PuppetCon: Puppets for All Ages & Stages!

PuppetCon: Puppets for All Ages & Stages! - theHumm August 2023

If you’ve ever been in the audience at the Puppets Up! International Puppet Festival and thought to yourself, “that looks like fun,” now’s your chance to get involved!

The first ever PuppetCon is coming to Almonte from August 11–13, thanks to presenting sponsor Levi Home Hardware Building Centre, other local sponsors, volunteers and organizers who have made it a point to ensure there’s something for everyone to enjoy.

“You hear a lot of people talk about ‘all ages and all stages’ when they develop programs,” explains PuppetCon’s Jenny Sheffield. “Well, we mean it! And not just all ages or stages of proficiency as a performer but all literal stages too — from budding professionals ready for the theatre stage to those who just want to put on a show in the car on the ride home.”

Family-Friendly Fun

Puppetry is a serious art form with deep cultural roots around the world, but it’s also among the most accessible. PuppetCon workshops that are perfect for kids and families include:

A Tour of Puppetry with Graham Soul, where participants will be able to try out different types of puppets including hand, rod, string (marionettes), table-top / Bunraku-style, shadow puppetry, object theatre, TV puppetry, plus a mascot-style body puppet and humanette puppets.

The How To Make series with Jeff Banks of JB Arts, where kids can choose between workshops on building foam head puppets, latex rubber puppets, or a very fun umbrella dragon puppet.

Making Sock Puppets with Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers. These festival favourites will make sure you never look at socks the same way again!

And of course you can’t bring puppets to town without putting on a show! Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers are bringing their ever-popular Everybody Loves Pirates show back to town on August 12 at the Old Town Hall as part of the Con!

Cons Are for Fandoms

Don’t worry, we haven’t forgotten the young-at-heart either. Cons are known to bring fandoms together to celebrate the shows and franchises they love, and PuppetCon is no different!

Fans of Mr. Meaty and Nanalan won’t want to miss the chance to hear stories from creator Jamie Shannon during The Good, The Bad and the Fuzzy World of Making Puppet TV.

Under the Umbrella Tree lovers rejoice! The gang is back together, on stage for the first time in 30 years, for a very special panel called Back to the Umbrella Tree, taking place on August 13 at noon.

And true crime lovers… well… can we interest you in a not-so-true crime? Involving murder? And puppets? And puns? Because The Family Crow: A Murder Mystery takes the Old Town Hall stage on August 11.

Now Let’s Create!

As the organizers have said all along, PuppetCon is all about getting your hands dirty. Or at least felty. So makers and budding performers alike won’t want to miss these workshops:

Making a Puppet Costume with Ingrid Hamster, where participants will learn how to give puppets the finishing touches that will accentuate their character.

Puppets in the Classroom with Sarah Argue — a very special offering for teachers, librarians and early childhood educators, where participants will create two simple puppets for kids to fall in love with and learn how to bring them into their lessons and programming.

How to Market and Promote Your Puppet Show, where Adam Francis Proulx will help puppeteers and theatre creators discover how to communicate their brand and find the people who want to be their audience and watch them perform.

Adapting Stories for Puppet Performances with Emily Pearlman, where participants will be led through a creative process that allows them to translate their script ideas into a theatrical, image-rich performance text that features or includes puppet characters.

Puppeteer Presence with Nick DiGaetano, where puppeteers will learn how to add depth, richness and dynamism to their puppet’s inner life and how to stay focused, alert and engaged with whatever the live environment of a puppet performance throws their way.

Adult-Only

This just in from a naughty puppet friend of ours:

To those who may be wondering what exactly Below Board might be, I would say the same thing that I say to my puppeteer: “It’s not a phase, those strings aren’t mine, and for the last time I said I wanted him to WRANGLE me”.

Below Board is a raucous, racy, rambunctious romp through the ribald ramp-up to the rockin’ rager that is PuppetCon; and only the Ruler of Rods, NoReen Young, could rightfully ratify the rumours of rehearsal with no recourse.

What do you mean I’m not getting I’m not getting paid per word starting with R?

(What do you mean I’m not getting paid...?)

Right… then let’s make this brief! The first annual PuppetCon is coming up fast, and this year we’re trying something new. On Saturday Night, the Almonte Old Town Hall will transform into the Caron Studio, home of the late-night television talk show, Below Board. For one night only, we throw away the family-friendly in favour of a show that’s funny, unique and kinky (get your mind out of the gutter, we’re talking about strings).

But what would late-night be without our extremely special guests! We’ve got Adam Francis Proulx, creator of The Family Crow, who continues to sell out shows across the country with his incredible wit. Nick DiGaetano is our astronaut from an advanced parallel Earth and the only known human to travel at the speed of light (Also he’s an idiot. Check his website. It says so right there). And rounding out our panel of puppeteers is Jamie Shannon, multi-Gemini award-winning creator of Nanalan and Mr. Meaty. He also wanted me to let you all know he bought a boat... so that’s cool I guess.

We’ll be dishing the dirt on what happens behind the scenes when the puppeteers have been let loose and are playing all the games they can get past the censors. Special guests, surprises, prizes and more are in store for this uncensored, unscripted and unhinged night of entertainment.

This fundraiser supports Puppets Up! for years to come, funding artists and organizers journeying to Almonte from all over the globe. It’s also a great excuse to grab a drink with that incredibly sexy puppeteer you’ve been eyeing up since last festival who you need to impress with your knowledge of grades of felt…

In short, there are only two things to say:

Love puppets? This show’s for you.

Hate puppets? This show’s for you.

More information and tickets for all of these events can be found at puppetsup.com .

Kristi Bird — Taking Flight - theHumm August 2023

By Sally Hansen

Art… and Soul

For Kristi Bird, her art is both a refuge and her salvation. Her alluring acrylic paintings of wildlife and nature are a feast for the eyes and balm for the soul. In a world that is struggling to cope with more and more overwhelming challenges, the solace of the natural world grows ever more compelling. Bird’s loving celebrations of nature and the wild creatures with whom we share this fragile planet are profoundly therapeutic, both for the artist and the vi......

PuppetCon: Puppets for All Ages & Stages! - theHumm August 2023