National Day of Puppetry 2003
Maya Michlall & Jason Ropp perform Perseus
(from left) CAP members Dennis Strachota,
Maya Michlall, Steven M. Overton and a local Albany family, all displaying their Dragons.
One of the main exhibit areas
Bruce Chessé's giant puppet of Shakespeare
The Royal Family
(King Humphrey, Queen Selina,
Prince Aaron & Princess Katheryn)
by The Olde World Puppet Theatre
A puppet by Ralph Chessé
Hans Christian Anderson
by
The Oregon Coast Puppet Theatre
and The Olde World Puppet Theatre
Medusa from Perseus
Grandma Jannod by
The Olde World Puppet Theatre
For this year's National Day of Puppetry, the Columbia
Association of Puppeteers teamed with the Albany (Oregon) Library
and Department of Parks and Recreation to present the day-long
Wonderful World of Puppets. It consisted of a morning performance
of Tears of Joy Theatre's Adventures of Perseus, followed by an
afternoon of exhibits, hands-on workshops, demonstrations, and a
gift shop at the local library.
First up was the performance of Adventures of Perseus. This show
proves that you can adapt Greek legends for today's school
children. It tells the story of how Perseus, the son of a god,
slays the Gorgon, Medusa and frees his mother from bondage.
Originally presented as a part of Tears of Joy's Family
Performance series, it has since toured extensively in elementary
and middle schools throughout the western United States.
Performers Jason Ropp and Maya Michlall, fittingly garbed in
Toga-like costumes, bring a fresh new life to the story. The
appreciative audience stayed afterwards and peppered the
puppeteers with questions about how the puppets work and how they
were made.
Built in 1912, The downtown Albany Public Library is a historic
building built through a grant from Andrew Carnegie, the
philanthropist who paid for the building of over 2,500 libraries
across America around the turn of the 20th century. It is a
small, high-ceilinged building, with books on every wall as well
as in free-standing shelves, with two ornamental fireplaces, one
on each end of the building. All interior wood is oak, adding
beauty, strength and long life to the building.
Since the library was closed to library business for the day, the
exhibit of some 150 puppets was placed all around the main floor,
even in between the shelves of books. We were only given access
to the building from Friday night at five o'clock to do our
setup, so we had prebuilt many of the displays so they could go
in quickly.
Steven M. Overton, from the Olde World Puppet Theatre and a
vice-president of CAP was in charge of the exhibit. He put out a
call for puppets from other members of CAP. Bruce Chessé, Jason
Ropp, Father Dennis Strachota, Geordie Humphrey, Kris Woolen,
Esther Heydt, Larry Adrian, Chuck Mott, Candace Dobson,and Janet
Bradley all came forward with items to be displayed. The rest of
the exhibit was filled from Steve's extensive personal collection
of puppets from around the world. The result was an eye-catching
display which was the subject of oohs and aahs from the visiting
public.
The favorite exhibit was Bruce Chessé's giant puppet of
Shakespeare resting his hand on the library's bust of
Shakespeare.
The hands-on area and demonstration classes were held in the
basement of the library. They were introducing their new
permanent puppet stage which was loved by one and all. There were
all types of puppets to play with including hand, rod, marionette
and radio- controlled ones.
Workshops included: Puppetry (for children & adults), Make your
own Chelsey, the baby dragon to take home (hands-on);
Manipulation & Performance Techniques (for teens & adults);
Special Effects and the Art of Black Light Puppetry; and Using
Puppets in the Classroom.
All in all it was a special way to celebrate a special day.
Sometimes when you set up an exhibit, especially one like this which was only open for a matter of hours - - you get lucky. A really good photographer shows up and takes a whole bunch of really nice pictures of your labors. Such was the case at Albany.
Randy Bray, the husband of one of the library workers, took photos of the exhibit and was kind enough to let us show them here.
If you would like to contact Randy or see some of his photos on other topics, please visit
http://community.webshots.com/user/randyincv
All of the following photos are copyright 2003 by Randy Bray
