Project Puppet

“Project Runway” is something I feel rather guilty enjoying. I love to see the creativity of the designers — especially when they have to do something crazy like design a couture dress from things in a hardware store. Fabulous. I even love the haughty fashion moguls who come on as guest judges. I love the outrageousness.

But…I sometimes have dreams of “Project Puppet.” I could even host it (I mean, my name is Heidi). I can see it now…puppeteers are given difficult tasks. Each puppeteer is assigned a random dumpster in NY and they have to design a puppet from contents of that dumpster. Working as a team, puppeteers have to develop a ten minute piece using a specific style assigned at random.  Or maybe (to show their adaptability) they would have to each build a birthday party show for a celebrity child or perform in an underfunded inner-city school?  Or they have to navigate the treacherous waters of a venue that did not read the tech rider for their black-light show…and they are forced to perform the show in a gymnasium with tons of natural light!

Things would be made interesting by having a mixture of marionettists, rod-puppeteers, shadow puppeteers (etc…) and pushing them beyond their comfort zone. Imagine a shadow puppeteer building a marionette with at least 40 strings or a marionettist forced to do a piece completely sans strings!

And I could host it! I would wear blacks. We all would. And we’d get Miss Piggy to be a judge on one of the episodes! And Statler and Waldorf would provide witty commentary! Wouldn’t that be fun?

Or maybe I should just to the Eugene O’Neill Conference? Probably…

The Name Game

What’s in a name?

Perhaps you do not know the agony I experience when “naming” a character in a show that I am writing. All the meanings of names…and children (my audience) always remember the names of characters. The name is so important to them! They actually become upset when I do not name a character: the hippo that I call “Hippo” is, I’ve sensed, a bit of a disappointment.

So I made a few changes to my script this week — most notably, I’ve done some gender bending (it’s a painless process with puppets). I am always careful when selecting the gender of puppets. (You can do it with almost 100% accuracy when you’re a puppeteer!) I feel it’s important to have gender balance in a show for many reasons. Young people watching the show need to have characters they can relate to, and gender is one way of doing this.

In my new show, “Little by Little,” I have lots of animal characters. Two of the main characters are a young squirrel and a hummingbird. They are friends. I’ve always had the hummingbird as female and the squirrel as male. Now I’ve switched them…for a number of reasons.

I can go into the reasons later (if anyone is interested), but I need to rename the hummingbird. It’s a ruby-throated hummingbird. I’m looking at names with meanings that relate. The show is set in Appalachia — in a forest.

Here is my list so far: Rufus, Russell, Rusty, Gilroy, Roy, Flynn, Flannery, Rupert, Gilbert, Jasper, and Rudy… Thoughts? Opinions? Suggestions?

Inquiring minds (well, mine, anyway) want to know!