Can I jump in too?  My husband and I have been doing blacklight production for about 4 years in various churches in our county.  Remember that if you are doing blacklight the stage must be completely black.  We have found for economical reasons we use the flat black bed sheet from wal-mart to cover our stage.  Also remember to have your blacklight inside the stage and regular flour. light outside the stage toward the audience.  As for the puppets I have found that the hosery  for children usually found at halloween cand be stuffed with polyfill and formed into different shapes.  Also you might think of finding some white socks and making sock puppets just be sure that the fabric glows.  Not all white does.  I hope I have been some help and good luck.  Don't give up on the blacklight show it will be worth it and the kids will love it.

Patti's recommendation of fluorescent poster board is a good one. My son was working on a science fair project earlier in the school year that featured black light fluorescence as a primary component. We bought several bottles of fluorescent paint only to discover that it wouldn't cover paper or cardboard effectively at all. We ended up picking up some fluorescent poster board for just 25¢ or 35¢ a sheet, and figured out how to cut it into the shapes we needed, sticking it onto the backing with double-sided tape. It turned out great - he won a ribbon and got an A on the project.

This might not be what you had in mind, but there's a style of "flat" puppet that's like a sign on a stick, cut out in the shape of different characters. If you want to be tricky you can put a different character on each side of the puppet "sign." You could even have the same character on both sides of the puppet, but on one side it's smiling and on the other side it's frowning, or surprised, or scared, or whatever the story calls for. Then just flip the puppet around to make it go from laughing to crying, or change from one character to another, depending on the story.

Some puppets like this even have moving parts which can be controlled with rods, or using a cord like those old-fashioned jumping jack style puppets. If all of the parts of the faces, limbs, and clothing are made of pieces of different colored fluorescent poster board assembled together it will look great under black light - though you will be limited to the colors of fluorescent poster board available to you.

I think that Patti mentioned making characters like butterflies or flowers as likely candidates for poster board puppets or props - colorful tropical birds or fish might be fun as well. Remember too that you can just use the poster board as a covering, and not as the structural base. Maybe use some heavier pasteboard or corrugated cardboard and attach that to the stick first, and then cover it with your pieces of fluorescent poster board using glue or double-sided tape, (there is also fluorescent paper available which can be used instead of the poster board).

Depending on the age, strength, and skill of your puppeteers you can make the flat puppets larger or smaller, even building two or three-person puppets - if you want very large characters, or ones with complicated moving parts. You could also make very small puppets, using popsicle sticks, tongue depressors, or wooden paint stirring sticks as handles, and hand them out to kids in the audience after the show.

I don't have any photos or links handy to show you the kind of flat puppets on-a-stick that I mean, but if you're having trouble visualizing them - think of paper dolls on a stick, but on a larger scale. The only drawback is that if you try to use non-fluorescent materials to color them, then under black light the non-fluorescent materials will just look like dark splotches. Fluorescent poster board can also be rolled into cylinders or used to cover the sides of cardboard boxes or simple styrofoam shapes, if you want to make something more three dimensional.

I hope this helps, at least until you can find or make "real" black light puppets.

 

Ron G.

PS
Here's a link to a page on MarthaStewart.com which shows how to make a colorful, flat paper dragon stick puppet, which is hinged so it can wiggle and dance. That might translate well into a fluorescent caterpillar puppet to go with a butterfly puppet...

http://marthastewart.com/portal/site/mslo/menuitem/dragon_puppet


PPS
After we'd already completed the science fair project using fluorescent poster board we discovered that our local Hobby Lobby carried the Createx fluorescent paint sets on the air brush aisle. You could check there, if you have one nearby. I've also seen those paints for sale on eBay.

Here's another link with pictures of stick puppets with hinged moving parts. They call them "rod" puppets here, but they aren't quite the same as traditional rod puppets. They could probably be adapted to use fluorescent poster board or paper without too much trouble...

http://www.eduplace.com/science/dw/5/unit/f/pm5.f1.html

 

Ron G.

I'm Patti. I am crazy about Blacklight Theatre!

This statement caught my eye because, interestingly enough, this completely applies to me as well! Over nine years of teaching and I always had at least one class doing something in blacklight for every parent's night production (at least 3-4 a year.) In fact, the school went ahead and installed blacklights in the auditorium!

I started out with the more traditional white gloves and sometimes added white socks when feet were needed. Then I had the bright (heehee) idea to use flourescent poster board mounted on black backgrounds. I now have quite the assortment of words in different fonts, colors, and sizes. I also have a tendancy to use blacklight for portions of songs, my students are always prepared to have the lights go out :P

One time I made gumdrop-shaped critters that I pinned to black t-shirts. I then took long strips of neon swimsuit material and attached one end to the gloves and the other to the posterboard so it looked like they had long floppy arms. I found some neon plastic slinky toys for legs and made feet out of the posterboard. My principal thought I was slightly crazy to put 4 year olds on a blacklight stage but it was a huge hit. (Unfortunately I don't have pictures.)

Then I discovered blacklight puppets! I simply adore them and have developed a habit of carrying around a blacklight keychain so that I can test material and clothing when I am out shopping. I had a song I wanted to do that had a lot of musical interludes. I discovered that some of the Limber Louie marionettes showed up well. The combination of singing puppets and dancing marionettes was incredibly fun.

In addition to to using sign language, I have also had words spelled out with gloved hands. It takes 10 pairs of hands to spell out 'salvation' in capital letters. (I and N take three hands each.)

Going back to the posterboard...I cut out 8" stick figures in two poses, placed them on black posterboard, and then mounted them back to back on a paper towel tube. Flipping them back and forth gave the illusion that they were dancing. It was much simpler than trying to make jointed figures.

My last year at the school ended with a bang. I only had 5 students (fourth graders) but the song they wanted to do had a lot of different things in it. We started with the lights out and a white sheet on stage - they were in black. The rose up in front of the sheet to create an interesting tableau (I actually managed to get a picture this time!) The one in the middle is holding a posterboard sword.

Then the lights came on, and they did part of their song, followed by a quick run behind the white sheet. Lights went out and up came the puppets. When the puppets were done the sheet dropped and there they were with neon hats, gloves, and socks for a quick swing dance for the final verse. They had started out with the neon socks under the black ones, but even I was impressed that they were able to pull the black socks off and put the gloves on WHILE singing with their puppets (there wasn't much in the way of pauses!)

What a great story. I would have loved to have seen the performance. I hope you share more with us on how to make blacklight puppets.

Thank you for sharing............. I loved the fact that you carry a blacklight pen light on a key chain. Now thats dedication.

Billy D.

I need help in some ideas for our Christmas program this year.
We have two songs we are doing in blacklight.  The first song will be on the Children's choir.  We are having them put on white shirts and some kind of halos.  It will be a song of the angles singing to the shepherds.  The children's choir will be doing the singing & the puppeteers are going to be dangling glowing stars above them.  What else do we need to do with the children?  Will their faces show or not?  Blacklight is very new for us.

I want them to look like angels floating in the sky. 

The second time is when the two reporters are talking to Michael (angel) without knowing he is an angel.  The lights will go dark and he will glow with halo and wings since he will be a blacklight puppet.  I guess what would make it easiest is if I had two identical puppets and one had the wings and halo the other dressed normal.  Hmm that means I would have to make another puppet (but I do have one I was going to make into another blacklight that is identical to the one I already made) HMM This might be easier than I thought.  I answered one of my own questions. 

Well anyways help with the first idea would be great.

Thanks

Oh I also need to know what to do about the eyes & hair for the blacklight puppet?

     Fair human skin generally glows faintly, and eyes and teeth take on a somewhat goulish appearance under black light.  It's easy enough to see what I mean - take a mirror and a blacklight into a dark room, and smile!  I'd recommend make up if you want the kids faces to show.  Neon sunglasses plus glow-in-the-dark lipstick or neon goofy masks (or regular goofy masks which you've painted in neon colors) can be fun, too.  A simple halo idea is a ring of feather boa which sits directly on the child's head (many colors of feather boa will glow under blacklight, but they will be an entirely different color than they are in regular light).  A wire frame and ring of tinsel will make a floating halo - if you can find tinsel which will glow.
     It's amazing how many items are labeled neon or look like they'll glow, but don't.  A black light flashlight is really great when you're shopping for materials (that or a good return policy!)  Anything that glows in the dark will show up brightly in blacklight, and every neon paint we've tried has worked.
     Our best blacklight puppets are actually bare foam which we've painted with neon spray paint.  They glow great, and the seams don't show at all under blacklight.  Neon paints can be mixed to make different colors, but I'd recommend against it.  We made a lovely purple and green octopus out of mixed neon paints, but he doesn't show up nearly as well as our yellow, pink, and orange puppets do.

Oops - I don't know what I pushed, but I wasn't ready to post!
     Blacklight is best when you don't also have regular light.  The effect can be really magical because anything black is completely invisible.  We once made dancing pink flamingos by putting kids in neon pink tights with foam shoe covers, foam bird wings and bodies which wrapped around the kids' waists, foam flamingo heads on rods, and feather boa necks connecting the heads to the bodies.  The kids wore black clothes, gloves, and black Halloween hoods with the black mesh faces (usually for Angel of Death costumes) - and no one could tell how they did it.  Underwater and flying scenes are also great because the puppets can float through the water/air - just make sure that the room is pitch dark and nothing behind the puppeteers glows, or the effect is ruined.
     Signs really are a great effect in blacklight, too.  Our favorite method is to print our images on neon paper with thick black outlines.  We cut out the image, glue it on black foam-core board, and touch up the edges with a black sharpie.  This is very labor intensive, but makes a durable, rigid sign which glows great.

Our team prefers blacklight over any other puppet medium.

For puppets - use Boas for hair - you can get some great neon ones. Some yarns also fluoresce.  Eyes - you have to check them under blacklight, some glow and some don't.

I carry a battery operated balcklight with me to check stuff.

As for blacklights. We use the ones from Wal Mart (used to be 18" they recently changed to 24").  We hang them on the stage with hooks (you can buy them from One Way Street or make your own). They (blacklight fixtures)have holes in them for hanging. We have 48" blacklights, but they are hard to carry around when we travel.

I have the blacklight book mentioned and it is good. I also recommend doing some of the "Beyond Words" skits form OWS with blacklight.  We do simple songs too. Our signature is "This Little Light of Mine," all in blacklight. We also do "The B-I-B-L-E." 

Our curtains are velour, lined with the cheapest black Wal Mart sheets.

There are different kinds of blacklight markers, crayons, and paint. I have blacklight crayons that only show up under blacklight (as opposed to fluorescent crayons or markers).
Spencer Gifts has a great blacklight section (I just hide my eyes when I walk past all the other junk).

Props - we use black Sentra (we prefer this), foam core or posterboard. Cut letters from neon posterboard or paper and laminate. One Jonah song we do has waves and we found blue neon paint at Hobby Lobby. We made a whale from builders foam, painted it with neon paints (not spray, it ate it - although water based spray will not), and cut a hole in the center of the whale. At the right time the puppeteer pushes on the "hole" and it falls out, revealing Jonah.

We have the most awesome lightening bolts (black sentra - long and narrow - with bolts cut form neon posterboard). If you flip them aound fast enough it looks like lightening.

hope this helps.