Highschool Puppetry Club

[Teenager's]

Hi My name is Chase, I am a Sophomore and the President of the Puppetry Club at my highschool. I have been just reading the posts over the years and gathering tips from you guys.

Thanks

Anyway the Club meets after school and we have 23 members and we have met every Tuesday over the last year. This is Our First year as an organization that was started by me. Now you may think "What an interesting thing 23 members in a Puppet Club at Highschool? Puppets must be big in Canton, Michigan." Not so....we have a campus of 6000 students and thats ONLY the students....so there are plenty of people to pick from to be in the club

BUT

I am posting to tell you guys about a Show we are doing on May 25th. I know you are all in other places and you aren't able to see it and thats fine, I just want to display what the Club has accomplished in it's FIRST year.

Well our show is 60 Minutes long we wrote ALL of the skits in the show and we have built 34 Puppets for the show. We are Very well funded because we have Coporate Sponsors (not many H.S. Clubs do) so that has allowed us a lot of freedoms Also as a draw to our show we have a "Highschool Celebrity" performing in our show....because the people who like to see him and people interested in Puppetry can all come and watch. We are also having a Silent Auction after the show where we are selling Puppets, Set Pieces, Props, Scripts, Posters, Shirts, and various other things.....

In our show we have Several styles of Puppetry we Mainly Have Hand Puppets and Bunraku in our show.

We have made 2 Commercials and are working on 2 more for the show, they are on youtube, you will have to copy and paste the links because I am new....but they are worth it, We also have been advertising on MySpace and bombarding our school with Commercials and Posters

Teaser Commercial
youtube.com/watch?v=IOn_9mnC4uY

Commercial #2
youtube.com/watch?v=4ighMiGbNNg[


Lots of Great things are Happening before and after the show involving us. If you have Questions Please Ask.

-Chase

 

[Buck-Beaver]

This sounds so great! Are you going to be taping the show? I am sure people here would love to see it.

 

[MeepBorkMeep]

Awesome. I've been planning to start a puppetry club at my highschool. How did you organize it and stuff? What do you guys do each time you meet?

 

[Blink]

Wow! Great job! I love the puppets. They remind me of Terry Angus' work. Who built the puppets? THey are very well done. Great quality and characters. I would love to see more video of them as well. Keep up the great work.

 

[Teenager's]

This sounds so great! Are you going to be taping the show? I am sure people here would love to see it.

Thank You, Yes we are going to be taping the show and taking LOTS of pics, so once we have them I will post them on youtube/photobucket

Awesome. I've been planning to start a puppetry club at my highschool. How did you organize it and stuff? What do you guys do each time you meet?

That's Cool it's really fun. Not necesarily fun to start one though....but I got an Organization sheet from the Principals office and filled that out, and you also need a Teacher Sponsor...someones room you can use after school, Ours is an English Teacher. I also had to get Signatures of other kids who were interested in the club and MIGHT join if there was one....then I sent the paperwork in (which there was a lot of, there always is) and it took 6 months for it to be approved (because we have a Large school) So it really depends on what your highschool's rules are for starting a club. While they were deciding to pass it actually the Principal called my mom and said "Are you aware what your son is doing? Puppetry isn't really mainstream and he will probably be teased by the other kids" That was sorta annoying....so things like that will most likely happen when starting a club. But there is A LOT of Paperwork before and during the Club.

In the begining of the year we went over lip-sync for awhile, Character development, Showed Videos of Various forms of Puppetry, Puppet Design, Then we started Designing & Building our own Puppets, and they got to choose what kind of Puppet they wanted to build. We had to start from the Very Basics though....because none of them were really Puppeteers and only one had Puppeteered before and that was at her church (no offense to anyone, but I had to "re-train") SO it's an upward battle. Also to Join to be a Full member There is a $15 joining fee for materials, and shirts and such,

and then later on in March we started writing the show, and we started a MySpace group so that we could write anywhere anytime and under no pressure, and so that we could build puppets during the meetings still.

Wow! Great job! I love the puppets. They remind me of Terry Angus' work. Who built the puppets? THey are very well done. Great quality and characters. I would love to see more video of them as well. Keep up the great work.

Actually the Front 3 Puppets were Built by Terry Angus....we are using some of them in our show, because we didn't have time to build our own, but they are also in the front of the Commercial to impress people to coming to our show and show that we know what we are doing. We have quite a large Advertising Campaign if I say so myself.

-Chase

 

[Barry Lee]

Wow Chase! That is a really great and cool thing ya'll are doing! Good luck with the show!

 

[JoeyMuppet]

Commercial #2
youtube.com/watch?v=4ighMiGbNNg[


Lots of Great things are Happening before and after the show involving us. If you have Questions Please Ask.

Teenager's,what's the name of the song in the second commercial?

Thankyou,
Joey

 

[Teenager's]

It's Coming Up by Paul McCartney.....isn't it fun, his music video is also on youtube...

 

[JoeyMuppet]

Yeah,I think it's fun too.Good pick.

 

[Anita The Great]

Great trailer (#2!) I LOVED it! Congrats Chase and have a wonderful show (Sorry I have to miss it--Michigan is a little out of the way for me this time around

Good to have you posting on the Forum! Keep it up (especially when you're sending in such clever trailers!)