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Importance of Concentrating on Your Puppet

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.

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