replaced it with the spare to finish out the show. Jean Enticknap mentioned it afterwards and told me that the voice changed so much between swazzles that it was like a friend going away.

The pink swazzle finally performed at Greenwood after the previous Punch Professor moved on to Ballroom Dancing (no joke—hobbyists are like that). That year, my pink swazzle went missing during tear down on Sunday and I was very distressed. But metal detectors were ‘In’ that year and the moment the faire closed about a half a dozen metal hounds showed up on site to find all the gypsy bangles and such. I flagged one down and had him search my performance area. Luckily, he found it. I’d been eyeballing the ground for a fruitless hour and a half and was rather upset at loosing my pink swazzle friend so I was so grateful to him! The swazzle was a little dirty but I cleaned it up and it was no worse for it.

I also learned my lesson that setting my swazzle on my puppet box between shows was a really bad idea. To prevent future disasters such as that, I got a little green leather pouch (you aren’t supposed to keep swazzles in something air tight) which I wore at all times about my neck. I had my little pink buddy in there plus my green and orange spares. My blue spare I sewed into Punch himself in a little Chinese snap pouch—an idea I picked up from a Punch and Judy book.

But then, sometime this winter, I went and lost my green pouch! (see picture above) I tore the house upside down looking for it. But no luck…it was gone.

What could I do? I dug out the blue swazzle and undid it, retooled it, remade it over and over—trying to get it to sound right. I made a new one I wrapped in tan, which almost sounded good until 2 minutes before the show when it began to sound like he had a cold. I couldn’t fix it then…so Punch was sick that show. It’s all in how you bend it, plus the size of it and the tightness of the tape. I rewrapped it between shows and the second show was better but…in reality, my Punch has lost his squeak! It’s like another puppeteer taking over a previous puppeteer’s role. For example, the guy who’s doing Miss Piggy’s voice now is pretty good, but he’s no Frank Oz.

On Americans and Punch & Judy

The question is: “How do your audiences react?” Well…I’ve never had too much trouble with audiences ‘getting’ Punch & Judy. I’ve also never had an offended audience member confront me.

But here are the conditions under which I perform:

• I perform at renaissance faires mostly where people expect to see something from the past. Even though my show is modern with current jokes, if the audience wants, they can excuse the whole thing and justify their watching it by saying it’s historical.
• I perform with the Greenwood Players, some of whom have children, who act as plants in my audience. They know the show and they know what to say and do and they usually help the audiences get excited.
• I warn the audience by announcing my show loudly proclaiming that the show is guaranteed to be violent and contains a hanging—like it’s a good thing. I do see some parents and their sheltered little ones walk on by…but I want them to.
• I coach the audience. I set them up to respond to “That’s the way to do it!” with “Oh no it isn’t!”
• Punch never hits first. (I’m not the only one to do this…the whole premise of the show is that Punch reacts in ways we can’t and sometimes wish we could.)
• I’m female. It’s amazing what I can get away with by being immediately perceived as harmless, teacher like, and some one to be trusted with children. It probably also helps that I have no tattoos or nose rings, and I wear a professional-looking non-revealing costume.
• Also, probably because I am who I am, Judy gets the last laugh (most P&J shows end with some puppet other than Punch getting the last laugh—usually the crocodile).

Do they get it? Yep, with a little coaching, they get it. In reality, this is Bugs Bunny’s predecessor—you can even tell them that—but at the end of the day, it really is just slap stick comedy. Americans get that.

Feeling Behind

I want to start rehearsals for Momotaro in July so I have a little more than a month to finish the script, build a stage, make props and finish all the puppets. Here's where I'm at with the Gold Oni:

It's really the script I'm worried about. I really want to do a good job but...this is my mindset:

PUNCHOh Hello! Hello! Hi! How are ya! Hello! Hello! Judy! Judy-judy-judy!

JUDYHere I am Mr. Punch now what is it you want?

PUNCHA Kiss!
JUDYA Kiss! I'm not going to give you a kiss in front of all these people!

PUNCHWhy Not?

JUDYWhy not? I'll tell you why not. Because they'll all laugh at me and make that terrible 'Woooo' sound!

PUNCHNo they won't!

JUDYOf course they will.

PUNCHNo they won't.

JUDYYou think so do you? Well I'll prove it to you. And Ladies and Gentlemen this is your chance to redeem yourselves and prove me wrong, so no laughing or woooing! Very well, Mr. Punch, I'll kiss you but first I must blow my nose. (loudly blow raspberries while wiping nose on curtain. PUNCH makes gross noises) Here we go.

PUNCHKiss!

JUDYOh Mr. Punch I heard them didn't you?

PUNCHI must have missed it.

JUDYYou missed it! How could you miss it? Very well I'll kiss you one more time and you better pay attention! Ladies and gentlemen this is your last chance, so no laughing and no wooing!

PUNCHKiss!

JUDYOh Mr. Punch you're worse than the postman!

Japanese Paper Clay

Ah the wonders of Japanese Paper Clay!

Paint is coming next! Wait for it!

Puppetry tip learned this weekend:

Don't thrust your finger too enthusiastically into your next puppet in the Punch show...you can hurt yourself that way. You'll soon learn what a very important finger that is as the show goes on.

Day of Puppetry

Here in the Pacific Northwest, the Day of Puppetry happens when the weather is good--August! Also, because the Pike Place Market (established in 1907) closes off their street every Sunday throughout the summer for various event of which we are one.
I must say, though the day started out gloomy, we had a rather nice crowd. I was wishing I had my sunblock towards the end. It did not, in fact, rain that day. The turn out of puppeteers was lower than it had been in the past few years. Many of the acts we've had in the past were booked else where so when it was all said and done, we just had two performances that day--Rob D'Arc's Three Little Pigs and my Punch and Judy show. But the Market has seriously lucked out in the past getting as many acts as they did for a free promotion.
I had new jokes! Not to mention a whole new puppet and routine to go with it. At the Puppet Rampage I picked up a foam Crocodile puppet and I surfed YouTube until I found a routine I could pull off with it. I found one, but because of the size and shape of the puppet, I modified it beyond recognition. I guess one could call it the Crocodile Pillow routine. But I can't snore through the swazzle so I ended up just saying the word "snore" mostly because Frank thought it was funny. The word is an onomatopoeia anyway, so I guess it worked. Actually, the pillow routine works better for my puppet than the one on web because my puppet isn't wood. It can't make a loud snap and it looks soft enough for a pillow. Wait till you see it! I'll definitely do my new routine at September Crown(if I go) and the mini-faire in Richland in September.
Anyway, back to the topic at hand, I met quite a few interested people at the Market. We handed out all of the 50 fliers I brought and we needed more. Next year, I'll print a hundred at least. I'd like to put together a new-comer meeting for the beginning of October. Premise being a meet-and-greet party with a scary puppet mini-exhibit to get everyone inspired for Halloween. What do you think?