Puppet Training and Ministry Tips

When we first started ministering with puppets, I only focused on the actual program itself as ministry time. Before and after the program was setup and take down time. God used a program early on to help me realize that ministry opportunities tend to show up when you least expect them and that you always need to be on the lookout.

We were scheduled to minister at a Sunday evening service at a nearby church. The program was to end with a gospel presentation and an invitation to give anyone who didn’t know Christ as Savior the opportunity to receive him if they wanted to.

We arrived early and took our time setting things up and getting ready for the program. Along with the gospel message, we also had a challenge for those who already knew Christ. When the time came, we presented the program; I ended with the gospel and gave an invitation. If I remember right, no one responded to the invitation. The pastor then closed in prayer and announced that there were refreshments downstairs.

Before going downstairs, we started taking down the theater and packing things up. But while we were doing that, I noticed a boy sitting in the pew watching us. God began to speak to my heart to go talk with the boy. I went over and sat next to him and asked him how he liked the program. He said that he enjoyed it and I asked him a couple more questions about it.

I could tell, though, that he had something more important on his mind, so I began asking him questions regarding the gospel message. It turned out that this young man didn’t know Christ as his Savior and wanted to, but had been too shy to respond to the invitation. I continued asking him questions about the gospel to make sure he really understood and his answers were clear and right on the mark. I had the privilege of praying with him as he received Christ.

Through the years there have been other opportunities to minister that came at unexpected times and often inconvenient times. Through them, God has taught me that he is not limited to set times of ministry, like during a puppet program, but that he is constantly at work. My challenge to you is to look for those opportunities before and after your “ministry time” and see what amazing things God wants to do.

One of the things to consider when using puppet scripts is how you will fasten them to your theater. The key is to do it in a way that will protect them, but keep them easily seen. In this post I’ll share a couple of different ways to hang them.

Initially, we fastened just the script to the theater, but after several were damaged, we realized they needed to be protected somehow. I purchased a box of top-loading sheet protectors from a local office supply store and inserted the plays in them. NOTE: If possible, you want to get non-glossy protectors and make sure they are clear plastic, not textured.

We have a PVC pipe frame theater with cloth curtains, so we used safety pins to fasten the protectors to the theater and then loaded the plays inside the protectors. That way, there were no pin holes in the scripts.

Using the sheet protectors, you can load all the plays you’re going to do inside them—one protector would have all the page 1 scripts in presentation order, a second one would have all the page 2 scripts, and so on. Then, when you finish a play, simply move those pages to the back and the next one is ready to go.

After a while of using the pins, we noticed they were damaging the theater curtains. So then, my wife got the idea of using Velcro. We sewed small pieces of one Velcro strip across the front of the theater and stapled small pieces of the companion strip onto the sheet protectors. The Velcro was plenty strong enough to hold the protectors.

Another method I’ve seen that works is to fasten your scripts (or sheet protectors) to a wire coat hanger. Then twist the hook part so it is perpendicular to the hanger and you can place it right over the front of the theater. To change scripts, you simply change hangers.

You will need to exercise care with this method or you could damage your scripts with each practice or performance.

One of the problems in using scripts in a live performance is that they can fall off and be damaged, or can be ruined by mishandling them during the performance. While, you can’t always stop that from happening, you can protect your scripts.

What I suggest is to get a 3-Ring Binder and some top-loading sheet protectors that are 3-hole punched to fit in binders. Take your original scripts and make copies of each one. Then place the original copies of each script in the sheet protectors and secure them in the binder. You may want to use tabbed dividers to help organize the plays.

You can simply three-hole punch the scripts and put them in the notebook. I have found that they do keep better in the sheet protectors.

(Note: Before making copies of purchased scripts, check with the company and get permission to make copies so you don’t violate copyright laws. Any scripts you download from ExperiencePuppets.com come with permission to make copies for your individual use as long as you don’t sell them.)

Once your notebook is set up, store it in a safe place. Then, if a script is damaged, simply go to your notebook, take out the needed pages and make the copy to replace what was damaged. Whenever you write new plays or acquire other plays, add them to the notebook.

For copyrighted scripts, it is important to get written permission to make the copies for personal use like this. In your notebook, include a tabbed section for copyright permissions and keep them right in the folder with the script. 

The other added benefit of this type of notebook is that it can be a big help in planning programs. All your plays are together and you can thumb through them to pick out the best ones that go with the theme of your program.

That may seem like an insignificant question at first, but there is a reason I ask it. During our travels, we often did a Sunday School program in the main auditorium to the whole Sunday School. Then, we’d have to remove all the equipment from the stage before the morning service started. Many times we only had fifteen minutes to accomplish it. With practice, we got so we could have everything taken down and loaded in the vehicle in ten minutes. It was actually easy to accomplish.

Before we went to the church, everyone had a part in getting the equipment into the church and setting it up and everyone had a part in taking it down. The key was that each one had a part assigned to them. I took care of the sound system. My wife and another puppeteer took down the theater. Once the curtains were removed, my wife started folding them and putting them in the suitcase. The other puppeteer began to take the pipes, bases, and kneeling pads out to the vehicle. Another puppeteer was assigned to pack the puppets. When anyone finished their task, they grabbed any equipment remaining and took it out to the vehicle.

Since all the parts were assigned ahead of time, no one was standing around asking what they needed to do. Our team wasn’t that large, so each member kept the same assignments over and over. By doing the same assignment continually, we developed short cuts that helped cut down the time to clear everything out.

For instance, if we knew we only had a short time to remove everything, while I was out front finishing up the program, the puppeteers were removing rods and starting to pack the puppets. Any scripts that were up were taken down and put away. That way, we could immediately start taking down the theater and no one would see puppets lying around.

By working together as a team, we not only got the equipment down and packed in a short time, but we ended up leaving a good impression—that we are professional in all areas of our ministry.

The last two posts have dealt with friend puppets. Once you’ve decided on the puppet and the personality, it’s time to begin developing that personality. The way we did it was to practice routines together with the emcee and the person doing the puppet. We’d practice them in front of the rest of the team to get their input and suggestions. How did we get the routines?

We started off with a brainstorming session to get as many ideas for routines as we could. Then we narrowed it down to the one or two we liked most. I suggest that you do the same and get your whole team involved. Once you’ve gotten some good ideas choose one you’d like to develop into a routine.

Take that idea and outline a routine you’d like to develop. Don’t actually write it out as a play, keep it as an outline with basic points and sub points. You might want to include some jokes, statements you want the puppet to make, specific things to talk about, or points you want to make.

Once your outline is ready, practice it. Get the puppet in the stage and the emcee out front and go through the outline. By using an outline, you have to think about what you will say rather than just read a line. It comes out as more real and less “canned.” Have the rest of the team watch and offer suggestions and helps. The key is to practice, practice, practice.

The nice thing about doing adlibs is that no two ever turn out the same and you can tailor them to your audience. One word of caution though. If the audience really warms up to the friend puppet, your five minute adlib can easily become ten or fifteen and might cut into the rest of the program.

If you haven’t tried using a friend puppet yet, give it a try and see what happens.

The last post I talked about developing a friend puppet. A friend puppet is simply one that interacts with the audience and emcee on a lighthearted level. We use a large dog puppet we named Mugwhump as our friend puppet. I’m the only one who works Mugwhump because we have developed a character and personality for him. I’m a quiet and reserved guy, but we wanted a different personality for Mugwhump. We wanted him to be outgoing, a little slow, fun loving, and a bit mischievous.

For your friend puppet, it is a good idea to think out ahead of time what type of personality you want him to have. What personality would help to loosen an audience up? Do you want him to be funny and witty, or do you want him to be the “straight man” and have the emcee be the funny or witty one?

Once you’ve determined what type of personality you want your friend puppet to have, begin to watch people with that same personality. Watch how they act, their mannerisms, what they say and how they say it so you can get a good idea in mind on what you want your puppet to do.

Then, either find someone with that personality type, or better yet find someone who has a different type of personality but can develop the one you want. I’m not very outgoing when in public, but open up a lot more to people I’m comfortable with. When I do Mugwhump, my wife is the one out front talking with him and since I can’t see the audience it is easier to open up. In fact, I’ve done Mugwhump for so long now, that all I have to do is put him on and his personality immediately comes out. 

Mugwhump’s personality developed over time. Take the time needed to develop the personality of your friend puppet. To do that, the same person should work the puppet all the time. That way the puppet’s voice and mannerisms will be consistent from one program to the next. If more than one person on your team wants to do a friend puppet, I’d suggest developing a separate puppet for each one and rotate them in your scheduling.

Often when new people come to a church type meeting, they come with some reservations and some walls up. As long as they have walls up in their minds, learning will be hindered. If you hit your message straight and hard right at the beginning, the walls will get higher. People learn better and retain more when they are comfortable or at ease.

One thing we’ve done in our meetings to help make the audience feel more at ease is to use a “friend” puppet. A friend puppet is simply one that comes up and adlibs with the person out front and the audience—most often in a joking and light hearted manner. The puppet can welcome the audience, tell a couple of jokes, sing happy birthday to someone, talk with the emcee about the upcoming program, etc.

We use a large, furry dog named Mugwhump as our friend puppet. Mugwhump is a lovable character, but tends to be a bit mischievous at times. He also lets everyone know that he is the star of the show. When someone takes a picture, he’ll make a comment like: “Normally I charge a dollar for my picture, but since you’re such a good audience, I’ll let that one go.” Or “You caught my bad side, try again on this side.”  He also has a number of corny jokes that he tells.

Mugwhump usually gets quite a few laughs and we’ve found that laughter can help to quickly lower the walls in the minds of the audience. Basically, what he communicates is that we’re going to have a good time today, and in the process you just might learn something.

The next blog post I’ll get into developing a character for your friend puppet.

The last post I talked about programs where you are given a specific time to fill. But, there are some times when you’ll get an open ended time frame. Some examples are children’s church programs, a children’s program during a mission’s conference or some other type of conference, or a children’s program while some other type of adult program is going on at the same time. In these instances, you’ll probably get an approximate time frame.

I’ve discovered a formula that’s been a big help to us in those situations. Whatever approximate time I’m given, I add at least half again as much time to it in my preparation. If they tell me 40 minutes, I’ll plan for at least an hour. If they tell me an hour, I’ll plan for at least an hour and a half. There are one or two places where I doubled the suggested time.

The reason for the extra time is two-fold.

First, some services will go overtime. Something unplanned may happen, the speaker may lose track of time, they may get a late start, etc.

Second, if the children’s area is separate from the adult area it will take time for the parents to come claim their children. In many cases even ten to fifteen minutes, because the parents like to hang around and talk.

If you plan for forty minutes and the parents don’t come for an hour, you’ve got twenty minutes to fill. If you don’t have anything planned for those twenty minutes, they will seem like forty or more. It’s a lot easier to cut something than to stretch something out with stuff you haven’t practiced.

One of the worst times it happened to us was at a campground one summer. We were told to plan for about an hour or so. I was familiar with the campground, so I doubled the time and planned for two hours. The first two hours weren’t bad, but that last half hour seemed to take forever.

Most often when you book a puppet program, you’ll be given a specific length of time to minister. It may be 10-15 minutes, 40 minutes, or some other set number. For those types of programs, it is simple to determine how to fill the time. If you’ve got 10 minutes, you can present a 3 minute play followed by a 2 minute application/link into the next play, present a 3-4 minute play, with a 1-2 minute application and closing. Practice it a few times (with the applications) so you are familiar with the time limit and go ahead with it.

If I’ve only got 10 minutes, I will plan the time out as above, but I’ll usually add an extra play—just in case. We’ve had a few times when we were asked to do an additional play on the spot and had to scramble to come up with something. By planning an extra play ahead of time, everything can be set up ahead of time. If you’re asked to do another one, you’ll be all set. If you aren’t asked, you simple don’t do the play.

If I’ve got a program of 30 to 40 minutes or more, I tend to over plan the program especially if there are several live scripts. When people get nervous, they tend to talk faster. If that happens during a live play, a seven minute play might finish in four or five minutes. You may plan five minutes for application, but the person only takes two. If that happens several times in your program, you could end up with an extra eight to ten minutes you weren’t planning for.

By over planning, if the program moves faster than you expected, it won’t be a problem, you’ll just get more puppet plays in. If the program goes slower than you expected, you will just need to cut one or two plays. You just have to determine who will make that call. In our programs it was the emcee.

Being part of a puppet team/ministry is exciting and rewarding and is also a privilege. It is important to keep your purpose in mind and what you want your team to accomplish. Sometimes if a puppeteer forgets, they may look at puppets as toys and treat them as such.

I’ve seen puppeteers bite things with their puppets, punch someone or something with a puppet on their hand, toss puppets about in a careless manner, step on puppets, etc. That kind of behavior can ruin puppets or mar their appearance so they don’t look as nice during a performance.

For instance, most puppets have a cardboard lining in their mouths. If you bite something with the puppet and it creases the cardboard, it can disfigure the puppet. Either its mouth won’t close properly or the mouth will appear crooked.

To help maintain proper care of the puppets, continually stress that puppets are tools and not toys. Think about a carpenter or master craftsman. How do they treat their tools? Most often, they take good care of them because of the investment they have in them and the high cost to replace them. It is cheaper to keep something in good working order by taking care of it rather than abusing it and having to buy another.

It’s the same with puppets. They can be expensive, but if used properly, can provide years of service. We still use some puppets that we purchased fifteen to twenty years ago and they still look and work great. By taking proper care of your puppets you are being wise stewards of what God has entrusted to you and will free up funds for other important areas of ministry.

Much of your puppet training will take place during practice sessions, but if you know how, you can learn much from your programs as well. It’s easy to finish one program and then immediately focus on the next one. A good habit to develop is to do a “program debriefing” as soon as you can after a presentation.

A program debriefing is where you get together as a team and review your program play by play. First discuss what went well with the play. Try to get insight from the puppeteers and from anyone on the team who watched the play—i.e. sound person, emcee. After looking at what went well then ask what could have gone better. Don’t ask what went wrong because all you’ll get is a list of things. (I missed my line.) When you ask what could have gone better, you begin to get solutions along with the list. (I could have been paying better attention so that I wouldn’t have missed my line.) The key is, don’t just find out what went wrong, but get ideas on what to do to improve it so that it doesn’t happen again.

During the debrief, focus on the performance, not individual puppeteers. Be careful that you don’t say things like, “Jason, you really blew it when you forgot your line.” Or “That was pretty dumb when you knocked the script off the theater.” Instead, try to use phrases like, “The performance could be strengthened if the puppet didn’t hold its arm straight out during the whole time it was up on stage.” Or “It might help the character to come across as more believable if he rubs his chin while thinking about how to solve the mystery.”

When you offer a possible solution instead of just pointing out a problem, it has a better chance of being received well and improving the performance as a result. If you aren’t doing so now, you may want to consider running a debrief after your next program and see what happens.

I’ve had the privilege of observing many puppet teams over the years as a judge for a Teen’s Involved program. In this post, I’d like to talk about a common mistake I’ve seen over and over. The mistake involves using rod arm puppets where the puppet’s arm is held out during most of the program. The puppeteer understands the importance of using the arm rods, but simply holds the arm extended out and occasionally makes a move with it.

The problem is that it looks unnatural. People don’t walk around with their arm extended out all the time. They usually make a motion, drop their arm, later make another motion, drop their arm, etc. You should do the same with your puppet.

Before your program, attach a rod to each arm. Then, during the play, let the arms hang naturally. When it comes time to make a motion, pick up the rod, make the motion and then drop it down again. Do the same thing with the next motion and so on.

Don’t just use one arm, though, but vary the use of both arms. Use the right arm once or twice and then use the left. Mix it up back and forth, but try not to just alternate left arm, right arm, left arm, right arm, etc. That becomes too predictable and therefore does not look as natural. Most people are predominately left or right handed so you may want to use one arm more than the other in your motions. The goal is to make it look as natural as possible.

Watch how people use their hands and arms in normal conversation and then have your puppet apply those mannerisms. Your puppet will become more lifelike and the quality of your programs will increase.

Between watching the puppeteers on my team and judging at a teen puppetry event for several years now, I’ve seen a lot of puppets in action—some good and some not so good.

In watching the differences, I’ve asked myself the question, “What makes the difference between a quality puppeteer and an average or even poor puppeteer?” One thing that seems to play a major role is the amount of time the puppeteer actually looks at his or her puppet.

When you’ve got a puppet up, even if it isn’t speaking, there are a number of things you have to continually look out for. Things like: proper height, making eye contact with puppets or the audience, not leaning on the stage, not having your puppet sway back and forth, keeping the puppet’s mouth closed when not speaking to name a few. Puppeteers who concentrate on their puppet do a much better job of maintaining proper puppet appearance throughout the whole play.

What causes puppeteers to stop concentrating on their puppet? The first thing that comes to mind is fatigue. When your arm gets tired, it is easy to look away from the puppet as you strain to keep your arm up. Another reason is not knowing the play very well so you have to focus on the script. Another is just plain carelessness—simply not paying attention.

The puppeteers who do consistently maintain proper puppet appearance have practiced enough so their arms don’t fatigue quickly. They have spent time learning the scripts so they don’t have to continually look at the script. They care about how their puppet looks which helps prevent them from getting careless. They also tend to understand that they are performing for the audience’s benefit and not for their own comfort and fun. They work on the fundamentals and practice them regularly.

The bottom line—the more you can concentrate on your puppet while performing, the better your performance will be and the more lifelike your puppet will look.

I’ve directed several puppet teams over the years, but most of them have involved teenagers or adults. The only exception was when our boys were young and became part of our team.

We were ministering at a church when the boys were about ten years old. Our custom was to have them sit on the front pew while my wife and I did the puppets. As we were working our puppets in one of the recorded plays, we could hear the two of them repeating the lines word for word. One took one of the characters and the other took the second and went through the whole play. They had heard the plays so many times; they had most of them memorized.

We decided that if they knew the plays that well, it was time to see if they could join the team. We asked them if they wanted to start working puppets to which they gave an enthusiastic “Yes.” With a little bit of training, they were on their way and served on our traveling team for the next five years.

Today, as young adults, they still have an interest in puppet ministry. In fact, one of them is the one who has drawn all the clipart for the website and puppet courses.

Children as young as 10 or 12 can successfully be part of a puppet team, but often require a little more work. It is important to communicate with them that being part of a puppet team is not a game but a ministry. Have specific things for them to do during practice time so they don’t become bored. Also, don’t expect them to have the maturity of an 18 year old. With some patience and work, children can work well as part of a puppet team.

To help keep my puppet skills up to date, I like to have a puppet in my office that I can use for practice purposes. That way, when I have a few extra minutes while waiting for something (usually my computer) I can put it on and practice a song or play.

I want to make sure that the puppet is easy to get to, but is also stored properly so it doesn’t get dirty or damaged. I have a small office, so right now; I keep the puppet in a file cabinet drawer. It is protected, but not visible and I’ve found that it is easy to forget about it. The immediate solution is to make a daily “to do” list entry in my planner to practice the puppet. It helps, but isn’t perfect.

Another solution is to make a puppet stand which involves getting a piece of lumber about eight inches square. Cut a wooden dowel about eighteen inches in length. (The diameter of the dowel should be at least one-half inch.) Drill a hole in the center of the board slightly smaller than the diameter of the dowel. Carefully push the dowel into the hole so that it is flush with the bottom. (Don’t push it too far or the base will become lopsided.) Set the stand where it is in plain sight, but out of the way. Then, when you have a few moments, simply remove the puppet from the stand, practice, and put it back.

(Note: To further protect the puppet, take a plastic golf ball and drill a hole in one side the size of your dowel. Place the ball on the top of the dowel as a cap. The ball will help keep the end of the dowel from snagging and ripping the inside of the puppet as you put it on.)