a fireside chat with sean: January 2006

Color sketches, click on them to see them larger

The next step in the process is to do color sketches of all the puppets. Keep in mind that the costumes on the sketches are just placeholders, not the actual costume design…that comes later.

After this? We’re going to storyboard out the entire show to make sure that the 20 puppets can all work together on stage. For example, we need to figure out what does the set need to hide and what can it reveal, we need to make sure that the way one puppet is operated doesn’t interfere with another, or that we don’t have too many puppeteers that need to be hidden behind a playboard at one time, those kind of things.

So, it’s time to actually plot out the whole show. Oh boy. Deep breath.

You have to pack them hard - that's the key

Yesterday was the first full snowfall of our time in Rochester, which means only one thing – snowball fights.

It may take days for my clothes to dry.

Ludwig In The New York Times

An article featuring the Center of Puppetry Arts and Jon Ludwig (our puppet designer) is on the cover of the on-line version of the New York Times.

NYTimes Puppet Article

greatest bar in the world - seriously

The greatest bar in the world is in Rochester, NY. I have no idea why.

It’s a place called Bullwinkle’s that has been described as “if David Lynch and your grandmother opened a bar”, “walking into a Tom Waits song”, and “the kind of bar where you go back the next day only to discover that it burned down 30 years ago, and then you realize you were partying with ghosts”. All of these descriptions are correct.

First of all, the bar is only open on Saturday nights, and only from 11 PM till 2 AM. A man with no legs greets you at the door, and then he makes jokes like “don’t make me kick you out! Bwahahaaa”. Inside, it’s always decorated like Christmas with old Shirley Temple posters on the wall. They only have one of each kind of liquor, and everyone in the bar is required to wear wigs or silly hats (which are provided by the bar). Two woman (in way too much makeup) play the piano while you sing songs….but they only know songs that are pre-world war 2, so it’s a lot of “Roll Out The Barrel” and “Battle Hymn Of The Republic”. Also, on drums is an autistic blind kid who keeps amazing time and then at the end of the evening sings a heart-breaking version of Bridge Over Troubled Water”.

Last night the cast of Noodle, the improv kids, and a high school friend of mine I haven’t seen in 12 years (he now goes to u of r) went to the bar…and it was one of my favorite nights ever in Rochester. All through rehearsal today we kept laughing as we remembered the evening before.

If you are ever, ever in Rochester, I highly recommend going to Bullwinkle’s…I have to imagine that when the lady that owns it passes away (she lives upstairs), it will be gone…

A few more

Robin and Simple are inspired by kids show characters I loved...the servants are something a bit different...for them I'm not thinking of puppetry, but of creating some great masks for the actors to wear. In our world of class and puppets, masks come at the bottom.

Another round of drawings, click on them to see them up close

We're playing around with the idea of abstracting their names and occupations to come up with what they look likea. Dr. Caius is part giant pill bottle, with a top that comes off, Hugh Evans is a bible and a cross, Fenton is the dreamiest of all young men, Shallow is a scroll, Mrs. Quickly is part broom....I like where it's going, very puppety....the next step will be to sketch them a bit more in full and see if the ideas continue to hold.

Andy and Genevra

If you love the Neo’s in Chicago…you’ll know why this episode on DIY is one of the most surreal things I’ve seen in some time.

DIY

My favorite part of the show, when the voice over says, “she runs a small theater” one of the hosts says “we all know much that pays” and everyone giggles. It’s funny because it’s true. Oh wait. Oh god.

Dave "The Finger" Keeton

So, I’m in sunny sunny Rochester NY (this morning the temperature was 1) to start rehearsal on a piece of west german children’s theater from the early 1970’s…. I don’t know that I’ve ever typed those words near each other before. Still, this is something like my 20th trip to Rochester (I started an improv troupe for Geva here in 2003), and I do love the theater and the town…even if a part of the Florida boy in me dies each time I come.

It’s a tough piece, but I’m always such a geek for the first day of rehearsal. Everything is possible, ideas are aplenty, and it seems as though you’ve got tons of time to explore and play with every aspect of it. All of that fades by the time we get to day 2…but for today we are at day 1.

Dave Keeton, who I met at FSU in 1992, who is one of the founders of Dad’s Garage and one the most brilliant sound designers I know, and is doing original music for the show…it makes me giddy to think about how good the music is going to be…in a west german children’s theater kind of way.

Daniel my brother, you are older than me

Am up in New York City seeing some shows, attending some production meetings for my upcoming show, and having expensive drinks in trendy bars.

One of the highlights (more to come): My old college roommate Dan Bakkedahl is the new correspondent for the Daily Show, so he invited me to their studios on Thursday. I got to hang out with him and Ed Helms in Dan’s office for a chunk of time before heading down to see the Thursday taping.

The actual taping of the show is a rather impressive theatrical event: a fantastic pre-show, lots of being warmed up, great music, and then Jon Stewart coming out and chatting with the audience for a good bit before the show starts (always sneaking in a “inside joke” into the show for the studio audience). You leave the taping feeling like you’ve attended an event…which in my mind is what every night of live entertainment should be. It was funny, inspirational and short...which in my mind is always what every night of live entertainment should be.

Now tomorrow my friend Miles (who I stay with when I come to NYC) goes in for his final interview about becoming a producer for the Daily Show…can Daily Show magic strike my people twice?

Below are some of ludwig's first puppet sketches, click on them to see them up close

Cromwell vs. Shakespeare: The Puppet Years

There’s actually some fascinating dramaturgy around puppets and Shakespeare. When Oliver Cromwell banned Shakespeare being performed in 1648, no one bothered to ban people from doing puppet versions of Shakespeare. Apparently they considered puppetry to be such a low art farm, that no one stooped to ban it. Therefore, for a good bit, if people wanted to see Shakespeare, there only choice was to go see underground puppet versions of it.

So, the plan. To direct a puppet version of Merry Wives of Windsor.

When I first read Merry Wives Of Windsor, it read like a brilliant children’s cartoon (hundreds of fairy kids beating up a fat men dressed as a dear? Who doesn’t want to see that actually happen...not the usual theater version where we have 3 kids hitting a slightly overweight actor). So I want to see if I can create that genre on stage.

A theatrical production that uses cartoon language.

Have Anne Page shed rose petals the whole time, have Slender be 7 feet tall and 2 inches wide, have Falstaff be GIANT and burp bubbles, have people’s legs run in circles before they take off, have people explode, have bombs go off near people and change their entire color for only 3 seconds, have the entire set turn into a big mouth and eat all the actors, have us follow Falstaff down the Thames and watch him wrestle a octopus...that kind of stuff.

When we did comedy of errors a few years ago we just went with the concept of “puppets”, that was it. About 6 puppets and they all looked alike. It was a good first step to see if we could mix puppets and Shakespeare and not be run out of town. I liked it and the people seemed to like it, so….this time, I’d like to explore the idea a bit more and have about 20 puppets and have how they are designed based on class…with the high class puppets being refined, large puppets (maybe even marionettes? Can we do that outside), and the lowest of the low being blocks of wood nailed together. The only guy I know who could design such puppets is Jon Ludwig, who is the Associate Artistic Director at the

Center Of Puppetry Arts

…and as luck would have it, he’s game.

The play is such a great Shakespeare battle royal: men vs. women, young lovers vs. arraigned marriages, jealousy vs. trust, high class vs. low class, …and now we have just added humans vs. puppets.