In A Nutshell
About the puppetry workshop: Conducted in a classroom or meeting room with chairs and a table. Uses basic materials like cardboard, masking tape, glue. Guides participants through performance training. Guides Participants through script writing and creating scenes. Ends with the presentation of a performance that creates evocative images.

Puppetry Workshops

Overview

Why use puppetry?

Puppetry is an ancient art, but one that is accessible to any culture, religion, and age. It is a universal language that speaks through images and the natural human ability to empathize with characters living in a microcosm.

What can a Puppetry workshop do?

A workshop using puppets can result in a performance that will share stories and communicate messages. It can also create iconic images that have a lasting value in memory.

The process of making the show is one that fosters team-work, and gives the participants a feeling of power in the microcosm of theater. Through the crafting of the stories and the figures, they can find a voice and express themselves.

Workshops

There are many styles of puppetry that can be used, but here are two possible workshops offered:

Hand Puppetry

Table-top Puppetry

Artist Background

I have been working in children’s television for 15 years in New York and Los Angeles. I have worked for the Muppets, and on shows for the Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr., and Comedy Central, as well as being a performer on shows that are seen all over the world like LazyTown which is produced in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Recently I have been working with the aid organization No Strings as a performer and as a trainer, going into the field and conducting workshops to teach puppetry.

photos of workshop for No Strings in the Philippines

What is the best use of puppetry?

These workshops, and the use of puppetry is best when there is a strong need to communicate a message that is difficult to express with traditional methods.

Despite a message being life-saving, people can be in conflict with the message if it clashes with beliefs. Using imagery and the symbolism of puppetry often a message can be communicated and received with greater acceptance because puppetry can by-pass discrimination.

There are dimensions to understanding and communicating a message that go beyond words, and beyond factual intelligence. Humans are complicated and need to have their emotions, spirituality, and their physicality acknowledged.

More than communicating, puppetry can reflect and influence a culture.

Contact

For more information please email:

Ronald@transformedpuppet.com