Category: Puppetry

Puppetry Performance Workshop at Lir Academy

Posted on by kristina

I am so lucky to be spending my weekend learning about puppetry performance with Fergus J. Walsh, Associate Professor of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut, and several other fascinating people.

Today we learned a few things about communicating with our hands. We were asked to perform a 2 minute story, with a beginning, middle and end with no props. It was so challenging but also such fun!

Today’s class reminded me of this video clip I had buried in my archives from 2023. I had no formal training in puppetry, but I was determined! The Owl and the Scarecrow was a poem written and told by seanchaí (Irish storyteller) Barry James. The puppet show was designed and built by me whilst wishing I had 3 hands for the 3 characters in Barry’s tale.

Tomorrow we will be exploring another kind of puppetry, which I am really excited to try – three-person puppetry! We won’t be covering marionette performance, but I already knew that and am eager to learn other ways to puppeteer! Wolfie might join me anyway just for fun. He’s needs a break from tending to his beloved tree.

Looking back I realise how lucky I have been that members of the community here in Skerries took a chance on me and my puppeteering efforts in the first place! It can be a stressful way to learn, just diving headlong into putting on a show. I feel much more devoted to the practice now that I am learning from a puppeteer and tutor in a supportive group setting, than when I was trying to teach myself by watching videos and practising alone.

RIP Dr Jane Goodall

Posted on by kristina

Such sadness at the news of the loss of Jane Goodall. Her book of Hope gave me the courage to write “City of Lost Trees” and strengthens my resolve to make art that speaks up for the plight of anyone, like Wolfie in the story, who is forced to flee their home due to climate change.

The NewYorker quoted from the book: ‘Amid flooding and wildfires, impassivity and eco-grief, the question she was asked most often was “Do you honestly believe there is hope for our world?” She did. Hope, she argued, is not merely “passive wishful thinking” but a “crucial survival trait.” She noted, “If you don’t have hope that your action is going to make a difference, why bother to do anything?’

Sometimes it can be hard to decide how to spend your time when it often feels time is in such short supply. I always wanted to make art, and I always wanted to help wildlife. I thought I couldn’t do both. Volunteering at shelters took up so much of my time and emotional energy that there was little left to devote to art afterwards. But when I began to write and create my own puppet shows I realised puppetry was the perfect medium for me to tell the stories I wanted to tell, to spread hope and awareness and compassion for all living things.

I will forever be grateful to Dr Jane Goodall for persevering in her mission to spread hope – without it I would have struggled to see the point in writing, creating and performing stories like City of Lost Trees and to share it with the public.

Pitching City of Lost Trees to Fingal Libraries

Posted on by kristina

Fingal libraries have asked me to describe my “Teatrino Meccanico” and its debut performance “City of Lost Trees”. After scrounging a some discarded cardboard boxes from the streets surrounding my dad’s place and spending a lot of time on the roof cutting, painting and draping fabric to give the impression of curtains, I came up with this image. I drew the cogs digitally and added them to the image to hint at the way the theatre will operate. In the end this image wasn’t used, as the creative director preferred an image with no digital additions, which s fair enough. I also decided that operating the cardboard wolf puppet was not going to work for me, and opted to try building a wolf marionette instead.

Dad’s Workshop

Posted on by kristina

Today we experimented with one of several mechanical solutions to making stage props move… by themselves! I presented dad with my suggestion, which was that I felt there must be a way using cogs or cylindrical objects of some sort, for a person to turn a handle in one location, and a large disc in another location would turn. There were a lot of details to be worked out, such as, how much do you want it to turn, and would you be able to turn it back again in the other direction etc. etc. But after a lot of conversations, he had a neat little solution which I immediately realised could work.

It needed to be something I could do by myself when back in Ireland, many miles away from my father and his wonderful engineering skills and even more wonderful workshop.

Mechanical Theatre

Posted on by kristina

In bright and colourful surroundings of my hometown during a visit back to Malta. I started work on my latest project. A Mechanical Theatre to replace my old cardboard theatre that has now been retired and a new show called “The City of Lost Trees”.

I needed to get to work without any further ado which meant working while on holiday. Building on the reputation of past puppet shows I have designed, built and performed in my local town of Skerries back in Ireland, I was happy to accept when asked to perform at Fingal’s upcoming Festival of Children’s Literature.

The stage of the previous portable puppet theatre was adequate but there was no room for scenery. A new theatre, custom-made to accommodate a larger stage area was desperately needed, so new designs were drafted within a week of accepting the offer. The idea of creating human-powered moving sets had been niggling at me since my last performance at the Scarecrow Festival. A few sketches and prototypes later and the reality of what could be achieved became ever more appealing.

I combined catching up with my father in Malta with several visits to his workshop. We tinkered, and we wrestled a few possible solutions to the mechanical problems. Finally, we worked something out, but while he continued to tinker in his garage, I would have to start work on the sets right away. There is so much to be done!