Rehearsing with giant puppets for worship
by Theresa Mason
“The Magi puppets will most likely be a life-long memory for me.”
Worship Arts magazine. This article will describe how to create a puppet team and rehearse puppet dramas to build community, create memorable experiences, and commu- nicate our Christian faith.
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Creating a Puppet Team. Each puppet
team needs to have a minimum of three
iant puppet dramas offer rich possi- bilities for worship as I described in the October-November issue of
and a coach for their puppet team. Puppe- teers need to have sufficient strength, agility, and the ability to move quickly. The persons who carry the middle pole especially need to be strong with good balance. Many junior high students are not strong enough, but high school students make excellent puppe- teers. My favorite combination is a troupe of youth and adults – youth bring energy and adults bring focus and can assist with disci- pline if needed. As you recruit puppeteers you are giving them an opportunity to build community and lasting memories. As one member of a worship puppet team in the early 1980s noted, “The Magi puppets will most likely be a life-long memory for me.” (Debby Stoughton Kaschner, 6/30/09.)
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members – a person to carry the center pole and a person for each arm. I recommend that you recruit one or two substitutes per puppet who can rotate between being a puppeteer
Rehearsals. Rehearsals an hour-and-a- half long work well. I recommend starting with physical warm ups, especially fun ones that require group cooperation. Puppetry can be strenuous, so give puppeteers frequent breaks; let substitutes take turns operating the puppet while the others watch and coach. Each team first learns how to walk. As the puppeteer for the right moves her or his puppet’s arm forward, the puppeteer on the left moves the left arm back. Then they reverse that movement for the opposite side. While this may seem simple, it is not that easy to do with large deliberate movements. Initially, most people create movements that
JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2010 • WORSHIP ARTS
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