1. Can you tell me a little bit about your relationship to puppetry: how long have you been working with puppets, and what is it that attracted you to them as a medium?
Andy: I have been working with puppets since 2009. Originally, I was fairly uninterested in puppetry and had some awareness of them growing up, but my interests were more in other art-forms. During my time at Hampshire College, I had a theater professor who spoke at length about how magical the art form is, though he never showed us any puppets in class, and primarily we experimented with mask-work. This was what planted a seed. Following graduating college, I had the opportunity to audition for the puppetry company, Wakka Wakka. Somewhat to my amazement I was cast. Within a few months of developing the sci-fi epic, Baby Universe, I started getting very invested into the notion that puppetry was, in fact, magical, that it could tackle the taboo, and that it was a beautiful vehicle for storytelling – an analog version of animation.
Dorothy: I grew up, as I think many do in the US, under the impression that puppets were only for kids. I discovered puppetry for adults (and specifically, wordless puppetry for adults) in 2011 while I was finishing up my time as an acting major at Pace University. At the time, Pace had a relationship with La Mama ETC and as a result a handful of students, myself included, were cast in one of its larger-scale productions. That project happened to have a few moments of puppetry, and I was lucky enough to get a crash course in how to bring a puppet to life. I was immediately enamored with the art form, how it was equal parts mechanical and emotional, how multiple people could come together to create one character. Plus, the idea that I could do all of the acting and storytelling work I loved...but no one would be looking at me? As a shy actor, that was truly the dream! Additionally, I learned that many puppeteers designed and fabricated puppets themselves, which allowed me to reconnect with my love for building and crafting; skills that I had left behind while I was busy becoming an actor.
2. What forms of puppetry do you use and how do they relate to the subject matter of seclusion?
Andy: In the show we use a large-body hand & arm puppet (a la The Swedish Chef), direct object manipulation, rod puppetry, and tabletop puppetry with three people performing one puppet simultaneously. In our other puppetry work we employ other forms. We are interested more in how the form and the story relate. While I am amazed with specialists, we drift a bit more into the thought process of using the best tool for the job.
Dorothy: Working in a devised process definitely allows us to experiment with different styles of puppets and discover how they can alter how a story is told. During the development of Bill's 44th, sometimes the story we wanted to tell informed the puppets we needed to build and sometimes the puppets we built informed the story.
Andy: The puppets we use relate to the seclusion by standing in stark contrast to it. It is exciting to us to have our titular character Bill, who struggles with loneliness, consistently be puppeteered by two people. It is fascinating to us how a character can be utterly alone while being essentially embraced for the better part of an hour.
3. Would you place your work in any particular tradition, and do you feel that any other companies are working in a similar fashion to you?
Andy: We don't really lean into any particular tradition, no. In New York City there is a vibrant puppetry community that has a lot of cross-pollination of performers and of forms. I would say artists that we have the pleasure to work with often end up informing our methods of storytelling and vice-versa. I wouldn't say we, as a community, are becoming homogenous, but a lot of themes, and puppet forms, and build techniques do have overlap. Some people that we've worked with often that have a fair amount of overlap are Nick Lehane, and Robin Frohardt.
4. How far do you feel that puppetry gets appropriate respect within the theatre community?
Andy: It is respected in the sense that it is used very frequently. Sometimes it is hard to comment from within, but puppetry's ubiquity in entertainment only seems to become more so over time. I do believe in the States that we have quite a way to go within our greater theatre community.
Dorothy: I have definitely seen and been a part of productions in the past that used a lot of puppets, but then would avoid using the word "puppets" in any of their press, opting to use words like "statues" or "characters" instead. Like the idea that calling a puppet a "puppet" implies that it is amateurish or gimmicky, and not an actual valid art form. Fortunately, that seems to be fading out with bigger productions being open about their use of puppets, which is great! What I would love to see is puppeteers themselves getting more respect within the community, especially when it comes to ensemble puppetry. Puppetry...is sneaky. When it is good, you can forget that you're watching it because you become so invested in the story and in the characters. It is magical. And as a result, I think people--even those in the theatre community--can forget that there are actual human performers attached to those puppets who are using their skills and energy to create that magic.
Andy: Life of Pi's puppeteers winning an Olivier Award for performing is a pretty good step towards acceptance I like to think! I also think the international scene has a bit more of a built-in respect. But again, it is hard to see the forest for the trees.
5. And... predictably...what encouraged you to bring your work to the Fringe?
Andy: Predictably... the opportunity to perform our show a ton of times for a people hungry for theater! Bill's 44th had the opportunity to play the London International Mime Festival earlier this year and frankly we want to get a chance to play our show for an international audience more. Also, none of us in our company have ever been to the Fringe before so we are very excited to see what's what!
Dorothy: We are so excited to celebrate Bill's birthday with so so many people in such an incredible hub of creativity!
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