Happy Holidays

I finished up my last performance of 2008 on Saturday. It wasn't a big tadoo. Just a small, quiet holiday party at a swim club of all places. I did a production of ours called Christmas Cabaret. It's a show I've done for years and years. It's no great theatrical feat to be sure. Just a collection of light vignettes with an underlying theme of slowing down enough to really enjoy the holidays. There's some predictable characters: a harried monologue from Santa's head elf, two reindeer with head colds, a couple of babies singing a duet and a puppy pops out of a brightly-wrapped box.

But a couple of the segments try to strike a more serious tone. No easy task in the venues that this poor little production finds itself; shopping malls, corporate celebrations and the occasional library still secure enough to present something with the word "Christmas" in the title.

In one of these heavier segments, a talking present laments that after Christmas morning you won't even recognize him. He'll be a crumpled mess, scattered all over the place. A regular fire hazard. His shiny paper and curly ribbons will all be forgotten once you open him up. He says it's a rough life being a Christmas present. So, he asks the audience to take a moment to enjoy the simple beauty of all the presents under the Tree.

In another of the vignettes, a sort of "off-duty" Santa Claus tells the audience that he was in the neighborhood and thought he would stop in and see if they all had been good this year. He implores the audience not to forget the true meaning of Christmas and the warmth that comes from loving, caring and sharing.

I tell you all this because on Saturday, there in the chilly rain, as I wrapped another year of performances, I felt that these two pieces worked. There's been plenty of times that perhaps they were not given the attention they deserved. But on this day, a hush came over the audience while a talking present and gentle old St. Nick had their say. I like to think that maybe, just maybe, some sugar-high child that was at this show might slow down for a moment on Christmas Eve to just stare at the beautiful presents under their tree. They might even hold a parent tight for an instant.

As I packed up the show, a little girl in a very fancy dress came for a peek backstage. She looked at Nick and the talking present, hanging side by side on the stage frame hooks. "Are they real?" she asked. I answered her without thinking. "Today," I said, "they were real enough."

A Singing Christmas Tree Weekend

We just came off a great weekend of performances with Carolina Voices and their annual production of The Singing Christmas Tree!

Fellow puppeteer Christy Pleasant and I had a blast performing with a slew of other guest artists in this Charlotte Christmas choral tradition! We joined dancers from Charlotte Youth Ballet, Inspire The Fire and Moravian Peace Choirs, percussion guru Jim Brock, Chris Thompson and the Cultural Ensemble, Native American song and dance artist Little Big Eagle, the ultra- cool siblings band called The Whippersnappers and more and more and more! Hundreds of guest artists crammed the wings for what truly was a spectacle! It was a real honor to be a part of this amazing weekend of song, dance and puppetry.

I performed an illusion puppet named "Mountain Dan." The team here at Grey Seal designed and created him and the puppet worked just great. Since the theme of the performance was a Carolinas' Christmas, Mountain Dan served as a narrator; helping the audience navigate the history of the holidays in our area. Mountain Dan was a like-able old coot and it was fun getting to know him as the performances progressed. I'm a big fan of illusion puppets like this.





Christy performed with Little Big Eagle in a piece called Cherokee Morning Song. While Little Big Eagle chanted and played the flute and the Carolina Voices chanted away nicely, Christy sat cross-legged on the stage floor and created a beautiful moment with a simple, abstract Cherokee woman character. It was really nice. Jeff Hawley, who works here with us in our studio, did the costume for this puppet and it was just perfect.


The nicest thing I take away from such a collaborative effort like this are the friendships forged over such a short run. Everyone was so great to work with and Christy and I left with a warm feeling of camaraderie towards our fellow performers. Many thanks to director/conductor David Tang for bringing us all together!

A little Jimmy B, Macy's and Father Time!

The weather took a downturn here in the Carolinas last week; a rare stretch of cold, rainy days. A rough patch like that always reminds me of a song by Jimmy Buffett called "Savannah Fare You Well." There's a lyric in the song that says:

There's something in the wind tonight,
Some kind of change in the weather.
Somewhere some devil's mixin'
Fire and ice together.

Is that an awesome image or what? Not to worry though, things have cleared up and the sun's shining brightly on a Carolina blue sky.

We're too busy around here at Grey Seal to worry about the weather anyway. We finished up a cool project for Charlotte Center City Partners last week, just in time for the Thanksgiving break. We designed and constructed a 14' tall pageant puppet of Father Time to help promote Charlotte's resurgent "First Night" event coming up this New Year's Eve. Father Time debuted in the Carolinas' Thanksgiving Day Parade and was a big hit. Cheralyn Lambeth puppeteered Father Time and was a stoic trooper, shouldering the mighty load for the entire parade!


We were also really jazzed to see the puppets we made for Cartoon Network were once again on their Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Float! We had a blast making these puppets of characters from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. It's super cool seeing those puppets in the parade. But then the showstopper! The Foster's Float got Rick-rolled right there in the middle of the parade. It was HILARIOUS! Here it is again, if you missed it (courtesy of YouTube):

Seemore Goodstuff

We had a fun, two-day shoot last week over at WTVI, the local PBS affiliate here in the QC. I have puppeteered a character named Seemore Goodstuff there for years. Seemore is a 6-year old (perpetually) elephant who tries his best to know right from wrong. He hangs out in the Kids' Clubhouse and soaks up adult-type advice from Beverly Dorn-Steele, WTVI's Ready to Learn Diva.

Over the course of the two days, we found ourselves shooting on-location in a dentist's office, a playground and around a police car in a parking lot. We also shot several spots in studio. Seemore and Bev usually say their piece in a nifty 30-second interstitial that's shown in-between regular PBS Kids' programming.

I'm always reminded during these shoots how lucky I am to be able to puppeteer both on stage and on camera. The two are so different and it's a blast to explore the manipulation differences inherent to each. A subtle twitch of the puppeteer's wrist is lost on stage but becomes an incredulous look of disbelief on camera. Large, sweeping movements that read well on stage are big and overblown on camera. Using the camera's perspective to puppeteer by, via a monitor, is a must. What a neat challenge it is to create a believable character while it stays neatly tucked inside the tiny camera frame.

Role-playing with an on-camera character in between takes is an important personality builder too. What may appear as frivolous fun really is an exercise in finding out what a character is capable of physically and also how and why that character may react to different situations. I really believe that exploring the character's traits off-camera creates a better performance on-camera. It also helps mask the puppeteer's pain, since we usually are crammed into some unnatural position, with head craned downward to keep it out of the shot!

The end product is so different with on-camera work versus on-stage work. The immediate reaction of the audience is not there. It's a delayed gratification for sure; the end result put on hold until the piece is post-produced and readied to air.

So it went last week. A great two days of exploring what new things this character I know so well might be capable of. And then seeing if I was capable of making him achieve them through movement and dialogue. I look forward to seeing the end result of our work soon, after the spots are edited and complete!

Grey Seal's Three Ring Circus

Last week found me wearing a lot of different hats and that's one of the reasons I love doing what I do so much. Each day presents a different template and it's fantastic. As puppeteers, we're involved in many different areas. Not only creatively, but in a business sense too. Good business practices have always been important to us and we try to practice them constantly. It's not easy turning a profit as professional artists, but we have been lucky to stay afloat and happy for all these years.

Early on in Grey Seal's history, we decided that several irons in the fire was a smart way to go. Better to have a few different options rather than relying on just one revenue stream. We settled into three areas; on-stage performances, on-camera performances and the custom-design and construction of characters for others. These different areas would serve as safeguards to one another as we rode the ebbs and flows of the financial seas. This early cornerstone philosophy has served us well over the years and each week usually finds me involved in each of the three sectors.

Take last week. Back in the workshop the finishing touches were put on a new mascot character for The University of Virginia. "Sabre the Horse" was packed up and shipped just as a new "CavMan" was being "foamed out" for UVa as well.

Last week also found me performing Salsa Cinderella out and about the Tarheel State. Over the weekend it was a privilege to perform the show at the prestigious Sarah B. Duke Gardens in Durham and then return to Charlotte for a performance of Salsa Cinderella at McAlpine Elementary School. Great fun!

Then it was time to slip on another hat and write some dialogue sequences for a couple of Dalmatians named Alto and Tenor who will be a part of our 26th consecutive year of performing with the Carolina Voices acclaimed Christmas concert called The Singing Christmas Tree. Next up, a meeting with Lucy Hazlehurst from Children's Theatre of Charlotte to plot out our upcoming performances of Tangle of Tales there in January. After that, another quick hat change and some pre-production work on our upcoming shoot at Charlotte's PBS station, WTVI, where we have performed "Seemore Goodstuff" on-camera for the last 10 years.

So it goes at the three-ring circus we call Grey Seal Puppets. Just another week of "pandalerium." Who knows what the next phone call will bring. Stay tuned and we'll keep walking the tight rope.

Accounting 101 For Puppets

Last week found me jetting to the Windy City of Chicago for two days of corporate puppetry. The late, super-great puppeteer Bil Baird once said, "you can make puppets out of anything, you can make puppets out of meat." Here at Grey Seal we like to think that not only can you make 'em out of anything, but they can handle almost any kind of material as well.

My trip to Chicago is proof of that. The Reznick Group P.C. is a national accounting firm with a 90-employee office in Chi-town. They held a retreat last week to cultivate teamwork and good customer satisfaction. Dean Sellers is the Director in Charge at that office and he understands the power of puppetry. Dean had the idea to bring in a puppet character not only for a little levity, but also to convey some sensitive material to the participants too.

So, there I was manipulating our puppet Steve Sticklewood, crack investigative reporter, who was on the trail of good customer service and satisfaction. I learned a long time ago that puppets can get away with things that people cannot. This lesson works perfectly in complex corporate climates such as this. There is information that members of the team want to know, but are afraid to ask. There's also information that the leaders want to convey to the team but aren't sure of the best vehicle to do so. Our formula with Reznick was to have Steve Sticklewood appear "live" on a projection screen located to one side of the speaker's podium. The puppet would interrupt the speaker and ask the tough questions. The back and forth dialogue between speaker and puppet was light-hearted and fun, but all the necessary information got through to the participants. Mission accomplished!

The way the puppet was presented was neat, too. Appearing on the screen somehow legitimized the puppet more than just having him pop up behind a puppet stage. But having the "live" interaction was paramount as well. We achieved this by setting me up in a separate room, nearby the meeting room. I had two monitors to work off of; one monitor showed me the camera on the puppet, the other showed me a camera on the speaker and the projection screen. This way I could have the puppet react to not only what the speaker was saying, but I could also respond to any non-verbal body language, which was really funny too.

I will say this though. Accountants work too much. I didn't get to see anything of Chicago, those folks barely stopped to eat for pete's sake. Aside from a few swell games of Bocce Ball the first night when the meeting finally broke, the trip was all business. Fun business, but business all the same.

Lobster Salad

Last Thursday found me sitting on a tall wooden stool at a table by the window at Michelle's Brown Bag Cafe in Bar Harbor, Maine. There on the table before me was a steaming bowl of New England Clam Chowder in a sturdy cardboard container. Some oysterette crackers waited patiently to take the plunge. Along side of that was a HUGE lobster salad sandwich; ginormous hunks of buttery lobster in a dill-flecked sauce fighting for space with crisp lettuce and bright red tomatoes, all crammed overflowingly into a crusty French baguette. A tall, cold bottle of Orangina and a giant Claussen-esque dill spear completed the feast!

I was in Bar Harbor as part of The Maine Puppet Festival, sponsored by the ultra-cool Criterion Theatre and hosted by the also ultra-cool Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers. What a great weekend of puppetry! Along with performances by Grey Seal and Frogtown, the Criterion Theatre's Rob Jordan brought in Perry Alley Theatre, Nappy's Puppets and Crabgrass Puppet Theatre for a cavalcade of puppetry by the rugged Maine coast! I was so honored to be a part of this inaugural festival and Rob Jordan is a great advocate for puppet theatre!

While I was there, I was really happy to get to know Erik, Brian and Robin Torbeck of Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers better too. They were so very kind to me during my stay. Erik and Brian gave me a wonderful tour of the nearby Acadia National Park. Fantastic vistas and views! We stepped atop the peak of Cadillac Mountain just as the sun was setting. Too cool. Frogtown does this hysterical show called Everybody Loves Pirates, but now I know why everybody loves the Torbecks. They are just super-nice people, the best!

Back to the lobster salad. With my show all set up for an evening performance, the afternoon beckoned for a stroll around Bar Harbor with a goal of finding some good indigenous food! I love food, and I love to find cool places to eat when I travel. No chains for me! I'm always amazed at the intriguing places I end up at, all because these little foam puppets take me there.

So, there I sat, at the window table, relishing every bite of the lobster salad and watching the world go by in Bar Harbor, Maine.

Ain't life grand?

Artistically Flip Flopping!

I couldn't stop reading the article by Charlotte performing artist Hardin Minor that recounts his recent trip to the Burning Man Festival 2008. (Charlotte Observer Carolina Living Section, 10/19/08) He spoke of the restorative powers that the festival had on his approach to life, both personally and professionally and therefore artistically.

I think this article was so transfixing to me because I've been giving a lot of thought to my own artistic journey of late. I had a great conversation with Vania Reckard about this just last week. Vania, an amazing puppeteer in her own rite, runs the workshop here at Grey Seal. What a wonderful environment she has created; it's truly a pleasant place to design and build. A pastiche of personalities gather each day to create amazing characters amid conversations that run the gamut from plastic people in Star Wars costumes to vampire books to morning-long discussions on where to have lunch. All this while "Attack of the Killer Tomatoes" quietly plays in the background.

Back to my conversation with Vania. I was telling her about how my views on my own puppetry have been changing over the last 5 years. Looking back to when I started out as a professional puppeteer, I think of all the opportunities to learn and grow that I must have missed because I was close-minded and unwilling to consider another way beside my own. I can think of occasions when I was filled with a silly self-induced bravado; unwilling to believe that what I had envisioned and realized was not the only perfect approach.

This is so amazing to me now because at this point in my puppetry career I realize daily that I have only scratched the surface when it comes to the possibilites of the puppet. The opportunities to learn and grow and become better surround me. They're everywhere! Our recent collaboration with The Children's Theatre of Charlotte on a production of Roald Dahl's "The BFG" invigorated me, I was overwhelmed by the capablities of my fellow collaborators.

Recently I've seen puppets from a full blown opera of Hansel and Gretal by Paul Mesner, a side-splitting "Cinderella" by Great Arizona Puppet Theatre, an impromptu shadow play by puppeteers Sarah Frechette and Ceili Clemons and got a pure shot of adrenalin from "Quintron and Miss Pussycat;" all of these performers amaze me and leave me tingling with the power and possibilities of the puppet.

So, I plow on, alive with a new-found vigor for what I do! The current puppetry palette is fantastic and it's absolutely great to be immersed in it; and to be soaking up as much as I can!

A Chicken Crossing the Road

I was clipping along at a jaunty pace through the sand hills region of Eastern North Carolina, heading towards the next performance. It was a beautiful day. The sky was that Tarheel blue. I tell you true, a prettier sky cannot be found. Highway 74 stretched out ahead with tobacco plants off the port side and soybeans off the starboard. Driving is inherent to the life of a puppeteer like me and I tend to enjoy it.

Suddenly I looked out the passenger side window to see a chicken flying straight towards the truck. The chicken was side-view mirror high and accelerating.

I never knew that chickens could fly. Not like this. I also never knew that a chicken’s face could display such angst. Eyes penetrating, beak ajar, chicken feet splayed wide open; it is an image that I cannot erase after all of these years. I felt I had looked into the eyes of terror itself, albeit for a fleeting moment.

Then the chicken was gone. She went up and over the truck and did not re-appear. Nothing on my side of the truck, nothing underneath, just nothing. The bird had vanished, like a chicken banshee racing away from some unknown hell close on her heels.

I rolled on in silent awe, wondering what I had just seen and wondering why. I rolled on past the tobacco, past the soybeans. I rolled on towards the next performance.