Port City Puppet Fest - in overview

After being on my own again in Atlanta, I was more then happy to be surrounded by the warmth of puppeteers again at the Port City Puppet Fest. I even saw some familiar faces and friends from the previous festival I had been to in Missouri (PuppetFest Midwest) - who I was already beginning to miss.

As anticipated, this festival was completely different to the last one, not only in size (this one hosting some 150 puppeteers) - but also in structure, duration, tone, pace and diversity. I couldn’t say I found one festival was better than the other - they were just both different and I felt so lucky I had the opportunity to experience both. But one thing remained the same - the amazing people and their passion for puppetry and the ability to welcome me, a stranger, so fondly into their world and hearts.

The festival was a world-wind of activities, workshops, events, puppetry in pubs, parades through the city, late night dorm room jams, performances and excitement. I really didn’t get a whole lot of sleep (say 2-3 hours overall) and felt like a zombie most of the time - but it didn’t matter as really it was just so amazing - so I’ll try to break it down for you, day by day.


Wednesday 14th.

I arrived in Wilmington in the evening, after spending the entire day overwhelmed by all the amazing puppets at the Center fro Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. I was welcomed by the smiling faces of puppeteers at the airport (with a big sign stating “Puppets Here”) and taken to a quaint little pizza place near the University where the festival is held. Here I had a good hearty beer and some pizza, and great conversations with new friends and some I already made at the Missouri festival who were also here.

Thursday 15th.

Puppetry in Education and Therapy day.

I attended an extra and intensive all-day workshop that was held a day before the festival started. This was specially designed for puppeteers in the teaching and therapy world, which I found so fascinating and gave me so much insight of the potential and power of puppetry. I really learnt a lot during this workshop - even if I never become a teacher or a therapist - I think I will definitely use the principals and techniques of how to connect with children and people through the art of puppetry. So this day was very valuable for me and gave me so much inspiration into the types of directions I could take my passion for puppetry.

We then had a hearty meal in a HUGE refectory which was not only filled with puppeteers from the festival - but many other people from other festivals and camps that were also happening in other places around the campus. So the hall was filled with a very vibrant mix of puppeteers, cheerleaders, footballers, surfers, computer geeks, scouts and I don’t know what else! It was pretty amusing!

That evening, we were all taken in buses to the Cameron Museum. The event was open to the public and boasted some great roving puppetry, a wonderful puppetry exhibit and some amazing puppetry shows. Paul Mesner did a fantastic Punch and Judy show, “Pulcinella” and Peter Allen (Parasol Puppets and co-organiser of PuppetFest MidWest festival) did a great interactive show called “The Amazing Mysto’s Magic Show” where he had the puppet stage on his shoulders! I was very much in awe. There was also a really inspiring puppetry film, “Junk Palace” by Lyon Hill in which everything was made entirely out of paper and was just amazing.

Friday 16th.

We all rose early (7 am) for another ‘American style breakfast’ and by 8:30 am the first lot of workshops began. I took the shadow puppetry workshop “Turn Out That Light!” which was an exploration in light sources, shadow screens and shadow puppetry. It was given by two lovely ladies Kat Pleviak and Mary Kate Rix who also happened to be two out of my six other awesome room mates! As I’d never done anything in the realm of shadow puppetry, I found this very insightful and am now very fascinated with the art-form and it’s definitely something I want to explore more of.

We then saw an amazing shadow performance by Kimi Maeda called “Crane Wife”. This was truly breathtaking and truly left me in tears afterwards. It was a very delicate, personal and just a beautiful story which encompassed elements of a folk tale and her own life and experiences that were told so very gracefully and elegantly with a vast array of shadow puppetry and manipulation.

We then had another hearty American meal and were whisked off to the next performance by an amazing girl, Sarah Frechette (another of my roommates; yes we had a huge appartment-type dorm filled with a bunch of very cool girls all around my age bracket). She performed “Snowflake Man” which was a puppetry style called ‘Toy Theater’. Sarah had the most amazing set of miniature string puppets - with one being a little version of herself! The story was also very beautiful and inspiring - the story of a man who photographed the first snowflake and his life. Her puppet sets were built inside old-style suit-cases and every part, element and detail of her show was just incredible.

 Then it was time for more workshops and I attended “Exploring Found Object Puppetry” by the entertaining high energy and imagination of Lee Bryan - “That Puppet Guy”.  This was very cool and after a short introduction of the power of imagination - we all got a bunch of junk with which we had to experiment and make puppets with. My imagination went on overdrive and I think it was a great basis of how to start into the world of puppetry. I especially loved seeing all these people in the workshop of all ages (from really young boys to some quite old boys and girls!) playing with a bunch of junk (bottles, bags, shower caps, garden hoses, etc.) and just really having the time of their life.

We then had a short break and other nice dinner and went to see two spectacular performances in the main theatre on-campus. These were “Pinocchio” by Lee Bryan and his fantastic found-object puppetry and “Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer” by fellow Australian puppeteer from Perth, Tim Watts of Weeping Spoon! Both shows were extremely professional, touching, funny and well, just pretty damn spectacular!

The night, however was merely beginning - it was only 10pm, which is EARLY by puppeteer standards. It was time for the late night “Potpourri” show. This was an opportunity for all festival goers and puppeteers of every skill level to perform a short act. It was very entertaining, and as the laughs, puppet acts and jokes flowed - so also flowed the beer and wine! It was a fantastic night and I even got up and performed one of my songs which was highly welcomed and praised. The show finished around midnight and no, it was still not the end of the night! The laughter, music, puppetry, alcohol and fun kept flowing on in the dorm rooms with some late night jamming of lots of singing, guitars, harmonicas, ukuleles and some really great musicians. This went on until sunrise - however, after already having a few weeks without sleep - I only made it till 3am. However, this was probably one of my favourite moments at the festival and I made some great friendships.

Saturday 17th.
After only a few hours sleep, I felt rather shaky and perhaps a little hangover, but there was no time to ponder on thoughts of tiredness, as it was time again for breakfast and the grand puppet parade which went through the entire town of Wilmington. The parade was made up of not only the festival goers and their puppets, but several theatre groups and schools from Wilmington, who all took part in the parade and had made their own puppets specially for the parade. It was truly a spectacular sight of colour, laughter and puppetry and was so nice to see how the whole town had getting behind the festival.

The rest of the day was filled with events all around town and we all got around by catching buses to several theatres, exhibitions and shows. It was a really great day which also allowed me to see a bit of Wilmington as well, which I really appreciated.

That afternoon we went back to the University and saw even more fantastic shows; “How to Grow a Pickle” by Nana Projects (three great girls who were ALSO my room-mates), “The Reluctant Dragon” by Stageworks which was a production with some very young and impressive puppeteers and also a wonderful showcase by stop-frame animation genius, Michael Granberry.

Phew. That day was epic - but also not over. After dinner and a very tiny nap - we were back on the bus into town to a small and wonderful little pub (Soapbox) for an amazing Puppet Slam with some really great, short puppet acts. This was yet another highlight for me on my puppet pilgrimage. I mean, what more can you ask for? Puppets, fantastic puppeteers and close friends, great shows, great beer and drinks in a great little pub, great music from live gypsy style bands and some AMAZING dancing!!! I danced and danced with my great new puppet friends until the very wee hours of the morning and it was just amazing. Coming back to the campus on the bus filled with some fairly drunk and rambunctious puppeteers was also very amusing... Especially since we were pulled over by the police! There were several gasps and laughs and whispers of “Oh no, they’ve come to take us to the asylum where we belong!”... But thankfully it was only because the driver ONLY had an expired license or ran through a stop light... or something like that!

Sunday 18th.

Somehow, I was able to find some last reserve energy and get up in time to make it for breakfast and had some very tearful goodbyes with some really amazing friends. But the festival wasn’t over yet - they had saved the very best till last and had world-class puppeteer Eric Bass perform one of the most spectacular and technically brilliant pieces of puppetry I had ever seen, "Autumn Portraits". Just amazing. I was also lucky enough to be able to share lunch with Eric and his wife and festival organiser, Gina Gambony later that day, which was very special for me.

That afternoon was spent napping, packing and finally washing my clothes after three weeks of washing my underwear and t-shirts in bathroom basins... And that evening, Gina took me and several festival stragglers to dinner to a great restaurant in Wilmington which was really nice.

That night, despite no more activities on the agenda - I was still up till 3am busily still chatting with my friend and roommate Sarah Frechette and also up all night on the phone to my travel agent in Australia, trying desperately to change my plans for the last week of my puppet pilgrimage... More on that in my next post!

All in all - a more then fantastic, inspiring and amazing experience and I can’t wait till the NATIONAL puppetry festival next year!!!!