Boston Area Guild of Puppetry

Sunday January 12, 6:00 PM ~ Virtual Meeting
Program: Eric Bornstein, Bringing Babar to Life!

Our next guild meeting will be all virtual, Sunday Jan. 12th, 6:00 PM. (A Zoom link will be sent to all members.) For our featured program, Eric Bornstein will talk about his new project with the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra, creating giant puppets for a special performance of The Story of Babar featuring the music by Francis Poulenc. Eric will talk about his work creating a giant segmented snake puppet, its head made from worbla, an exciting new thermoplastic, and the body made with translucent tissue paper over cane, willow, and wire. His team is also making a giant Babar the Elephant backpack puppet.

We’ll have regular Show and Tell sharing too, let us know what you’ve been up to or where you’ll be performing next. Hope to see you there!

Membership renewals for 2025 start in January, 
for details visit: bagop.org/membership

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We’re looking forward to a great batch of puppet guild meetings this year! The next one   will be Sunday September 15th, 6:00 PM ~ Live in Person at Puppet Showplace Theater, Brookline, MA. www.puppetshowplace.org The program for the evening will be Puppet Problem-Solving! Please bring in something you’re working on, or a particular problem to solve, and we’ll share ideas and tips. It could be a construction issue, a performance challenge, a staging problem — or just a new project you’d like to share.

Here is our meeting schedule for the rest of the year. Details are sent out to all of our paid members. To learn more about membership, visit our Membership Page!

Meeting Schedule for the Boston Area Guild of Puppetry, 2024-2025. Our meetings are on Sunday evening at 6:00 PM unless otherwise noted:

September 15
November 17
January 12
March 16
April 27

Hope to see you there!

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The next meeting of the Boston Area Guild of Puppetry will be outdoors, at the home of one of our members, in the town of Ware, MA. Details have been sent to all of our members. Our program will be “Playing With PVC” by Kurt Staven. We will explore the possibilities of using PVC to build puppet skeletons and puppet booths. We will cut and bend PVC and experiment with miniature modeling kits. Afterwards we’ll have a short business meeting and Show and Tell. (If we decide to livestream the meeting, I’ll send out a notice that day.)

Our next meetings after that will be in September and November, dates to be announced. If you’re interested in joining the Boston Area Guild of Puppetry, there are details on this website. You don’t have to live in the Boston area.

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Greetings puppetry fans, here are a few things going on. These are all listed in our newsletter The Control Stick, which goes out to members every other month.

BAGOP Meeting March 24

The Boston Area Guild of Puppetry is having their next meeting on Sunday March 24th, 6:00 PM at Puppet Showplace Theater. This will be our first in-person meeting in a while, and it will be great to see old friends and new.

Our special guest will be Charlotte Lily Gaspard (see photo) who is performing that weekend at Puppet Showplace Theater. Charlotte will talk about her work, which features enchanting original fairytales and songs that she performs with her company Midnight Radio Show. Come for a behind-the-scenes look into how she designs and creates her magical puppet shows. Charlotte will also be doing a workshop on Friday March 22nd at 6:30 PM on shadow puppets.

And as always, we’ll have Show and Tell, let us know what you’ve been up to lately or where you’ll be performing. If you have any questions, contact John Lechner, JMLechner (at) aol (.) com.

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BAGOP Meeting April 28

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Workshops at Puppet Showplace Theater

Puppet Showplace Theater in Brookline, MA, has many great puppetry workshops in the coming months, including:

How to Use Shadows: Workshop with Midnight Radio Show
Mar 22 (Fri): 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm
Explore the endless possibilities of shadows in this three-hour workshop with Charlotte Lily Gaspard, shadow puppetry artist and director of Midnight Radio Show from New York City.

Commedia dell’Arte Weekend Intensive with Markus Kupferblum
April 5 (Fri) – April 7 (Sun)
Spend a weekend immersing yourself in the rich masked theater tradition of Commedia dell’Arte! Explore the stock characters, gags (aka lazzi), and more with Markus Kupferblum, lecturer at the University of Vienna and expert of the form.

An Exploration in Marionettes: Workshop with Madison J. Cripps
May 18 (Sat): 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm
How do you make a marionette move? What connects its parts and pieces? Can you (yes, you!) make your very first marionette in an hour? Learn all this and more in an afternoon workshop with the incomparable Madison J. Cripps!

For details about all of these workshops, visit: puppetshowplace.org/adult-puppetry-classes

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World Day of Puppetry Virtual Celebration!

This year UNIMA-USA will again make a presentation for World Puppetry Day in tandem with Puppeteers of America.

The event will happen Thursday, March 21st, starting at 7:00 PM EST, followed by the Puppeteers of America at 8:00 PM EST. UNIMA-USA will announce this year’s scholarship winner, give individual awards to some of our most consistently dedicated and impactful members, award Citations of Excellence to select puppetry productions of note, and present the Nancy Staub Publication Award to writers who have advanced and illuminated puppetry with their works. Then at 8:00, Puppeteers of America will make their own presentation.

There’s no fee, but advance registration for the Zoom link is required, REGISTER HERE.

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Regional Festival Update

Applications are now open for Performances and Workshops at the next Puppeteers of America Northeast Regional Festival, Nov. 1-3, 2024 in Ithaca, NY. Deadline for applications is July 15, 2024. For details and application forms, or to get on their mailing list, visit the festival website: puppeteers.org/puppet-homecoming

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New England Puppet Intensive – Design Edition

July 12—22 (Application Deadline June 1)

​Immerse yourself in the ultimate studio experience as we engage in a unique design laboratory with a fully stocked, puppet-making studio set against the backdrop of the beautiful Berkshires. At the core of the NEPI design philosophy is a concern for expressiveness and character. They employ a deep knowledge of puppet-taxonomy and combine it with a thirst for innovation. They encourage a sense of playfulness and experimentation in the design studio — encouraging puppeteers to work from a set design principals as well as their creative impulses.

For details and registration (deadline June 1st) visit their website: www.newenglandpuppet.org

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Summer Intensive Puppetry Training

July 14 -July 27, 2024 (Application Deadline May 1)

This year’s training will pilot a new training model allowing for participants to choose a focused track of Building, Performance or Directing. Participants will spend mornings as a whole ensemble developing common vocabulary through warm-ups, breath training and puppet animation/manipulation class. After lunch participants split into focused tracks in puppet construction, puppetry performance or directing for puppet theater. While week one remains process-based within a focused track, week two will start to blend groups as participants collaborate on small ensemble compositions that will be performed at the end of the week.

For details and registration visit their website: sandglasstheater.org/workshops/summer-intensive

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Hello puppetry friends! The Boston Area Guild of Puppetry had a busy year in 2023, and we’re looking forward to more events in 2024. We had a couple of great virtual meetings in November and January, where we shared puppet projects that everyone is working on. We also had a fun “puppet election” for president of Puppetopia, with puppets competing for votes.

Every year our activities are determined by our members. If you’re not a member yet, we encourage you to join our fun group. Members receive our newsletter every other month, along with notices of puppet events and festivals around New England and beyond.

You also become eligible to apply for puppetry scholarships to attend festivals, and small grants for new works. You can also get a free listing on our website to promote your work. Our yearly member dues are on a sliding scale, so you pay what you can. Learn more about membership here.

Our next guild meeting and program will be announced soon, hope to see you there!

— John Lechner, President

In lieu of our usual puppet guild meeting, join us for this special event!

The Boston Area Guild of Puppetry and Belmont Public Library present a Day of Puppetry

Shows, Crafts, and More
Saturday April 1, 2023, 1:30-3:30 PM
Belmont Public Library, 336 Concord Ave, Belmont, MA
Free and open to the public!

Join us for “Stewie’s Magic Hat,” the newest puppet show by Honey Goodenough of Good Hearted Entertainment. Meet Newton and puppeteer pal Leigh Baltzer of “Through Me To You Puppetry”. Stick around after the show for puppet crafts for families starting at 2:30, and then meet members of the Boston Area Guild of Puppetry, who’ll talk about their work during an informal sharing session from 3:00-3:30.

Guild members can arrive as early at 12:00 if you want to help set up. Please contact Jacek Zuzanski – jacezuz@hotmail.com – if you can volunteer, we need extra help at the craft tables. You are also welcome to bring something to share at the end, it will be like our usual Show and Tell.

This is our celebration of the World Day of Puppetry (which actually falls on March 21st, so you can celebrate both days!) Hope to see you there!

Top Photo: Honey Goodenough of Good Hearted Entertainment. Lower Photo: Leigh Baltzer of Through Me To You Puppetry.

The next virtual meeting of the Boston Area Guild of Puppetry will be Sunday January 8th, 5:30 PM.

Details will be sent out to all members, so watch your email!

Our outdoor summer guild meeting will be Sunday July 24th, 3-5 PM at the home of Kurt Staven, in Ware, MA. Directions have been sent out to all guild members. Bring some food to share for the potluck, and bring a chair if you can. Face masks are optional but welcome. There will be a tent in case of light rain, but if heavy rains are forecast, we will cancel.

Heidi Carpenter, president of the Atlanta Puppetry Guild (and also Kurt’s sister.) Heidi will talk about her experiences as a puppeteer and as president of the Atlanta Puppetry Guild. Bring something for Show and Tell!

Contact John Lechner – JMLechner (at) aol . com if you have any questions or would like more information.

Join us online this Sunday May 1st at 5:30 PM, for a very special meeting and program. Award-winning puppeteer Andrew Periale, the creator of Mano-a-Monolog, and the editor of Puppetry International for the past 37 years, will join us to discuss Writing FOR and ABOUT Puppet Theater.  A Zoom link has been sent out to all members. To learn more about joining the Boston Area Guild of Puppetry, visit our Membership page.

Andrew is also performing his solo show Mano-a-Monolog at Puppet Showplace on May 13th at 8 PM, a show that will touch your heart and tickle your funny bone. The program consists of 15 original vignettes written in verse and performed in Periale’s twinned identities of actor and puppeteer. From the “Disheartened Bonvivant” (in which a young man of privilege finds that he is not really suited for any sort of work) to “My Dear, I Think of You” (wherein a middle-aged British widow at last feels truly alive!), these pieces give voices to characters who are by turns comic, thoughtful, eerie, and poignant.

Andrew Periale is a puppeteer, playwright, poet and polyglot. He earned a BA in Theater and an MA in German at the University of Maine, where he also created his first full-length puppet show in 1974. Periale and his wife, Bonnie, founded Perry Alley Theatre in 1985. Together, they’ve performed at numerous national and regional festivals, at the Smithsonian Institution, the Center for Puppetry Arts (Atlanta) and the Jim Henson International Festival of Puppetry. Recognition includes the Paul Vincent Davis Award, the George Latshaw Award, 3 Henson Foundation grants, 3 UNIMA-USA Citations, an Emmy nomination, finalists in the International Festival of Film and Television and, in 2016, they were elected Members of Honor of UNIMA International. They have produced the magazine Puppetry International for the past 37 years.

We hope you will join us online this Sunday at 5:30 for an inspiring discussion with Andrew about the challenges of writing for and about puppet theater. Afterwards we will have SHOW & TELL, so bring a puppet or share your latest project. We will also have our GUILD ELECTIONS for board members (nominations still being accepted.)