

National Puppetry Festival Day 5
whew. Sorry for the delay in posting. There was…an insect incident that rendered me unable to hang out in the dorm room for too long. But, we’re back and I’m ready to finish the Conference Chronicles! Today we cast the second part of our molds in class. mine was still looking pretty good. We had to dig our sculpts out of the WED clay and then pour more plaster over the top. We saw a show in the wayang kulit style of puppetry from Java, which involves many colorful puppets mad


National Puppetry Festival: Day 4
wow. 4 days already and there’s still more to come. Chicken lady is looking good, we did the first part of the mold today. The sculpture is made out of oil based clay and then you lay it up on a bed of WED clay, water based clay and build up to about 1/2 way up your sculpture, then you pour the plaster on top. the rest of my class did amazing stuff as well and I can’t wait to see them cast. Today’s awesome show was Billy The Liar done by our friends Madison and Keith. We’re i


National Puppetry Festival: Day 3
Well, at this point i’m pretty dead tired. I managed to last 4 days before cracking open one of my red bulls last night. There’s a pretty great little coffee shop in town that i’ve been frequenting. In more related news, my chicken lady is coming to fruition. it took forever to make this thing, I thought I wasn’t going to get to finish, but miraculously I managed to pull it off, much thanks to Fergus J Walsh, the instructor. here’s another great one done by my new Chicago fri


National Puppetry Festival: Day 2
Kat and I’s paths divided today as we are both taking different workshops. I am in a molding, sculpting and casting workshop that will be tues-fri while Kat is taking a variety of workshops and then teaching one about shadow puppet improv on Friday. Here are some photos from my workshop. It’s being taught by Fergus Walsh and the first day was intros and sketching ideas. We began by doodle sketching, which is a technique I learned from my friend Rachel Austin in high school, w


National Puppetry Festival: Day 1
Today went well despite the crazy busy schedule. We teched our show, got to eat and then performed with our friends Jenelle and Brad to much acclaim. We saw some really great puppeteers tonight as part of the opening ceremony, David Stephens from All Hands Productions did some great banjo tunes with and without the aid of puppets, Phil Huber performed an amazing marionette piece, and Jon Ludwig gave a really interesting keynote speech to the crowd. Here are some photos of us


National Puppetry Festival 2013: The Prelude
Hey Sea Beasters! Kat and MK are super excited to finally have arrived at the National Puppetry Festival here in Swarthmore, PA. After a long drive, some Cracker Barrel biscuits, and a jerky outlet we’ve officially registered, teched for our first performance and are eagerly awaiting the first evening of puppet fun. We’ve seen a few familiar faces and met several new friends already. Here are some photos from the drive up. More to come at the end of the day!