I recently returned from an amazing week of puppetry in the middle of nowhere; Trenton, Missouri. Once again I was honored to be on the staff of Puppetfest Midwest, an intense puppetry conference that features week-long workshops and nightly performances.
I taught 8 students about our polyfoam puppet techniques and their results were just fantastic. We had a wide range of skill levels and age levels in our class. As the week progressed the bond that grew between the students was really neat to watch. Just look at the amazing characters that these folks created. Awesome!
A true highlight of the week for me was performing our production called "A Show of Virtues." One of the many triumphs that has been cultivated at Puppetfest Midwest is public attendance at festival performances. This is no easy task and yet over the years the public has come to not only look forward to this week of puppeteers overrunning their town, they embrace it! I dare say that over the 9-year history of this festival, the Trenton townsfolk might very well have seen more puppetry than a lot of us puppeteers!
This year, it was one of these local Trentonites who paid me perhaps the highest compliment that I have ever received and I will never forget it.
"A Show of Virtues" begins and ends with this simple line, "This could be your lucky day." I first performed "A Show of Virtues" at Puppetfest Midwest back in 2006. Following that performance, Festival Artistic Director Peter Allen led an audience member backstage to meet me. It was obvious that she had been crying and I came to learn that the final story in the performance, "Why Frog and Snake Don't Play Together" had uncovered some childhood intolerance that she had experienced and that emotional recall had brought her to tears. Oh the power of puppetry! As Peter Allen succinctly put it to me, "it's amazing that your crappy hunks of foam on sticks, telling the simplest of stories, are a powerful enough catalyst to open some door she had shut long ago." Amazing indeed.
Fast forward to this year's performance of the same show. Peter Allen again brought this same special person backstage. Again she had been crying. She told me more about the circumstances of the intolerance from her childhood. I was so glad to see her again. It was amazing and humbling to hear how the stories in my performance had affected her. She explained that seeing the performance this time had been very healing for her and that she was so glad that she had come to the theatre again. Then she said the words that rocked me. She said simply and plainly as our conversation drew to a close, "do you know what? This really was my lucky day, and I thank you."
It meant so much to me that she would take away that small essence of what I was trying to convey with that simple opening and closing line. As a performer it is so necessary to keep a clear conduit between performance and audience and I'm always cognizant of this. It was a triumph for me that these words stuck with her! I was so humbled by her sincerity. I packed up my show feeling the warmth of that compliment and realized yet again how powerfully our theatre form can stir so many emotions within people.
I taught 8 students about our polyfoam puppet techniques and their results were just fantastic. We had a wide range of skill levels and age levels in our class. As the week progressed the bond that grew between the students was really neat to watch. Just look at the amazing characters that these folks created. Awesome!
A true highlight of the week for me was performing our production called "A Show of Virtues." One of the many triumphs that has been cultivated at Puppetfest Midwest is public attendance at festival performances. This is no easy task and yet over the years the public has come to not only look forward to this week of puppeteers overrunning their town, they embrace it! I dare say that over the 9-year history of this festival, the Trenton townsfolk might very well have seen more puppetry than a lot of us puppeteers!
This year, it was one of these local Trentonites who paid me perhaps the highest compliment that I have ever received and I will never forget it.
"A Show of Virtues" begins and ends with this simple line, "This could be your lucky day." I first performed "A Show of Virtues" at Puppetfest Midwest back in 2006. Following that performance, Festival Artistic Director Peter Allen led an audience member backstage to meet me. It was obvious that she had been crying and I came to learn that the final story in the performance, "Why Frog and Snake Don't Play Together" had uncovered some childhood intolerance that she had experienced and that emotional recall had brought her to tears. Oh the power of puppetry! As Peter Allen succinctly put it to me, "it's amazing that your crappy hunks of foam on sticks, telling the simplest of stories, are a powerful enough catalyst to open some door she had shut long ago." Amazing indeed.
Fast forward to this year's performance of the same show. Peter Allen again brought this same special person backstage. Again she had been crying. She told me more about the circumstances of the intolerance from her childhood. I was so glad to see her again. It was amazing and humbling to hear how the stories in my performance had affected her. She explained that seeing the performance this time had been very healing for her and that she was so glad that she had come to the theatre again. Then she said the words that rocked me. She said simply and plainly as our conversation drew to a close, "do you know what? This really was my lucky day, and I thank you."
It meant so much to me that she would take away that small essence of what I was trying to convey with that simple opening and closing line. As a performer it is so necessary to keep a clear conduit between performance and audience and I'm always cognizant of this. It was a triumph for me that these words stuck with her! I was so humbled by her sincerity. I packed up my show feeling the warmth of that compliment and realized yet again how powerfully our theatre form can stir so many emotions within people.
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