Arriving at the airport in Kansa City I was warmly greeted by Mel Reum. It was the first chance, of many, to talk “puppet” with fellow enthusiasts. For me the Festival began there. A wonderful week of talking “puppet” with all kinds of people who love puppetry. On the shuttle ride to Trenton we visited with each other or listened in to conversations of enthusiastic sharing and it set the tone for what was to follow. There was generous sharing at meals, during classes, in dorm rooms and informal encounters. One of the best parts of my Festival was my delightful roommate, Janaki Ranpura. She is a creative and talented bright light and has much to contribute to this world.

I loved the small historical town of Trenton and finally got to visit the history museum on Saturday. Did you know that Trenton had one of the earliest Coca-Cola bottling plants? On my early morning rambling walks I enjoyed seeing the quirky historical architecture while I processed the input I was getting from the festival activities. The small, intimate college campus created an environment that made it easy to get around and for visiting with each other between classes and events. I loved the beautiful theater on the top floor of the library and an elevator made it easy to get there. I was happy so see so many local children and families attending the puppet shows with festival participants. The campus even has a Shakespeare’s Garden.

I had a wonderful week of class working on performance development with Paul Mesner and my two classmates, Mel Reum and Camille Henneman with her partner Ray Jonez. It felt luxurious to have so much time to work on one aspect of puppetry. I came with some seed ideas and left with a good start on a puppetry project I hope to have ready for next year. I feel like I made some close professional friendships during the week and I hope I can come back next year.

Thank you so very much to the scholarship committee who made it possible for me to attend. I received so much more than I expected to. I hope I can help extend the scholarship program to others. It is an important part of the festival that gives people the opportunity to experience this unique and wonderful festival and builds friendship in the puppetry community.

Sunny Birklund

My Experience at PuppetFest Midwest: Jenna Ann MacGillis 

I was so thrilled to be a scholarship recipient. This was an amazing opportunity to take my obsession and passion for puppetry to the next level. I have been hoping and searching for a comprehensive puppet experience that would help shape and inform my current work. The PuppetFest was indeed a great opportunity to develop technique and to learn from some of the best puppeteers working today. 

I arrived in Trenton on a mission - to gain the skills and confidence needed to perform the performance that I have been working on for the past year. I also needed to go to Missouri, Trenton specifically to research the location for the setting of my performance inspired by my pioneer ancestry.  

On the shuttle on the way to Trenton for the PuppetFest Midwest I was so excited to be among puppeteers who had come from all over the country, most of whom were regulars. I was full of nervous anticipation because this would be my first puppet festival experience. I looked out the window and took in the green farmland that is coincidentally the homeland of my ancestors.  

After orientation I quickly made connections that would build over the next few days. Meal time is very important at the festival and I soon realized why.  Besides eating the surprisingly great food in the cafeteria this was my opportunity to talk shop with the experts. I did a lot of listening, took mental notes, and posed the occasional question. I soon had a table of regulars that I felt at home with and often wonder how they are doing.  

Now when I am alone in my studio working on Character Development my mind often returns to the class I attended at festival. I hear the words that were repeated daily, “Puppetry is Theatre.”  I was pushed to contemplate the character I have been building for over a year. I have tools now that I apply to the development of all aspects of production and I no longer feel as though I am alone walking in dark. When in question I know I have a community from the festival that I can call on.   

After the hard work in class, friendships were also built in the evenings where we would all attend the puppet performances. One of my favorite things about the festival  were the puppet performances in the theatre. I enjoyed the variety of different styles and techniques performed each evening. I loved the opportunity to meet the Trenton community that also attended the shows.  

After the performances we would meet up again and this was the time to left off steam and discover fellow puppeteers hidden talents. The challenging class work with fun in the evenings was a great balance. I looked forward to each day and was sad to say goodbye to so many talented new friends. I would always remember the friends that inspired and encouraged me on this newly chosen path of mine.

Since moving from California back to the Midwest, where I was born, I’ve been feeling awkward, out of place, not able to get along. I didn’t expect to relate especially to anybody in Trenton, Missouri. But I had forgotten what it feels like to be with a bunch of puppeteers. We are all slightly awkward people who unleash an enormous amount of fun when we’re left alone together.

I ended up with a wise older lady puppeteer for a roommate. Why, I asked Sunny Birklund, at these puppet conferences, did people who seemed as different as her and me get along so well?

“Because we value our inner child,” she said.

At Show & Tell on the last day of workshop classes, gray-haired people who had been silent all week got onstage and became zany; their years dissolved in the joy of showing off just-finished little rod marionettes and shoulder-string marionettes, polyfoam talking heads, new scripts, and cuddly hand puppets. What they showed me still more is that even puppeteers who look very staid on the outside, on the inside harbor a character of delight.

Gayle Schluter, the oldest festival participant, had made a felt cat in Pam Corcoran’s needle-felting class. Onstage, she was a blue-haired lady showing us her fuzzy cat. In a quiet, tremulous voice, she apologized that she hadn’t had time to create a skit. She had tried: she attempted again and again to make her new cat sit – she showed us by squeezing the puppet, but it kept popping upright again. She shrugged. “Cats don’t know sit,” she said, and walked offstage.

I took Phillip Huber’s class on technical drawings for marionettes. Phillip described the principles of jointing, and let us play with some of his delicate, strong puppets, and then we went at it. Steve Ferguson, a chemical engineer in the group, asked how we knew how to determine the proportions, how to make the contours. “You find what is pleasing to you,” Phillip said philosophically. I was happy to hear it; I felt it was my dirty little secret that I make puppets often based on nothing but pleasure alone. I tie myself in knots for justifications of form and style. I was encouraged to experience around Phillip the serious, hard judgments that bring nice things into the world.

PuppetFest Midwest has inspired me to consider a national tour, to see all these friendly faces from California and North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, Kansas, and Washington. Despite my continued chafing here in Minneapolis, I feel contextualized again amongst my new and old colleagues, my ever-deepening friends.

Janaki Ranpura