Quick Philly Trip

Last weekend I made a quick trip up to Philadelphia for two performances of The Emperor's New Clothes. I drove up from Charlotte on Saturday, spent the night in the heart of the City of Brotherly Love, did the shows on Sunday and buzzed on back home right afterwards. It was great. I love the life of the puppet troubadour!

I left Charlotte around 9:00am, equipped with a K.R. Special from Owen's Bagels, three litres of Raspberry Lime Sparkling Water, some Stacey's TexArkana Hot Pita Chips and a recently downloaded album of Lord Kitchener, King of Calypsos.

From the onset I had several altercations with Eva, the nice girl inside my GPS. She was hellbent that I go up I-85 and I was just as hellbent to take the laid back, pastoral trip through the Shenandoah Valley via I-77 and I-81. I finally convinced her.

The trip up was great. I can never get enough of the bucolic wonder of those gentle hills that roll through Virginia. I saw an amazing vertical line of cows grazing up the side of one hill and thought of my father telling me when I was a boy that mountain cows were bred with their legs shorter on one side so they can stand on the mountainside just right. I believe him.

I drove on and thought about the performances coming up tomorrow and marveled at whoever the clever person was to book The Emperor's New Clothes in conjunction with a Textile Exhibit at the museum. That's just hilarious to me.

Just like that I was there and checked in and wandering around the Avenue of the Arts on a Saturday night, and Valentine's Day no less. I thought of my Valentine Peggy, who was home alone with our dog Jessie. Then I realized that dinner might be a problem; swooning couples were streaming, arm in arm, into every eatery in sight.

I peered through the windows at an Italian place right next to my hotel and saw what I had been searching for; a lone seat at the bar. The Traveling Man's Shangri-La! I had my newspaper pacifier folded neatly under my arm as I strolled confidently inside the welcoming confines of Sotto Varalli.

I sat down and order a nice glass of Montepulciano. I scanned the crowd, noting the different temperatures of the Valentine Lovers around the bar. Some were new and excited, others where assured and complacent. Two old black guys played the piano and upright bass off in the corner and the place was filled with their wonderful crooning. It was nice.

I chatted with this guy Mike who was waiting with a party of 10 couples for their table. He was a physicist. A fusion (not fission!) physicist no less. Quite a guy. Then I chatted with the couple on the other side of me. I told the gentleman that he looked like a cross between Bil Baird and Anthony Hopkins. I was amazed when he responded, "who is Anthony Hopkins?"

After more observing and another glass of the Red, I left with some gnocchi for the room and a good night's rest before the shows the next day.

The performances were a blast. Everyone at the Museum was fantastic to work with. The houses were full and the audiences had a passion that was great. The Emperor's New Clothes relies heavily on 5 volunteers from the audience and both shows provided excellent "townspeople."

Before I knew it, I had struck the show and the truck was headed South once again. Some more pita chips and sparkling water and another tank of gas. It was a quiet, uneventful trip highlighted by my iPod on a full shuffle of all the music on there. What a wild ride that was. It would go from a Beethoven Sonata to Todd Snyder to Lucinda Williams to the aforementioned Lord Kitchener to Jimmy Buffett to Charlotte Church to etc. etc. etc. Man, it was something.

Towards the end of the trip, some beautiful snow fell in the mountains of Virginia, just before crossing into North Carolina. I pulled back in front our our house at midnight and all was well. Great trip!

Drew's Day Falls Apart

So, there I was; jauntily rolling down 1-440 in Raleigh at 7:15am on my way to St. Raphael's Catholic School for two performances of A Show of Virtues. A crisp, cold, DRY day stretched out before me and I was happy to be alive and to be a puppeteer and not on my way to some cubicle with faux-fabric walls.

Suddenly, my phone rang. It was super nice Kelly O'Brien, our contact from the school. She said that, inexplicably, the school was on a two hour delay. Non-existent wintery weather hysteria had prevailed. Due to the delay, the school day will be compressed and there's no time for the performances. We will have to reschedule.

I have performances here in Raleigh tomorrow of course, so basically I'm here with no shows and a whole day ahead of me.

Am I destined to be trapped in the confines of this hotel room to watch the likes of Dr. Phil and Maury Povich along with the rest of Raleigh's cigarette-dragging, bathrobe-wearing bleary-eyed housewives and house husbands? No I say! I will endeavor to persevere! I have work I can do, I will multi-task the day away! I have a list of libraries I can email about possible Summer Reading Program performances! I have repairs to A Show of Virtues that I can undertake in the ding dang parking lot of this Hampton Inn! It's not too cold for staple guns I say! I have a Schlotzsky's nearby! I will survive!

Besides, I can't stand Dr. Phil.

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):