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I have a lot of complex projects in the works right now--shoes, hats, the wire crinolines from the last post--but by far my favorite is building the enormous girl-grabbing puppet arms of Audrey II, the carnivorous plant star of the musical Little Shop of Horrors.
If you are familiar with the show, you know that it's all about the plant puppets, and that because the plant grows exponentially larger in each scene, the show requires four different plant puppets--two handheld potted-plant-sized ones, a large walkaround-sized one (though since it's in a pot, the puppeteer doesn't actually walk around in it), and an enormous one that requires three and then five puppeteers to manipulate it due to its sprawling prehensile "arms".
The Drama department of Durham Academy, a prestigious private K-12 school in Durham, NC, is producing the show this semester with sets designed by Zach Hamm, who also is the ATD at my work. They are working with the licensing and production company Music Theatre International, from whom they are also renting the plants. The set of four puppets was originally built by Character Translations, Inc.. The rental package consists of the four plants and plans for building the two sets of grabbing arms. (Presumably the plans are offered instead of renting built versions of the arms themselves due to the need to accomodate varying stage sizes and different actor-faces for the victim-flowers.) Zach and his construction team were unable add building the arms on top of their work on the set itself, so he asked if i'd be interested in doing it, and i ask you: does the sun come up in the morning?
YES, i was definitely interested in doing it!
( Photographs, plans, and the first part of the plantbuilding process...show me the Audrey! )
If you are familiar with the show, you know that it's all about the plant puppets, and that because the plant grows exponentially larger in each scene, the show requires four different plant puppets--two handheld potted-plant-sized ones, a large walkaround-sized one (though since it's in a pot, the puppeteer doesn't actually walk around in it), and an enormous one that requires three and then five puppeteers to manipulate it due to its sprawling prehensile "arms".
The Drama department of Durham Academy, a prestigious private K-12 school in Durham, NC, is producing the show this semester with sets designed by Zach Hamm, who also is the ATD at my work. They are working with the licensing and production company Music Theatre International, from whom they are also renting the plants. The set of four puppets was originally built by Character Translations, Inc.. The rental package consists of the four plants and plans for building the two sets of grabbing arms. (Presumably the plans are offered instead of renting built versions of the arms themselves due to the need to accomodate varying stage sizes and different actor-faces for the victim-flowers.) Zach and his construction team were unable add building the arms on top of their work on the set itself, so he asked if i'd be interested in doing it, and i ask you: does the sun come up in the morning?
YES, i was definitely interested in doing it!
( Photographs, plans, and the first part of the plantbuilding process...show me the Audrey! )
