I love this excerpt from Folded Feather Theatre‘s production Life Still, which has been playing at the Edinburgh Fringe recently.

Melbourne’s Creature Technology Company, which had worldwide success with their live arena show Walking with Dinosaurs Live, have just launched their new venture How to Train Your Dragon Live at a Dreamworks and Global Creatures media event showing off an awesome 4 metre tall fire-breathing animatronic dragon, the Deadly Nadder. Apparently it’s one of 24 dragons!

I’m happy to see that this new production has an emphasis on story and emotional engagement in addition to the sheer spectacle, since my one reservation about Walking with Dinosaurs Live was the lack of emotional content.

This video from The Age has some footage of the making process, as does this one:

Some additional links:

The Creature Technology Company’s videos at their website
Daily Telegraph: gallery of 15 images
The Age: Here be Dragons
The Australian: Monster epic producer’s dragons fly high
774 ABC Melbourne: How to Train your Dragon hits Melbourne: radio interview with Dreamworks’ Tim Johnson, who co-produced the movie and directs the new exhibition.
Sky News: Melbourne to host Dragon arena show

(via Philip Millar, Kari Klein and PuppetVision)

This is the trailer for The Narrative of Victor Karloch, a travelling gothic horror stage show created by Kevin McTurk and ‘presented in the style of an eerie Victorian triptych puppet theatre’. The puppets looks great, an interesting mix of 75cm tall rod puppets, shadow puppetry and elements of bunraku.
(via Laughing Squid)

(Photograph credit: Tristram Kenton )

Handspring Puppet Company‘s new production Or you could kiss me at London’s National Theatre is about two men who have been lifelong partners, coming to the end of their lives. The puppets look amazing! Don’t miss the great sketchbook by the designer and maker, Adrian Kohler, as well as two short videos, Choreographing Breath and Choreographing Thought which show some of the process of bringing the puppets to life.  And some extra links:

Thoughts about Or You Could Kiss Me by Rich Rusk
Time: Puppet Masters: South Africa’s Handspring

Handspring ‘s book about their company can be ordered through their site.

Earlier this year I made the set and props for Flotsam and Jetsam, a production for children which tells stories about living on Australian lighthouse islands in the past. The script was written by Greg Lissaman, from recollections gathered by Chrissie Shaw, the actor. Catherine Roach is the director.

The set is an island, panels painted in a pointalist style, which can concertina into different shapes and be dismantle for touring. The lighthouse is modelled on the historic lighthouse at Cape Otway in Victoria, and Tasman Island in Tasmania was among other sources of stories and images, such as the flying fox access to the island. There were numerous props – seaweed, wooden chests, a porcelain doll, an albatross, and a sea buoy. There are more photos of these in my  Flotsam and Jetsam photoset.

Touring dates and booking details for Flotsam and Jetsam are listed at Chrissie’s site. On 19 – 21 August it has a short season at the Maritime Museum in Sydney, and then it will tour coastal community venues in NSW. Chrissie also performs The Keeper, an adult play also based on lighthouse stories.

When I mentioned the cartoon British TV show Peppa Pig a few years ago the pigs were putting on a puppet show for their parents. Now an adaptation, a live theatre show Peppa Pig’s Party, has become a roaring success for pre-schoolers.

The puppets have lovely simple lines and are very cute! Built by Paul Jomain, (known for his Virgin One mascot, Red, and the PG Tips monkey), they are ‘operated by actors who remain on stage with them, perform alongside them, and provide the voices’ in the style of the Avenue Q puppets, an aspect discussed in an interview with the puppetry consultant, Nigel Plaskitt. He also talks about the decision not to use body suit puppets; they exist, but are gross in comparison!

(Photo credit: Tim Raupach @ www.cutflat.net)

There are still a few days left to take your kids to Gran’s Bag at Tuggeranong Arts Centre. It’s for preschoolers through to about Year 2, and the season ends on Saturday.  The story is told imaginatively by Chrissie Shaw, and it has an innovative and picaresque quality that comes both from work-shopping with kids and Greg Lissaman’s playful scripting and direction.

Some other strange and wonderful things come out of Gran’s big red bag.  Imogen Keen and I did the design and make.

Gran’s Bag premiered in Brisbane in 2008, and has since had seasons in Sydney, Canberra and regional areas, so look out for it coming your way.

Red Leap Theatre from New Zealand will be bringing a new theatre adaptation of Shaun Tan‘s book The Arrival to the Sydney Festival in January. I love the look of what I can see in this video of highlights, in particular the aesthetic feel and muted colours, the puppets and the imagery.

(photo credit: Robin Kerr)

(photo credit: John McDermott)

I saw the adaptation of The Arrival by Spare Parts Pupppet Theatre at the Unima 2008 Puppetry Festival in Fremantle. It has gone on to win a number of awards, and recently had a season at the World Puppetry Festival in Charleville Mezieres, France.  I felt the strength of that production was in the projected animations and digital imagery, and that the story line and emotional content had been simplified for a very young audience.  I hope Red Leap’s production will be able to tap further into the richness and drama that the book holds.

Previously:  Shaun Tan

This is the first episode in a new on-line serial exploring the adventures of the enigmatic Apocalypse Bear. A stage version of Lally Katz’s Apocalypse Bear Trilogy by Stuck Pigs Squealing Theatre Company premiered recently at the Melbourne International Arts Festival.

Photo credit: Simon Schluter, The Age

This spectacular 7-metre-tall animatronic puppet of King Kong is being built by the Creature Technology Company in Melbourne, the company that produced the amazing arena show Walking with Dinosaurs Live, which is currently touring the UK after extensive performances in the US.

The puppet is being built for King Kong on Stage, a stage adaptation for New York’s Radio City Music Hall in 2011.

According to an article in The Age,

The partially built King Kong is now a high-tech assemblage of steel, fibreglass, airbags and Lycra-encased polystyrene. When modelling is finished by late next year, he will be controlled by 70 cigarette pack-sized motors. His face alone will conceal 40 of the motors to communicate his emotions as he is transported from Skull Island to Manhattan, where he finds love with a young blonde and a precarious position on top of the Empire State Building.

King Kong Live on Stage will use up to five models of King Kong with each operated by three puppeteers using remote technology called a ”voodoo rig” from backstage.

Interestingly, in the light of the suspension of the puppetry course at the Victorian College of the Arts, Creative Technology has 32 full-time staff and 14 VCA graduates working in its puppet fabrication department, and expects to employ 60 people on the King Kong project by next year. They see the VCA puppetry course as a vital in training the type of skilled people they will be looking to employ in the future.

‘Melbourne is in the running to become the world centre for animatronic design and puppetry but it won’t happen if they remove the puppetry course,” said Mr Barcham (CTC general manager). ”Those people [making the decision] wouldn’t even know there’s a new genre of entertainment coming out of Melbourne.”

Previously:

• Walking with Dinosaurs Live
• Save the VCA and its puppetry course