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.

Mission Statement

The intent of the Action Puppet Force is to allow artists from various disciplines to experiment with the production of puppetry-related works designed for adult audiences: providing them with a supportive network of creative professionals as well as with an audience (short-form experimental performance pieces might otherwise never find an outlet for expression to an audience).

The secondary intent of this project is to establish a destination for traveling artists to display their talents to the Central Florida populace within the Slam format, both enriching our local audiences by providing them with an affordable model to view otherwise unavailable live puppetry works and strengthening the connection between Central Florida area artists and those working within the puppetry discipline worldwide.

To this end, we will endeavor to support our sister slams throughout Florida via the establishment of a "slam circuit": a series of conveniently scheduled puppet slam events that will allow slam organizers to share the burden of presenting traveling performers (making it more economically feasible for puppeteers to visit our state) as well as assisting one another with publicity, administrative, and production needs.

APF Members

Learn more about the generals of Action Puppet Force:  the members of the Central Florida Puppet Guild! Visit their Facebook Page or get information about joining the Guild by contacting our President, Jonathan West.

Anyone who performs at our Slam is a member of the Action Puppet Force!  Here is a list of currently commissioned members of the APF and where to find them:

• November 2011 Program

APF Sponsors

We are happy to accept both financial, material, and in-kind grants and donations through our 501(c) Fiscal Sponsor. Donations are tax-deductible. We offer many incentives for donations, including inclusion on our website, publicity materials, and programs. Contact us for more details.

Sponsors & Affiliates

IBEX Puppetry 

The Puppet Slam Network

Puppetball.com

The Urban Think Foundation, Inc.