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How true! Some years ago I used to perform a safety program in elementary schools, and I'd always put a puppet into one of the sketches. One year I wrote a song for the puppet character, and ironically the only way I could sing it in the correct key was in the character's voice. If I try to sing...

Remember too that Rex Harrison made a career-defining role of Prof. Henry Higgins in the musical My Fair Lady and could scarcely sing a note! But he sure could act a song! Richard Burton did the much same thing with Camelot. The flip side of this was Florence Foster Jenkins. She was very...

I agree about kids' CDs commonly used in church. The main reason I don't like them is because they are so "over-produced". They are incongruous with the rest of the performance. They seldom, if ever, blend well with the dialog before or after. This is where using your own voice, even if it's...

Just wanting to be clear, is this actually "animatronic" meaning using servomotors, electronics and the like, or is it simply mechanical meaning manually operated cables? I'm guessing the latter, which would put this sort of project closer to the grasp of us mere mortals! It's really a...

I think it's always a mistake to say, "it doesn't have to be good, the audience will just think it's funny" etc., etc. To me this is just an insult. If the singing doesn't have to be good because "they came to see a puppet show, not a singing show", then by the same logic the puppets in Avenue Q...

Great vid! Very entertaining! Hope you win!

What a great character! The moment the first picture popped up it made me laugh out loud. That does not happen often! Fantastic work!

The types of programs he refers to are applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Freehand, Corel Draw, etc. As a graphic designer by day, these are part of my daily life. And because I have no ability to draw by hand, I personally use Freehand to draw my patterns. If you are even somewhat...

Just for added clarity, the Dave Privett video is the Playsoup DVD.I found the information given to be of high value, and not a redundancy of anything I've seen anywhere else. Certainly well-worth the price paid!

Wow! That's fantastic! Oh, how I wish I had this tutorial 4 years ago when I was building my "Ghost of Christmas Future" puppet for A Christmas Carol!

The Grey Seal video is very much like the book. By the nature of the medium, it does make some of the concepts easier to grasp. For me personally, the video was great for learning, and the book is very handy to have for reference while actually building a puppet. The Dave Privett video is great...

I agree that using them with a pattern, or even better a kit, is the best way to experience it. That is how I built my first "Arm's Length" puppet. I did use the video for reference on subsequent puppets, even though they used very different patterns. The techniques are definitely worthwhile. I...

The Shure SM58 is indeed a "gold standard" for vocal miking. I own 4 of them myself, but would not use them for puppetry as a general rule. For a "close-miked" sound they're great, but for dialog they're going to have too much "presence" and as such can come off as sounding artificial. If you...

Thanks guys! I'll try to make sure I get to take those in!

I just found out that I'm going to New York next week! So of course I'm wracking my brain trying to think of any and all puppetry destinations in Manhattan (apart from the patently obvious Ave. Q). Any suggestions?

A mask will certainly "contain" sound and affect the way it is picked up by your mics. Whenever I have performed in full-body puppets it has been synced to a recording, or in the case of Little Shop of Horrors I was syncing to the live voice of another actor speaking/singing the role. It takes...

There are actually many, many variations of "headset" mics, and obviously they come with many, many different prices tags. One of the most popular is the Countryman E6, which has a very small profile visually, so it is favored by performers, clergymen and other public speakers, and it is an...

Great puppets! Made me laugh out loud immediately upon seeing them! Congratulations on a great gig!

So, PMK, you prove our point for us. You believe that the law only applies to you as far as is convenient to your specific way of thinking. By this kind of reasoning we can say that a stop sign can mean stop, slow down a bit, or just keep going, according to how it suits the individual driver...

Gordon- You are absolutely right. The company that I work for has some of our patented products knocked off pretty frequently. I see a lot of them on ebay, and there's not really a decent mechanism in place to address these issues. I have to contact the bogus seller myself and usually (mind you...