Mudblood Puppeteers

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8 Comments

Comment by hamstermatic on May 29, 2008 at 4:13pm

First performance experience was through a Baptist Church... did a show called "Bernie the Bicycle Breaker" on tape with mup-a-likes. Somewhere @10 yrs old.
Four puppets in the show with at least 3 up at a time. One festival the performance times were advertised in advance and when performance time came around I was the only one there besides a large audience. I realized I could probably manage with three puppets. I put the fourth one on a broom handle, laid on my back on a cooler, stuck a puppet on each hand and one on a foot and the show went on. About a third of the way through, the rest of the volunteers showed up and took over the two "creatively" manipulated puppets.

I did some more through high school and a little in undergrad, but I had to go deep into cover when I went to grad school, because they took Telecommunications very seriously. Well, now I just let people know up front that I do all sorts of puppets and it is just part of the package. They cope or they don't, but I am much happier.

Comment by Freggie Productions on May 16, 2008 at 10:24am

I always say I've been interested in puppets since I was 9 months old. That's when Sesame Street premiered and according to my mom I would watch it whenever it was on.

Most pictures of me as a kid shows a puppet on my hand. It was like another life form (I'm sure some psychologist could have a field day with that one).

Here's a funny story. When I was younger I had an "Animal" puppet (from the Muppet Show, so capitalization is necessary) and I use to masking tape a thin dowel to his hand for manipulation (yea, I used to study the Muppet Show).

Well one day we were driving on the New Jersey Turnpike. I squeezed myself down on the backseat floor (this was looooong before car seats) so I could put on a show through the back driver's side window for the passing cars. Now picture this, all you can see from my car is Animal waving and smiling at you as you pass. My mom, who was driving, sees people laughing and pointing while they're passing. She can't understand what they’re laughing at until she catches a glimpse of Animal putting on his show in the mirror.

I guess you can say I've been performing since the mid to late 70's.

Comment by Westpuppets on May 4, 2008 at 9:38pm

Thats true, its almost not worth doing for less then 200 because it is just so darn much work. Why oh why did I choose marionettes!? Curse you little stringed creatures! Next time I'm doing finger puppets. ha!

Comment by Puppetgirl on April 26, 2008 at 5:12am

i wish i could help, but most of my shows were volunteered. u could always call a few clowns and see what they charge and how it's broken down for them and then have a similar price or idea. even though they don't do puppets it might help.

Comment by Westpuppets on April 25, 2008 at 11:23pm

30 minute shows. 1hour setup, 1 hour break down. 5-10 marionettes in each show. Costumed intro and backstage tour add about 15-20 minutes. Stage packs into trailer behind the car. Cloth flip backdrops and misc props in the show. You can see some shows in my vids. So what do you think? Been asking 100-200 but not sure where in that range I should be.

Comment by Westpuppets on April 20, 2008 at 11:47am

Mudbloods. What do we charge when someone wants a birthday party show. Same as clowns? We have no parents in puppetry so how do we find out business stuff like that?!

Comment by Westpuppets on April 20, 2008 at 11:42am

I was lucky enough to see one Fettig book in the library briefly. It was amazing but I was not allowed to check it out. Have not found a copy I could afford yet.

Comment by Westpuppets on April 13, 2008 at 10:02am

When I turned 40 and started having health problems I thought that maybe I could use puppets to do all the crazy acting stuff in my place. Then I embarqed on a huge book quest reading anything I could find (mostly from ebay) to actually build one of those marionette thingies. Now I have local friends that help me improve my building skills! Puppet people are the best people!