Acting with Table Top Puppets at Puppet Showplace Theatre

Instructor: Jacek Zuzanski, Dream Tale Puppets

4 sessions, April 29 – May 20

Tuesdays, 6:30-9:30pm

Have you ever considered learning to act with puppets? Would you like to learn new ways to play with your kids? Or maybe you are interested in developing your expressive skills? Please consider joining and please spread the word about Acting with Table Top Puppets at Puppet Showplace Theatre.

Table top puppetry is a unique performance style that enables a human performer to bring a puppet character to life in full view of the audience. This powerful art form requires both physical precision and an extensive vocabulary of expressive movements that trigger the imagination.

In this hands-on, exploratory workshop, participants will build their awareness of the actor/puppet relationship through a series of fun and challenging exercises with professional table top puppets. The class will explore the paradox of mutual control, whereby the puppet controls the puppeteer as much as the reverse. The class will practice core manipulation skills and explore performance techniques that unify actor and puppet, including breath, focus, footsteps, balance, and posture. The class will then apply these learned skills to devise their own unique solo and multi-character scenes.

This is an intermediate level workshop: some familiarity with puppetry, acting, or dance/movement is recommended. Although the class focuses on a very specific performance situation, the workshop is for anyone interested in broadening their puppetry performance skills in a supportive and detail-oriented environment.