Acting for Puppetry and Beyond: Leveling up your performance skills
Summary:
Come kick your puppet performance skills up to the next level! Join Kristin Charney on a deep dive into making acting choices for your characters so they are believable, unique, engaging & fun!
Description:
Kristin Charney (Team America, The Muppets, Fargo, Ratched, Sid the Science Kid, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Men In Black II, Kidding (and oh my gosh, so much more!) will use her 25+ years of experience in film, television & theatre to help you learn techniques to up your game! These techniques apply to puppets as well as other characters you may want to bring to life (oh hai, RPG friends!). All of the skills that actors use on stage or screen also apply to the puppeteer. Let's explore acting choices for our characters together & learn how to effectively communicate those choices through our puppets and beyond. We’ll also work through the physical expression of emotions that is essential for storytelling. We'll be working with multiple styles of puppets, as well as written text. Puppets & text will be provided but feel free to bring your own if you have something you want to work on!
Learn to build a moving mouth mech for a turning head rod puppet. It's similar to the type used on Rizzo the Rat, and is a simple, intuitive design that's easy to perform and fun to play around with.
Description:
Along with building this puppet “skeleton," we're going to be looking at how it works, why it works, and how you may need to change it if you come up with your own designs in the future! We'll spend some time looking at fun ways to add on to the basic mech to create your own character, then we will look at another rod design to get your ideas flowing. We will be assembling a kit, but this workshop is designed to show you the principals and be able to create your own designs from fairly easy to find materials. If you can bring needle nose pliers, a fine phillips-head screw driver, it would be great, but we will have extras to borrow if you don't routinely carry those around with you the way Greg does.
Finding Your Character's Voice for Puppetry and Beyond
Summary:
Do you want to find unique voices for your characters? Let’s explore your sound and shape it into something new. We’ll have fun discovering sustainable voices that you can use in your work and play!
Description:
In the world of puppetry, voice work is critical to developing characters. Looks, movement and sound work hand-in-hand to create a fully formed persona. Kristin Charney brings over 25 years of professional puppeteering experience in film, television & theatre to this workshop and is excited to share her insights! Join Kristin Charney (Henson, for a fun and practical vocal workout! Are some of your characters starting to sound the same? Are some voices difficult to sustain? In this workshop we’ll discover some new character voices and strengthen some old ones. We’ll start from the visual and layer sounds to build a fun and believable character. You’ll gain a solid foundation and learn some handy tips so that you can expand your own personal character library. Come ready to learn and play!
Would you like to get a start making puppets or other crafty things, but don't quite have a grasp on sewing by hand? Good news! This sewing for beginners workshop is perfect for you!
Description:
You'll learn lots of different hand-stitches, & of course you'll get to practice them. You'll leave with a collection of labeled stitches in a book (that you make) & instructions on how to achieve them at home. We'll get through as many stitches as we can in our 2 hours. You'll even learn a couple of tricks for threading needles & tying knots. The instructor, Stacey Gordon, has been sewing by hand since she was much shorter than she currently stands, & she stopped growing a long, long, long time ago.
So you've been practicing and you've got your lip sync and eye focus down. But what happens when you add a prop? A second camera? How do you puppeteer in a group of people? And what about Naomi???
Description:
Whether you're filming on your phone, tablet, camcorder, or your Canon Mark II, you'll want the skills that will help up your game in puppetry. Learn how to play with space, work with two cameras, interact with another puppeteer or even assist. We'll cover as much info as we can in an hour to leave you feeling challenged all while having the best time playing around with puppets!
This hands-on puppeteering workshop is perfect for beginning & early-intermediate puppeteers, librarians, teachers, or anyone who just wants a refresher on their puppetry skills.
Description:
Learn what makes puppetry such a magical experience & why puppeteer Stacey Gordon is passionate about teaching others to be effective storytellers, communicators, counselors, & educators through puppetry. In this workshop you will be led through skills like focus, breathing, posture, movement, lip sync, listening, & emotion to help make your characters come alive & your audiences more receptive.
Dive deep into puppet-building and make your very own fancy fish hand puppet in this workshop led by professional puppeteer, Stacey Gordon.
Description:
You'll learn skills to help you build puppets beyond fish, and your puppet will last for years to come! Glue gun skills required, use at your own risk.
Join Pro Puppeteer Matt McGee from Mattamagical and make a fun and simple rod puppet out of cardboard tubes, foam balls, and other materials, that will talk your ear off when you're done!
Learn the basics of marionette construction, from building to stringing! Participants will construct and customize a human marionette and learn how to string the puppet with an airplane controller.
Description:
Learn the basics of marionette construction, from building to stringing! Suitable for beginners wanting to learn more about marionettes; participants will construct and customize a simple 9-string human marionette from card and foam. This workshop will cover building and properly weighting an 18-inch figure, and simple stringing with a basic airplane controller. Participants will leave with instructions and patterns to build additional puppets, as well as resources for building more complex puppets and performance tips. Join us later for Marionette Manipulation Mayhem to practice manipulation techniques and character creation!
Have you ever heard of a pop-up puppet? They are the talking puppet you can fit in your pocket. So easy to make, with unlimited possibilities and fun characters to create!
Description:
Join Helen Hayes Award Nominee, Matt McGee and create a fun puppet for all ages! Learn how you can elaborate on this design and make fantastical creatures and characters on your own! Have you ever heard of a pop-up puppet? They are the talking puppet you can fit in your pocket. Come see why this style of puppet is called by some, "the gateway to puppetry".