We're excited to announce that we've organised a one-day Professional Development Puppetry workshop for teachers, and we'd love you to join us! Run by puppeteer and primary school teacher Kay Yasugi (Pupperoos), this hands-on workshop aims to help teachers explore how puppetry can be used to stimulate enriched literacy projects and act as a springboard [...]
Last year, Kay made this beautiful dog puppet for the Year 10 Drama Ensemble performing at the 2016 NSW Public Schools State Drama Festival in Sydney, Australia. The drama piece was inspired by this amazing story of a cat who was reunited with his family after being separated in Lesbos, as well as this online article about [...]
On 26th -31st August 2015, the London School of Puppetry (LSP) UK ran a week-long program on the Art of Puppetry in Education and Therapy, focusing on Shadow Puppetry. I ran this course with Caroline Astell-Burt, who is the school's Director of Studies and author of "I am the Story", a wonderfully practical manual for puppetry [...]
https://youtu.be/0lS2DZNFmnM In July 2015, I volunteered as a puppet maker for the Cock and Bull Festival, a music festival near Bath (UK) run by Jamie’s Farm, a charity that's transforming the lives of vulnerable children in challenging urban schools. The organisation provides a unique combination of farming, family and therapy through a short stay residential and follow up [...]
I was very excited to visit Théâtre du Loup in Geneva in July 2015. Arguably the ‘Bread and Puppet’ of Switzerland, the dynamic community theatre company was founded in 1978 by Veronique Berthet, Eric Jeanmonod and Sandro Rossetti. A large part of the company’s history was creating puppets to parade in the streets, and in the [...]
In May-June 2015, I ran a 9 week puppetry project at Athelstane Public School (a primary school in south Sydney), collaborating with the youth theatre company Shopfront as part of their Room 13 program. Room 13 is supported by Arts NSW & Australia Council for the Arts Fresh AIR 2014-2016 Artist in Residence program funding. The aim of [...]
Pupperoos got their biggest commission to date when a Sydney-based school approached me to create a whole zoo of animal puppets for their high school musical production of The Wizard of Oz in February 2015. I made 1 Mother duck, 2 hens, 3 flying monkeys, 4 giant butterflies, 6 ducklings, 6 crows, several shadow puppets and a [...]
On 8th March 2015, Pupperoos was invited to a furry, friendly (and predominantly four-legged) festival in Western Sydney called “Bungarribee Woof-Fest”. We ran a dog-themed sock puppet workshop as part of this annual dog festival in Doonside, which is hosted by the Western Sydney Parklands Trust. The festival is located at Bungarribee, which has a large [...]
In February 2015, Master Puppeteer Simon T. Rann from Compagnie Philippe Genty ran two master class workshops in both Melbourne and NSW. I attended the NSW workshop which was run as a wonderful weekend away in Mittagong (1.5 hrs south of Sydney). The course aimed to explore visual theatre, especially the use of puppetry and object [...]
From 18th-20th July 2014, a myriad of French and international performers showcased their puppet shows to enthusiastic crowds of both children and adults. There were tiny puppets in trees, giant puppets in markets, dark tales in the forest, strange mechanical bicycles on the street and lots of meals with puppeteers and puppetry enthusiasts. Set in [...]
