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.