Junior League of Charlotte has Passion for Puppetry!

We've had a great time working with the Junior League of Charlotte to produce a puppet performance on healthy eating habits.



"You Are What You Eat" premiered last Fall. The show is a pastiche of every game show you've ever seen. Host Guy Goodeats guides contestants such as Jack B. Nimble, Little Jack Horner, Little Miss Muffett and the evil Junkfood Jake through a myriad of questions on good eating and exercise. Guy has the complete support staff on the game show too; the lovely Gloria Grain, the energetic Richard Slimmons and the Don Pardo-esque "Jay" are all on hand.



What's neat about this production is that members of the Junior League themselves take this show out and about all around town and perform it themselves. They set up the stage, hook up the sound system as well as manipulating the puppets.



I have found their dedication to this project to be amazing. All of the puppeteers have a great passion for this theatre form and it has been wonderful. Throughout the entire production process these performers have brought an intensity and concentration that I just think is so cool!



I went into the project with a mission. I didn't want this production to end up as just another amateurish "puppet show" with bad manipulation and a sloppy soundtrack. The Junior League Puppeteers bought into my mantra of making this show something special. The passion they bring to their performance is fantastic. We began with an intense, day-long puppet "boot camp." I think that taught them right then and there that manipulating a puppet correctly was more than just shaking a character on the end of your arm. They understand the concepts of "economy of movement," "a physical thought process," and the idea that a puppet can often say more non-verbally than verbally.



If you have the opportunity, catch "You Are What You Eat" around town here in Charlotte. It's a real hoot!

A T-Shirt in Lumberton

Last week I performed our show called Bathtub Pirates at Tanglewood Elementary School in Lumberton, North Carolina. Two back to back performances left my throat feeling raspy but my heart was happy. These were two wonderful theatre audiences and performing for them was just great.


Following the second performance, I stopped to chat with some third graders in the front row as they waited patiently for their teacher to give them the "o.k." to head out. One boy wondered if I'd ever been to a Panther game since I had mentioned that I was from Charlotte in my post-show speech. Another two girls wanted me to hear their rendition of "Loufa," one of the characters from the show.


Then I noticed a girl wearing a cool t-shirt. The shirt said "Peace" with a picture of Kermit the Frog below it. I told her that I liked her shirt and she smiled and said thank you. Then her face turned more serious and she solemnly said "I'm very fond of him." I said that I was too.

Driving back to Charlotte, it struck me that what this little girl said and how she said it was quite profound. How amazing that she would state her love for Kermit in such an adult and meaningful way. It was fantastic and it has stayed with me for these days following the shows. What a term of endearment and a testament to Kermit's enduring legacy.

It made me think back to that sad day in May, 1990 when Jim Henson passed away. Once again I was on the road performing that day when a call from the studio delivered this dark news. I remember how difficult it was to gather my emotions and still perform that morning; no easy feat with such a heavy heart.

The little girl in the Kermit T-shirt also made me think of that simple, wonderful little book called "It's Not Easy Being Green." I treasure my copy of this book, with its folded corners and tear-stained pages. I'm not sure why the philosophies of this small work affect me so, but they do in a deliberate and consistent way. I find it to be an amazing piece every time I picked it up.

So here's to Kermit and the people everywhere who are, as she said, very fond of him.

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.