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] 

---

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.

November Slam is Coming!

The Central Florida Puppet Guild is presenting a Puppet Slam on Saturday, November 12th, 2011, as part of the Orlando Puppet Festival weekend. If you have an idea for a short performance piece (under 10min), then we’d love it if you’d submit your script, storyboard, or a summary of your concept to us by September 1st, 2011.

COMPLETE SUBMISSION INFO HERE

Traveling puppeteers: We are pleased to offer a handful of travel stipends to assist you in performing at our Slam. Please tell us in your submission if you would like to be considered for a travel stipend.

Local applicants: The Central Florida Puppet Guild is especially interested in presenting acts from local individuals who don’t consider themselves traditional puppeteers! We challenge artists and performers from all mediums to experiment in new territory. Burlesque performers: Can you make us laugh and cheer with extra-creative costuming that turns you into a giant puppet? Dancers: Have you ever explored storytelling through masked dance? Actors: Can you sustain believability when your scene partner is a muppet? Painters/Illustrators: Can you bring your images to life through shadow or rod puppetry?

We are also happy to help connect local performers with dramaturges and artists. Want to perform, but don’t have a piece of your own? Have a piece, but no one to help build it or perform it? If you feel you’re one half of a great show waiting to be made, message us and let us help you connect with someone who needs your talents.

Here are a few (randomly chosen, unaffiliated) examples of the many different styles of puppetry and object-oriented performance the Central Florida Puppet Guild is open to considering for our Slam:

1. Comedic object theatre
2. Glove Puppetry
3. Hand Pantomime
4. Cabaret-style marionettes
5. Masked Dance
6. Puppetized Costume Burlesque
7. Rod Puppetry
8. Shadow Puppetry

Submit to Perform

Submissions will be reviewed by members of the Central Florida Puppetry Guild and selected for presentation based on factors including:

• Audience appropriateness: work is intended for an adult audience
• Merit: work is complete, entertaining, or at a stage that will benefit from audience
• Feasibility: we may not be capable of staging acts requiring large amounts of custom lighting, set, or other tech; we will not stage pieces longer than 10 minutes in length

Submissions may consist of scripts, storyboards, summaries of your concept (with or without images), or videos. Please copy/paste and respond to the following needs into an email titled “Slam Submission - [your name here]” and submit to hannah.miller@ibexpuppetry.com: 1. Who is the primary contact for this performance piece?  2. What is your contact information/best contact times?  3. What are your technical requirements (set, lighting, music/sound, etc)?  Remember: the simpler the technical requirements, the more likely we will be capable of presenting your piece.  We will provide for your use a table top, a playboard, and a marionette riser. We may be able to provide additional equipment on request (overhead projector, shadow screen, projector, etc).  Include microphone requests - do you have your own / need one provided?  Count on basic lighting only.  4. How many performers will be in your piece?  If traveling, we may be able to provide local performers to rehearse with and support you in performance.  Locally, if you are looking for collaborators, we will do our best to connect you with others who can help. 5. How long is your piece?   6. If you are coming from out of town, do you need any assistance? This includes help with lodging or other travel accommodations. If you have specific monetary requirements for travel, note them here.  We will be offering a limited amount of travel stipends to support non-local performers.  Travel stipends will be disbursed at the discretion of the Central FL Puppet Guild. Travel stipends may be used to cover any portion of one-way or round-trip airfare, gas mileage on a basis of $0.25 per mile, or lodging in the Central Florida metro area.

We will notify parties of acceptance for performance/stipend dispensation on a rolling basis once the submission deadline is past; we aim to reply to applicants immediately upon reaching a decision.

All accepted performances will be invited to at least one casual rehearsal and MUST attend a technical rehearsal or face being dropped from the final show. Performances and rehearsals are currently uncompensated, however copies of programs and press will be provided to all performers. We will also provide video documentation of our Slam to our participants.

Submissions or questions regarding submissions should be sent to Hannah.Miller@ibexpuppetry.com.