Hi, so, I have a small puppet theater, and three puppets, a young man, a Charlie Chaplin, and an angel. I  need direction, in terms of what possible themes, plots I could come up with. I have a mad, old scientist, and I feel a personality with that one. Also, any ideas on single character acts, props ( furniture, sound effects, etc.) welcome. Is a microphone needed? I'm thinking if doing kids parties too, any suggestions?

I think a microphone is a necessity for pretty much any audience, but especially for kids. Regarding themes, plots, etc. who knows? That's a unique variety of puppets you have that don't seem to lend themselves to obvious story lines. It's hard when the puppets define the story possibilities. Props and sound effects, it seems to me, must support the story, so it depends on the story as to what support pieces you would require.

I think I would resist the temptation to make a Chaplin look-alike into a character that must behave like Chaplin. If you are aiming at an audience of kids, they will not identify with Chaplin. That frees you to use him simply as an interesting looking character, adult, but not old. Perhaps he could be employed as the voice of temptation to the youngster, and the angel the voice of virtue, in some short skit or something?

I agree on the sound system point that chris made. I filmed 27 functions in a puppet festival in November, and the better shows definitely had a good sound. No matter how roudy  the  kids got, they could still hear, and the actors did not loose their voices, and  you can also integrate sound effects music etc into the whole thing.

Wow, thanks for the "sound" advice. I appreciate it. I wonder of there might be some device you could push different buttons for different sound effects. Would be cool if one could program different clips  and have them play instantly based on button selection. TY much.

You can download GOM player for free, which can open multiple instances on your computer. Load each instance separately with your sound effect of choice, and then press the play button when you need your sound effect. A lap top computer makes this a very portable control system, just run a line from your audio output/earphone jack into your sound system, and you are good to go.

http://www.gomlab.com/eng/

VLC media player will also do that. GOM player has the advantage of showing the name of the file loaded so that you know which sound you are about to play. VLC only shows the name of the file once it has begun playing.

Awesome.