Atlanta, GA & The Center For Puppetry Arts

I meant to post this sooner, but while visiting Atlanta GA for the Black Box Improv Comedy Festival with Get Up (back in September) I got to take myself to the Center for Puppetry Arts

http://www.puppet.org/

There I got to walk around their museum and read about the history of puppets from around the world. There was a great video made by the Henson Foundation that was Henson having a dialogue with several top puppet masters from different fields of puppetry. There was also a bunch of puppets there on loan, including Big Bird, Dr Teeth, and the Swedish Chef! It was fun to get to look at these puppets up close and read about their history. They also had a section on the NEW form of puppetry -- Motion Graphics and Performance puppetry!!! This is in perfect sync with my own goals for puppetry. Since I work and train others in computer graphics every day, and I have a strong and growing love of puppets, this seems like a natural evolution for where the PIP should move next. However, the technology is still a bit pricey, so it is a FUTURE goal. And though I felt like the performance animation display didn't tell me anything new, I was glad to see them sharing some of the magic behind "Sid the Science Kid". And I felt privileged to have met the Henson puppeteer that operates Sid's head a year ago on my West Coast Puppet Improv Tour (when I went to see him in Puppet Up!).

While at the Center, I got to see a very fun show by Leslie Carrara-Rudolph -- aka "Abby Cadabby" on Sesame Street. Her show celebrated the creative spirit and encouraged kids to make up their own characters. The star of the show was probably LOLLIE! who was very entertaining, with a TINY voice and sugar-induced energy level that was like rocket fuel to the kids in the audience. But there were a ton of fun characters in the show. I hung out after to get a chance to talk, but she was worn out, and had to do several other shows that day, then go host a PUPPET SLAM. So we met, said hello, but that was it. Perhaps we'll get to visit another day.

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Leslie is now a part of the Henson Alternative show in NYC that grew out of "Puppet Up" which I saw last year in LA. The new show uses more video (Hmmm!) and I hope to get to go see it some day.


"Stuffed and Unstrung" -- http://stuffedandunstrung.com/home.html