A to Z, Puppets Are EASY!

If a picture is worth a thousand words, here's 10,000 from my workshop, "A to Z, Puppets are Easy", I will present at the Great Lakes Regional Festival, Motor City Puppet Blast.  (More on that after all the pictures.)

Buzz, my puppy puppet, is dressed like a pirate -- AAARF!  (He never learned a proper pirate's AAARGH!)

Nina the Teenage Ballerina

Puppets can be dangerous!

The Gunniwolf has caught me!

He's a lover of lullabies

(He's falling asleep)

This is Ivan, my Signing Siberian Tiger

Anansi, the trickster, has fingered a spot in the program, too

Here's a view of many of my puppet friends who help put on this workshop

Those great photos were taken last year at the program I did for the Birmingham Storytellers Guild by Kathy Calhoun.  THANKS, KATHY!!!  I'm awful when it comes to taking photos and so I'm immensely grateful to Kathy.

I promised more information about the 2014 Great Lakes Regional Festival, a.k.a. the

It will be held July 25-27 at the Detroit Institute of Arts.  They have a long history of puppet collections and performances and should be an excellent venue.

Here's the offiffiffic'al description of my workshop:
Story telling with puppets for all those interested, especially the beginner. Let puppets enrich your work! These unpaid co-performers can help tell a story, comment for humor, be “fillers” between stories, or serve as your assistant in story telling, teaching or preaching. Discover a combination of ways to use puppets, and easily located on line and print resources to help you craft programs “Out Front with your Puppet”. Be sure to bring a note pad and pencil. (one hour)

I've given this very popular workshop many times, including several times for my own puppeteers guild, the Detroit Puppeteers Guild, for their annual Day of Puppetry.  I'm also the coordinator for the group, Out Front with My Puppet on Puppet Hub, the "global network for professionals, amateurs, and people who just like puppets."  The purpose behind Out Front pretty well summarizes my own usage of puppets:  
A group for puppeteers who don't stay behind a stage. Whether storytelling, or performing music, or. . . it's just the puppet & their human performing directly to their audience.

Here are some ways to find out more about the festival and my suggestions on puppets

• http://www.greatlakespoa.com/Festival.html has the most information, but at the moment the exact time of my workshop is still being arranged.  I'll update this article so you know it right after I do.
• This wonderful link http://www.chicagopuppetguild.org/#!great-lakes-region/cshr from the Chicagoland Puppetry Guild gives a fine summary of the workshops, letting you see there's much more at the festival to learn.  (Yes, there will also be performances and puppets to buy and still more...look closely at the general festival link above.)
• My own website has two spots where puppets are featured, including on the Specialized Resources page, just scroll down to Puppets for my top 5 favorite links.
• Additionally here are some earlier articles here at Storytelling + Research = LoiS on Puppets.

You will notice the first of those articles here -- a rather long article on the Billy Bunny series -- is also part of my Keeping the Public in Public Domain series where I post stories from storytelling anthologies in the public domain. Billy Bunny was a toy to start children in their first explorations with puppets.  I'm uncertain if I'll find some additional stories for this month including puppets, but I'm certainly going to look.  Until then, happy storytelling and remember puppets, too, after all 
"A to Z, Puppets are EASY!"