For the last two weeks, I've participated in two workshops with the Chicago International Puppet Theatre Festival. The first workshop, Experiments in Light & Shadow, led by Tom Lee, wrapped up last weekend. It was a wonderful group of 12 folks from all over the country, coming from different backgrounds and experiences. We only had a week!
Based on Tom's instructions, the first job was to create a table top shadow theatre and figure out our light source. A single point LED will maintain a crisp cast shadow of the object on the screen, even as the object approaches the light. An incandescent source will capture a crisp silhouette when the puppet touches the screen, but will diffuse the shadow as it approaches the light. Each source has its pluses and minuses.
My next job was to come up with an idea- what story did I want to tell? I started by just experimenting with different objects and textures casting shadows on my wall. I was drawn to a crocheted snowflake (which never made it in the show) and decided with the changing season, I wanted to capture a winter scene. I consulted the internet to find a song or poem and discovered a recording of Claude McKay's The Snow Fairy, both the recording and poem are in the public domain.
After building the theatre, our next task was to build a simple shadow puppet figure to explore jointing, manipulation and scale. The more I sat with the poem, the more I realized it was the whole atmosphere of winter I was drawn to, and considered other ways to define the space with sound and texture. I strung up a small mirror ball behind the screen, and experimented with different kinds of paper to create shadow snow. From the text I identified which beats needed a visual element and what puppets and actions I needed to include. In analyzing the text, I decided many of the elements from the first stanza could simply be repeated in the second part.
I needed to figure out some stage mechanics. A rising snow bed made from rice paper and tissue needed to rise up, then melt, and then rise again as a bed sheet. For this I used magnets on the top corners, hiding the "snow bank" below the playing space and then securing the sides to washers when it needed to rise. I glued a plastic straw to the bottom of it as a batten so I could remove it with one hand. For the mirror ball, I needed a second light source that was hands free, so I used a small LED clip light as side light. Lastly, I needed a way to perch the sun & moon, again so I could keep my hands free for snow and puppets. For this, I used a binder clip on the neck of my desk lamp that was the main light source.
From this back stage view, the fairy puppet is balanced on a tissue box with the control rods braced in a small duct tape pocket on the edge of the table. This allowed me to use both hands to raise the snow/sheet. I made a title card simply by writing in sharpie on acetate.
The acetate was rigged to a dowel with toothpicks and duct tape. I included a little color on some of the "climate" puppets by using lighting gel. One year at the USITT Expo floor I grabbed a gel sample kit; now I know why! Most of the control rods are bamboo skewers. In performance I could wedge the control into the silver part of the binder clip so the moon could rest in the corner of the screen. Duct tape, packing tape and hot glue were my friends.
Below, is a video sketch of the poem. I need to rehearse the puppet movements more. I also think the Fairy puppet needs a re-do as the scale is too big and her mesh skirt snags at inconvenient times. I might also gel the main light to allow the mirror ball to twinkle more in the background. As is the case with any puppet performance, I am limited by how many hands I have, so every movement is planned for maximum efficiency. I'm looking forward to refining this more when I teach Puppetry this coming winter term.