WHAT’S ON
The best way to keep up-to-date with What’s On at Puppet Place is to follow us on our social media channels, which are currently: Instagram & Facebook. We no longer produce an e-Newsletter as we don’t have the capacity to produce one on a regular basis or to manage a mailing list.
Three new workshops for puppeteers with Dr. Emily LeQuense at Puppet Place in 2025:
Saturday 22 February 2025: Introduction to Marionette Performance Workshop (All Day)
Come join us at Puppet Place for an immersive day-long workshop delving into the enchanting world of marionette performance! Whether you’re a seasoned puppeteer or a complete newbie, this event is perfect for anyone looking to learn the art of bringing marionettes to life on stage.
This five hour workshop will introduce you to marionette and rod marionette animation.
Learn to animate a marionette with Emily from Croon productions.
Croon productions are a marionette led puppet theatre company , their shows include:
Attack of the 50 foot woman. Noir: A Dik Privet Mystery and Spaghetti: A Western.
Bring a string puppet to life and animate the character.
You will:
- Participate in group & solo puppeteering exercises.
- Explore the animation of marionettes & rod marionettes.
- Learn ways to string a puppet.
- Create a short show with marionettes.
You don’t need to bring a marionette, plenty will be provided for you to explore.
“The description of the workshop was exactly what it said on the tin, we learn different performance techniques and how to animate characters convincingly I enjoyed the array of puppets that were available to use. They were all marionettes, but strung in a variety of ways, so we were able to see and feel how different puppets moved .” Previous workshop attendee.
Saturday 1 March 2025: Introduction to Dramaturgy for Puppeteers
Over a full day we will look at a number of different aspects of dramaturgical thinking all specific to puppetry.
With practical exercises to do in session, breakout groups, discussions and things to apply to your work afterwards.
By process dramaturgy I mean the exploration, critique and development of the devising and/or rehearsal process.
Part 1: Introduction to dramaturgy. The process of process.
Part 2: Wait, what was that?!
LUNCH
Part 3: Really feeling it now.
Part 4: Spaces and faces.
About Emily
“Emily is an exceptionally knowledgeable, curious and adventurous dramaturg. Asked all the right questions, accepted my silly answers and enabled my mischief.” Julian Brett (Theatre maker)
Emily is a dramaturg, puppet theatre maker, and lecturer/facilitator.
She is co-artistic director of Croon Productions puppet theatre company.
She holds a PhD in scriptwriting for puppetry & dramaturgy and a Masters in scriptwriting.
Her doctoral research was in scriptwriting for puppet theatre, and during the research she created a five-step dramaturgy process called the Mosaic Scale. Within this overall five step system is an exercise also called the mosaic scale—it is this exercise that gave the system it’s umbrella term.
A qualified teacher in post compulsory education, she has taught performing arts at FE & HE level for over 20 years.
Her book – 1000 Ways to Ask Why: Introduction to Dramaturgical Thinking is available now from Routledge.
Saturday 8 March 2025: Introduction to Object Theatre Workshop
Come join us for a hands-on Introduction to Object Theatre Workshop at Puppet Place! Learn the art of bringing inanimate objects to life on stage. This workshop is perfect for beginners curious about the magic of object theatre. Get ready to unleash your creativity and explore the endless possibilities of storytelling with everyday items. No prior experience required, just bring your imagination and a willingness to play!
Humans identify with objects and everyday things are incorporated into our language:
‘Walking on eggshells’, ‘couch potato’, ‘apple of my eye’, ‘heart of stone’, ‘roller coaster of emotions’, and ‘heart of gold.’
In this day long introduction to object theatre, we will define the difference between a puppet and an object in performance and explore some ways to start making object theatre.
Working with everyday objects, we will explore the relationship between narrator and object and delve into the object’s potential for symbolic communication and storytelling in performance.
You will:
• Participate in group & solo object theatre games and exercises.
• Explore the manipulation of objects as performer.
• Explore & develop performance images and narrative in short scenes.
Suitable for everyone, with or without previous performance experience.
PAST EVENTS
Puppet Place Winter Art & Craft Market
Back by popular demand, the Art & Craft Market is returned to Puppet Place on Sunday 24 November 2024.
Visitors were able to explore our building and purchase from a curated selection of 34 vendors from Bristol and beyond (see below for details). This included everything from live portraiture to handmade ceramics and personalised jewellery!
Plus work from Puppet Places own artists and walkabout acts throughout the day!
The Puppet Place Scratch Cabaret Fundraiser
The autumn Puppet Place Scratch Cabaret Fundraiser, which took place on Saturday 16 November 2024, was a great success with both performances completely sold out.
There were more than ten puppet based performances of all shapes and sizes, along with weird and wonderful happenings and walkabouts, all compered by the Big Bad Wolf!
Money raised from this fundraiser will be used by the Puppet Place Trust (charity) to update and upgrade its home at Unit 18 Albion Dockside Estate, to support teaching and outreach work from the building for both puppetry practitioners and Bristol’s communities. These updates include essential electrical upgrades and renovation of the building to create more and accessible spaces, for the benefit of our residents, associate artists, and other external individuals and companies that work in the building or hire the Rehearsal Studio and Fabrication Workshop.
Puppet Place Art & Craft Market
The first Puppet Place Art & Craft Market took place on Saturday 31 August. It was a wonderful day with 32 vendors selling a wide range of artwork and designer made items, with over 600 visitors. After receiving positive feedback from stall holders and guests we have decided to make the Art Market a quarterly event.
Harbour Festival Open Day
Puppet Place opened its doors on Saturday 20 July 2024 on the weekend of the Bristol Harbour Festival.
Visitors were allowed to explore the Fabrication Workshop to meet some of our puppets and the people that made them.
Bristol Puppet Monitor Night
Bristol Monitor Night on 11 May 2024 was a free puppet event open to anyone interested in puppetry, with any level of experience .
People were invited to try their hands at TV puppetry and were given the chance to see their puppets animated on a monitor screen.
It was such a well attended, successful event that we hope to host this event again in the early autumn.
The Puppet Place Scratch Cabaret Fundraiser
The Puppet Place Scratch Cabaret was a celebration of all things weird and wonderful.
On Saturday 27 April 2024 we hosted the first The Puppet Place Scratch Cabaret Fundraiser at Puppet Place HQ.
Compered by the famous Big Bad Wolf, there were puppets of all shapes and sizes and lots of silliness, with performances from Puppet Place Residents and Special Guests (see below for the full line up).
The event raised over £1,400 which will be used to support Puppet Place Trust Ltd (charity).
You can view a trailer for the Scratch Cabaret here. Big Thanks to Jonathan Eve for creating this film clip:
Credits:
A big thank you to everyone involved, including:
– Saskia Tomlinson for making it happen;
– Bryony Harrison–Pettit our Stage Manager;
– James & Nat for tech, audio & lighting;
– Florence Scott for the poster design (as seen here);
– Bristol Old Vic for loaning the staging, Circomedia, Tobacco Factory and Spike Island for chairs and glasses and New Bristol Beer Company for the fridge and beer delivery;
– Our volunteers, who helped manage the event and worked the bar;
– And of course most importantly of all our Performers & Puppets who provided their time and talent for free:
Hosts: The Big Bad Wolf & Mr Mysterious
Dik Downey – Opposable Thumb Theatre
The Sea Cucumber Show
Writer: Izzy B – Puppets: Izzy B & Cat Rock – Narrator: Ash Farkas – Music: Michael Basri
Metamorphosis Show
Araceli Puppet Theatre – Narrative Consultant: Matt Gibbs – Puppeteer: Araceli Cabrera
Boom Beastie
Edie Edmundson – Puppet Maker: Emily Morus-Jones – Music: The Powello Brothers
Pluck & Chuck
Music: Jon Eve – Juggling: Alastair Flemming
Beanpig Puppets + Invitation to the Puppet Realm
Beanpig Puppets – Violin: Val Ayres
“The Great Zucchini” Spiritual Guide & Conjuror
Kieran Leonard
Bonjour Licky Mouth
Georgia Quality Kent – Puppet: Mel Myland
The King of Pain
Dik Downey – Opposable Thumb Theatre
Imprints Duo
Andy Truckle & Vince Martin
Walkabout Performances:
Mister G Ghastly
Sea Dragon Boris & The Winter Guest and Florence Scott
Stilt Walker – Alastair Fleming
Thanks again we couldn’t have done it without you!
Puppetry: How To Structure, Develop & Build A Narrative With Emma Williams
This two-day workshop took place on Saturday 10 & Saturday 17 February 2024 with participants exploring ways of creating successful narratives for puppetry.
They went away with a selection of practical processes that can be used to build narratives from a range of starting points including images/themes/adaptations of stories.
The workshop covered:
The rules of a basic story structure.
How to investigate an idea that can help create and frame material.
What rules and guidance can be used when working without a linear narrative.
Participants also had the opportunity to share their own specific creative project and they came away with the confidence and excitement to proceed with a project and some basic tools to develop it further.
The workshop ran over two days with a week in between to allow participants time for reflection and preparation for the second day.
Workshop Agenda
Day 1: Over the course of day one we will focus on two puppetry productions exploring the different techniques used in each show to develop the ideas.
Morning: Pinocchio – We will look at adaptations of existing stories and the fundamental rules of simple narratives. Participants will then have the opportunity to create and explore practically key scenes from Pinocchio asking, how does this drive the story.
Early afternoon: Big Boys Don’t Cry – Looking at what happens when the starting point is an idea rather than a story. I will outline the questions that helped create the material and the structure for the production Big Boys Don’t Cry. I will run with the participants’ examples of practical exercise and games that were useful.
Late afternoon: Participants will, working in groups, create visual material from a selection of the questions mentioned earlier in the afternoon and we will share the results as a group.
Day 2: This will be bespoke to the ideas and starting points that participants have brought with them.
Morning: Looking at ideas that have narratives already in place and how to adapt those for puppetry.
Afternoon: Looking at ideas that have a looser structure or no structure at all and exploring what kind of frame can hold the material.
We are keen to run this workshop again in the future so if you are interested get in touch via info@puppetplace.org to be added to the waiting list and if there’s enough interest we’ll arrange new dates later in the year.
This workshop was delivered by director, facilitator, dramaturg and writer Emma WIlliams.
Emma Williams is a director, facilitator, dramaturg and writer. She has directed and co-created international touring productions for Pickled Image, Green Ginger and Opposable Thumb Theatre. In 2022 she directed The Wardrobe’s sell out Christmas show Puppets Do a Movie. Over her career she has directed award winning performances produced by Strike a Light, The Tobacco Factory Theatres, Bath Theatre Royal, Mayfest and the Bristol Old Vic.
She also works outdoors directing productions for Inside Out Festival Dorset, Farnham Maltings and Cheltenham Literary festival. She was performance Director for The Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama’s Design and Puppetry production for nine years.
She has been a visiting lecturer for City of Bristol College, Bath Spa and has run adult performance workshops for Bath Theatre Royal, Puppet Place, Tobacco Factories and Travelling Light. She curated the professional development strand of The Bristol Puppetry festival and between 2017 – 2018 worked as an artist support associate for Theatre Bristol.
Shadow Puppet Workshop, Saturday 11 November 2023
Izzy B is a freelance designer and maker of puppets based at Puppet Place on Bristol’s Harbourside, working mostly between the south-west of England, Atlanta Georgia and Denver Colorado.
In this six and a half hour course participants watched, built and played with shadow puppets on a variety of different screens and lighting rigs. Shadow puppetry is a versatile art that lends itself to cooperative play, so a workshop is an incredible way to become familiar with the craft for the first time or to expand an existing skill set.
This workshop maybe run again in early 2024 – please email info@puppetplace.org if you’d like to be placed on the waiting list.
September 2023 CREATIVE CAFE
We hosted a very special Creative Cafe on Thursday 7 September 2023 when special guest Richard Sewell spoke about Air Giants‘ wonderful creative robotic inflatable, pneumatically-controlled creatures and the technology and creative process that is involved in creating them. We watched some short videos of recent installations had the opportunity to experience one of the smaller inflatable robots up close and personal.
Richard Sewell is a roboticist, software engineer, maker of many things, and a co-founder of Air Giants. He’s interested in the simple pleasures to be found in interactions between people and machines, in experience design, in touch-based experiences, in play and in invitations to play. He’s also interested in robots of all sorts, in tools and gizmos and technical trickery.
Harbour Festival Open Doors 2023
Puppet Place opened its doors on the weekend of the Bristol Harbour Festival from Saturday 15th to Sunday 16th July 2023.
We invited visitors in to find out what puppetry entails and to see where and how puppets are fabricated.
Visitors were able to visit our Fabrication Workshop and Garden where we ran puppetry demos and children’s workshops!
Creative Cafes so far in 2023
Our first Creative Cafe of 2023 took place on Friday 13 January 2023 with special guest Anurupa Roy from Katkatha Puppets Art Trust in India and the second took place on Thursday 30 March with special guest Cat Rock talking about the Bristol 48h Puppet Film Challenge – follow the links below for more information.
Creative Cafe with special guest Anurupa Roy from Katkatha Puppets Art Trust in India
Creative Cafe with with special guest Cat Rock from the Bristol 48h Puppet Film Challenge
For more information about future Creative Cafes and workshops follow us on Facebook, Instagram and/or Twitter.
All Creative Cafes, courses and workshops take place at Unit 18 Albion Dockside Estate, Hanover Place, Bristol BS1 6UT unless otherwise stated.
N.B. Puppet Place only offers refunds in circumstances where a course, workshop or event is cancelled.
Our programme of events, classes and workshops support a range of ages and abilities. We welcome everyone to have a go, from the curious to the professional. Our education and outreach activity is growing so we encourage your ideas and feedback about what you’d like to have a play with.
Let us know what workshops you would like to see take place at Puppet Place
We’re conducting research for future workshops at Puppet Place and we’d love to hear your thoughts on what type of workshops you’d like to see available.
The survey should only take 5 minutes, and your responses are completely anonymous. Please click the link below to access the survey.
Complete our online WORKSHOP RESEARCH SURVEY here!
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