Learn From Your Programs
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.
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