Hello everyone! It's Asa again, Puppet Showplace Theater's Winter 2020 Artistic Intern. As my internship at Puppet Showplace draws to a close, I thought I might share with you some of the work I have been doing here over the last six weeks.

A significant part of my internship has involved looking through Puppet Showplace's archival collection, mostly investigating materials related to the career of the theater's very first resident puppeteer, Paul Vincent Davis. However, in the process of scanning over boxes of files and digging through trunks of puppets, I came across several strange and wonderful artifacts from Puppet Showplace's past!

BREAKTHROUGH BASH

In 1981, Puppet Showplace shifted from 31 to 32 Station Street, and a building renovation allowed for higher audience capacity and better facilities. This article, printed in a 1981 issue of the Brookline Chronicle Citizen, reports on the opening party held to celebrate the expansion. It says that before the expansion, the space that is now exclusively the lobby had to be completely reconfigured into a performance space any time a show was being held. In addition, the stage at the time was tiny—only 9 feet by 12 feet! With the addition of the new theater space, the lobby was able to house a permanent office area, display shelves, and its signature puppet store. The new theater could accommodate a larger stage and more seating. It completely transformed the theater experience, allowing the audience to congregate in the lobby, whereas before, there would have been nowhere to go but outside! Now, as the Puppet Showplace staff and board look ahead to the theater’s 50th anniversary and plan for future renovations, it’s exciting to look back and see all of the transformations that have taken place to make Station Street a welcoming space for artists and audiences alike.

AN INTENTIONAL COMMUNITY

One of the key elements of Puppet Showplace's culture is the attention given to cultivating community within the puppetry world. In this humorous mailing from 1993, Puppet Showplace invites audiences to celebrate their 19th anniversary with a "Non-Party"—that is to say, a generous donation from you to the theater sent from the comfort of your own home, completely free from the inconveniences of having to get dressed up, battle traffic, and eat party food. 

This hilarious, personable approach to fundraising reveals a sensibility that I viewed in several other materials as well. In addition to looking through file boxes, I began my archival investigations by looking through old issues of the Boston Area Guild of Puppetry's publication, Control Stick. These publications depict guild meetings at Puppet Showplace as informal, friendly, and fun events that included potlucks, lectures, demonstrations, performances, and socialization. The members were well acquainted with one another, and accepting and supportive of new members. This playful but dedicated sensibility is continued today, such as a when guild members and local puppeteers visited Paul Vincent Davis’ retirement community to celebrate his 85th birthday with a performance cabaret.

AN EYE FOR THE EXPERIMENTAL

Puppet Showplace presents puppet theater for all ages, and adult audiences were never an exception. The Poet's Eye, a show produced in 1992 and performed by Paul Vincent Davis, Nikki Tilroe, Caleb Fullam, and Roger Z. Miller under the name of the company "Theatre By All Means," is just one example of the thoughtful, creative, and experimental productions that have been presented here over the years. The premise of the show was that it would be "A Concert of Theatre Pieces," featuring vignettes from various literary and theatrical sources from around the world, composed collaboratively and presented in puppetry. While several company members had backgrounds as commercial entertainers (Nikki Tilroe is most famous for puppeteering Snuggles the Bear for Downy Fabric Softener commercials), in this production, they drew upon revered classics such as Shakespeare, Commedia dell'Arte, Japanese folklore, and Shinto myth. Today, Puppet Showplace continues to facilitate work that stretches the limits of what puppetry can be in events such as the Puppet Slam, in which members of the puppetry community are able to showcase their work and collaborate with each other to create something extraordinary.

CARING CLOWNS

This Pierrot puppet, created for the 2007 production Here Come the Clowns, is just one of Paul Vincent Davis's many clown characters. Paul previously explored the world of the "circus clown" in the 70s, in his show Bingo the Circus Dog, and the "Commedia clown" in variety productions like The Poet's Eye. With Pierrot, he builds on this previous work, updating the classic character to reflect the diversity of Puppet Showplace’s audiences. The character has a friendly smile rather than a face of despair. In an article published in a 2007 issue of Brookline Magazine promoting the show, Vincent Davis expressed concern that many children were afraid of clowns, and that with this show, he sought to change that. This Pierrot is the perfect example of an approachable clown, so I would say that he succeeded! 

GLOBALLY CONNECTED

Puppet Showplace has continuously dedicated itself to promoting social and global change. This article, published in The Brookline Citizen in 1984 advertises a fundraiser that Puppet Showplace held in partnership with Amnesty International in order to raise funds for the organization. It claims that this event was the first time that Amnesty International had directly reached out to kids in their efforts to promote world peace and human rights. The benefit also featured a special performance of Paul Vincent Davis's shows The Golden Axe and Three Festival Dances, which are based on a Japanese folk tale and traditional Japanese folk dances, respectively.

The world of puppetry is inherently global and cross-cultural. As an art form that has its roots in folk tradition across the world, part of the joy of puppetry is sharing local techniques with those on the other side of the globe. During my internship, our staff and the team from the Ballard Institute discussed the dangers of stereotype and exoticism, and how the norms of cultural representation have changed over time. I learned about how Paul engaged deeply with the Japanese community in Boston, and how he travelled to Japan to learn and share his work. It’s clear that cross-cultural engagement can lead to amazing collaborations when they are informed and handled sensitively.

Today, we encourage an engaged global dialogue at Puppet Showplace with productions such as our current mainstage show, My Night In the Planetarium, in which audiences are transported to 1970s Jakarta, Indonesia in order to be inspired to make the world more fair with the power of political art. In the broader world of puppetry, organizations such as UNIMA continue to host events which encourage international collaboration between puppet artists, and Resident Artist Sarah Nolen will lead a group from the Americas to the World Puppetry Congress in Bali this spring.

UNIDENTIFIED AND UNFINISHED PUPPETS

One of the things that has made the biggest impression on me during my internship is how the materiality of a puppet show can sometimes be the prompt for a show's entire premise. A show may begin with an idea for an interesting material, movement, or mechanism, which then dictates that a story be written that would allow that element to be used to its fullest. These unidentified and unfinished puppets are relics of this unique process, reflecting the spark of inspiration that lead to their creation. Whether or not they found their way into a full production, each of these puppets still contains a story.

Exploring the archives at Puppet Showplace has taught me a lot about the history of this theater and the world of puppetry. In the future, I intend to seek out more puppetry after having sampled a taste of the fantastic work that can emerge from the art form. I am going to miss working here, and I look forward to returning one day to catch a show!

If you would like to see a selection of some of Paul Vincent Davis's puppets in person, the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry in Storrs, Connecticut will be exhibiting his work through June 7, 2020.