For the past few months I've been teaching some puppetry workshops and it's grown in to a nice little collective of actors, puppeteers and puppet builders. We had our first public performance (more of a work-in-progress presentation really) at a performing arts open mike event last night.

Here's the video -

It's a little rough (we missed several cues), but worth noting that most of the group had never performed table-top or Bunraku-style puppetry before the workshops started in January. We're going to rerecord this with multiple takes and proper lighting in a few weeks and edit it together.

Super!!! left a comment and made it a favorite. With a widely used song with puppets, they took the lead easily as my favorite version. Fun stuff...tell em' I loved it.

A little rough?...that was solid.
Do some open mic with that group at the local comedy clubs..you'd get booked and build up a cash flow for the future projects.

Cool.

Thanks Sonny! We're putting together a real show for August and doing a few more open mic nights and things between then and now.

AWESOME!!!!
I think this is great!! I really like the main character. I would love to see some close up pics...very creative!!

We can't take credit for the puppets...we only had three weeks notice to put this together so there was no time to build any puppets. We just used ones we already had lying around. The big one is from Diablo Puppets here in Canada and the little furry Popcorn guys are made by Banjo Puppets (both a great, affordable companies to buy puppets from).

  Wow!!!  I really enjoyed that.  I agree with Sonny.  I thought it was a solid performance.  My guess is that you're the only one that noticed your mistakes because I sure didn't.  The choice of puppets was perfect.  Very fun.  Youy'll have to record and post some of your future productions.

Makes me want to introduce bunraku style puppetry to our puppet team.

I LOVED THIS PERFORMANCE!!!  I wouldn't even change a thing.  It was spot on.  I cried from laughing so hard.  Could that puppet be any cuter???  I loved him sooooooooo much.  I just want to squeeze him!!!  My favorite part was when the little blue dust guy was sitting on the puppet's paw and was being sung to....ADORABLE.  The focus was really on for all the puppeteers and showed with every movement including the dust guys and was very evident during that part on the paw.  You could see the attention that the blue guy was giving back to the puppet....AMAZING.  Great touches everywhere...really loved the dust guys rolling off the table at the end (anywhere the wind blows)!  Loved the marching of feet and the tapping of foot and especially the foot moving in a circle of shyness.  So much talent here.  I can't believe this was the first performace of table top puppetry....SUPERB JOB!!!  This is definitely one to go into my ALL TIME FAVORITES!!!  I watch certain video clips every day to put a smile on my face and I think this just might be one of those.

Thanks for sharing this awesome video clip with us.  You definitely did the song and Freddie justice.  One of my favorite all time songs EVER!   

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU
Nikole 

Great job for first timers,  you must be a great teacher.  You can tell that one of the puppeteers in the back center was enjoying it as much as the audience. LOL

Thanks for sharing and what a great idea for a workshop is to get a bunch of actors to learn the art of puppetry. 

I can't wait to see the finale cut.....when you have it ready!!

Was the man on the right (with no head gear), possibly be you? 

Thanks for sharing and great work to everyone who made those puppets come to life.

Daryl H

Thanks again to everyone for the wonderful words of support. I don't think anyone else from the group is a member here, but I will pass along this thread to everyone so they can check it out.

Great job for first timers,  you must be a great teacher...was the man on the right (with no head gear), possibly be you?

Well, to be fair, while only myself and one other person has previous experience with Bunraku-style or Table Top puppetry everyone else in the group is a puppet builder and/or actor so it's an extremely creative and talented group. This was staged really collaboratively...not really any one person's specific "vision", but a real team effort.

And yes, that's me without a hat on.  I quickly bought one a few hours before the show to wear, but it ended up being too small so my girlfriend wore it instead.

I have a big head.

I'm late on this one......................... What can I say Andrew everyone has taken words right out of my mouth. I love the video and everyone worked in perfect sync. You did a excellent job. Tell the group to keep up the good work. Look foward to seeing what your future projects are.

Billy D.