Puppet Meeting Agenda?

[HandySam]

Does anyone have a written agenda for puppeteer training available? I need to get a week by week list of training material and an agenda for what to do at each meeting. This is the first time I have trained puppeteers and I'm sorta training myself at the same time. Yes yes I know someones gotta say it. (the blind leading the blind)

 

[HandySam]

Wow! this is the first time I have ever posted anything and got no response at all.

 

[ravagefrackle]

Does anyone have a written agenda for puppeteer training available? I need to get a week by week list of training material and an agenda for what to do at each meeting. This is the first time I have trained puppeteers and I'm sorta training myself at the same time. Yes yes I know someones gotta say it. (the blind leading the blind)

not sure i have ever seen one, what sort of puppetry?

 

[Buck-Beaver]

Wow! this is the first time I have ever posted anything and got no response at all.

Handysam, patience, patience!! lol

I actually have one of these but not sure if I've still got it on disk or not. Hopefully I'll be able to check tonight and get back to you.

 

[HandySam]

We are starting out with rod arm puppets. After we master the basics then I want to introduce some other forms of puppetry for a bit of variety. Maybe one day some bunruku and blacklight. I've only ever done rod arm puppetry, shadow puppetry and human hand puppetry. Thanks Buck ever so much. Sorry didn't mean to get so impatient. I just saw this tread trickling down the page with no response and I've noticed a drastic decline of activity in the forum as of late. I also realize the importance of a scheduled agenda when teaching anything so as to keep everyones attention. I had a class Saturday and didnt really have a plan for where to take us. I think everyone is getting tired of just watching videos of other people performing and teaching skills. They want skits to try out and I cant say I blame them. I'm ready to at least give something a try (even if its not a big hit) to "get my feet wet" so to speak. We will soon have a group of songs to practice lipsyncing to. Thats a step anyway.

 

[froggiegirl18]

Wow I know how exactly you feel. I had to start a team as well when I first started. I did not have a set schedule but would teach the things I would learn at local workshops..check out onewaystreet.com and puppet production.com as well...both have great material and show locations of where their next workshops will be. Here's what I do.....I teach lip synch for three weeks just doing songs and skits..then we work on action for skits..just add on from there by every other week..Oh and record your practices..this helps your team out greatly!Hope this helps.

 

[Buck-Beaver]

I've seen some of the training materials put out by both Kids on the Block and OWS and while they're not bad, they're not great either. You're right about videotaping though - it's a very, very good idea though. It's amazing how much people improve once they can see what their performance looks like. I don't like using mirrors unless I'm demonstrating something specific (I've found people get dependent on them if they're used too much in rehearsal) but that's a personal preference.

This was a outline I wrote for some training I did at the beginning of the year. This was for a 40 minute show, which we only had six weeks to rehearse for (which is a really rushed schedule) and the puppeteers all had some very basic puppetry experience so you might have to adjust this accordingly:

Training Session #1
- Read-through script, discuss & familiarize puppeteers with characters
- Discuss type of puppets used; explain proper puppet care & handling
- Discuss puppetry skills / review puppetry technique handout*
- Workout / warm-up (important to do this every rehearsal!)
- Explain the basics of puppet movement/manipulation
- Discuss script memorization techniques and importance
- Role-play characters & situations from script

Training Session #2
- Review checklist for shows (you should have a checklist for shows)
- Block entire script
- Take home puppets for additional, independent rehearsal (first time)

Training Session #3
- Assign and discuss individual team member responsibilities
- Discuss school (or theatre/church) etiquette
- Present entire script
- Detailed critique of presentation
- Take home puppets for additional, independent rehearsal

Training Session #4
- Present entire script
- Detailed critique of presentation
- Videotape additional presentation of entire script
- Review/critique videotape
- Take home puppets for additional, independent rehearsal

Training Session #5
- Review of school (or theatre church) etiquette
- Review show procedures
- Review information about the organization doing the shows (if applicable)
- Full Dress Rehearsal (one or two, at the Director’s discretion)
- Survey team for opinions/feedback on training & rehearsal process

Training Session #6
- Full dress rehearsal w/audience

*I can send you a copy of this puppetry handout if you email me privately.

Where I think a lot people make mistakes teaching/directing puppetry to a team for a show is they focus too much on technical things like lip sync, eye focus, etc. and not enough on staging and characterization. Technical skills are really, really important but they take years to learn properly. The ideal way to learn puppetry is to practice for several years, but that's often not practical so I've found it's helpful to spend a few hours introducing basic puppetry skills and then review those skills each week and let people learn/improve as they go.

A really good book to check out for training plans is George Latshaw's "Complete Book of Puppetry" which I've used as the basis for a lot of the training I've done. It's available through amazon.com but most libraries have at least one copy in their system. It's really meant for glove puppets, but there’s a still lot of good info in it.

 

[Puppetplanet]

*shaking head in amazement*

And Buck pulls yet another interesting hard to find piece of knowledge out of his dusty 'ol noggin.

 

[HandySam]

Oh WOW! What a wealth of valuable info! This sounds so very corny but thanks again Buck! You really saved the day. This is EXACTLY what I was looking for. I will print out this page so I also get froggiegirl18's advise as well. I will take all the help I can get. Thanks SO much.