Fall 2015 Slam Time!

This November 8th at The Venue in Orlando, FL (found at 511 Virginia Drive, in the 32803 zip code) our Guild will present our Fall 2015 Puppet Slam! Hosted by everyone's favorite inter-dimensional friend, Godrick, and featuring new short works of puppet cabaret for adults by artists you've seen on America's Got Talent, Sesame Street, and your bus stop asking frantically if you have an extra quarter, this, like all the sold-out Slams that we've brought Orlando before, is sure to have something for everyone. We just can't promise exactly what that something will be. Proceeds from this event will be donated toward the health care costs of a member who has been recently disabled by a serious neuromuscular disease called Myasthenia Gravis. 

Follow CFPG SLAMS on Facebook for updates on all our slam-specific activities, and make sure to RSVP to the event page here: https://www.facebook.com/events/482687205226657/ 

Guild Build Day 2

Set design by Tom Blasco

The set for "Eclectic Farm" is under construction! IBEX Puppetry has generously donated space in their warehouse for us to construct and store our building materials in as we prepare for our first Action Puppet Force slam.

The guild is using this opportunity to learn from Tom, a professional FX wizard with a great deal of set and prop experience who runs Puppets On Hand, on topics ranging from wood and fabric construction to stage painting.

Many guild members came together to help realize Tom's design. The concept was crowd-sourced by the guild and includes two main set pieces, a silo that works as a puppet booth and a barn playboard that doubles as a character in itself.

We can't wait to show off the fruits of our labor on November 12th at Urban ReThink!

Tom works on an aluminum silo skeleton

Nathalie, Jonathan, Jack,
& Anne antiquing "Barney"

Puppet fun (& learning) with MicheLee Puppets

Guild members MicheLee Puppets presents their interactive bully-prevention program, "BSI: Bully Scene Investigators", at the Lake Eola band shell this Sunday!

The elite BSI investigative team will train you on bully prevention techniques. The BSI Agents, along with a hilarious cast of puppet characters, will give kids the edge they need to identify bullying behaviors, protect themself from bullies, and defend others from bullies by becoming responsible bystanders. Kids will have fun interacting throughout training to gain coveted BSI Agent Status and learn the official BSI handshake.

What are we up to? - Jack Fields Edition

Behind the scenes of guild member Jack Field's 10-minute film, "Happy Memories", during last year's filming.  Jack has a degree in Digital Art from Stetson and blends his love of creating by hand with his skills in post production to create psychedelic spectacles of puppetry. He works locally for IBEX Puppetry.

Photo by John Regan III

Jack used the money he secured from a United Arts of Central Florida Professional Development Grant to hire a group of friends and puppeteers in order to realize his story of the surreal journey of a young cupcake into its adulthood.

Photo by John Regan III

The film's only human protagonist is portrayed by local personality and conceptual artist, Brian Feldman, who has performed as the reoccurring human character "Erstbile" opposite Jack's body puppet "Godrick" on stage.

Jack makes heavy use of holiday decorations in this film; transforming tinsel and glitter ball ornaments into mysterious coral-dwelling snakes, making monsters called "Mathuloxes" from small decorative Christmas trees, and creating cupcake guts from Mardi Gras beads. 

Click to see the full blog entry on Analog Artist Digital World

Sketch-blogger and Central Florida arts advocate Thomas Thorspecken visited the shoot and composed a vibrant sketch featuring Brian Feldman, cameraman John Regan III, guild member Megan Boye, and Jack hard at work. 

APF November 2011 Program

Tom Blasco [director, set design] Set construction and hosting antics written and performed by members of the Central Florida Puppet Guild including Tom Blasco, Megan Boye, Kathy Deering, Nathalie Jacobs, Jack Fields, Dawn Rice, Mona Stuart, Anne Slater Collins, and Jonathan David West. Hannah Miller [producer, stage manager] 

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Confirmed performers include Beau Brown, Madison J. Cripps & Valerie Meiss, Keith Schubert, Kari Love & Brendon Yi-Fu Tay, Honey Goodenough, Marta Mozelle MacRostie, Kathy Sohar & company, Jean Minuchin & Randy Handler, Anne Slater Collins, Jamie Donmoyer, and James Brendlinger with students from Lake Howell High School. 

"Armadillo"
Performed by Kari Love
with Brendon Yi-Fu Tay

An armadillo's search for food takes him to surprising new heights.This piece began development at the 2011 O'Neill National Puppetry Conference

raburabusensei@gmail.com

"Carp Diem (Seize the Fish)" 
Performed by Kathy Sohar
with Kathleen McKee and Sharon Larsen
A homely fishmonger longs to catch the eye of a man who believes there are too many fish in the sea to settle down. 

kasflo704@gmail.com 

"Rules of Puppet Theater & Manipulation"


Performed by Bob Nathanson
author of Diary of a Doll Wiggler


While delivering a lecture on appropriate puppeteering techniques, Bob's wife Elise pays him a romantic visit backstage. 


www.puppetstogo.com/
bnathanson@aol.com

"Liliana"

Performed by Jeanie Minuchin & Randy Handler
of World and Eye Arts Center in Fort Lauderdale, FL

"Liliana" explores the margins between life, the spirit world and memory as a child grapples with the death of a sister.

www.worldandeye.com
World And Eye on Facebook
jeanminuchin@mac.com

Avenue Q in Orlando!

The CFL Puppet Guild's own Jamie Donmoyer is serving as Puppet Director and performing for Avenue Q's production run at Theatre Downtown!  I was lucky enough to sit in during the final dress rehearsal and can tell you first hand that this production is well-worth ticket price.

Set design by Tim De Baun, lighting by Kyle Ledford

It's interesting to see a black-box theatre version of Avenue Q, which demands that the cast play to the three sides of the audience.  Thanks to Steve MacKinnon's inventive blocking, which brings much of the action downstage--yet still manages to disguise puppet handoffs (with the help of Ledford's lights)--no part of the audience will feel cheated out of a good seat.

Avenue Q

Sept. 9th-Oct. 9th, 2011

Theatre Downtown

(407) 841-0083

2113 N. Orange Ave.

Orlando, FL  32804

Acceptance letters!

Thanks to everyone who applied to the Action Puppet Force slam for the 2011 Orlando Puppet Festival! We reviewed more than 20 performance submissions and sent out 12 acceptance letters today to puppeteers all up and down the East Coast of the US.  Thanks to a generous grant from IBEX Puppetry's Puppet Slam Network, we were able to offer more than $1000 in travel stipends to help "alien" puppeteers cross county and state lines to join us.  We'll be posting a roster of performers after we receive RSVPs from our slam hopefuls.

Our Guild is hard at work:  We're building a custom hand-puppet set to fill with funny bits during all the set changes, writing a running narrative for our puppet host team, and even composing a theme song!

In other news...

Mother Goose & daughter, Suzie

Our last Guild meeting quickly caught some of our strays up to speed on Slam topics before we turned our attention to member Nathalie Jacobs, who was kind enough to share her years of expertise in sculptural papier mache and other techniques as an engaging workshop for us all.

Nathalie's puppets and sets are miracles of personality and movement.  They're not only light and easy to work with, they're stunning works of handcrafted art even when they're sitting still.  You can see some of her handiwork, from her Thanksgiving show "Peanuts for Noel", by clicking here.