One of the great things about theatre is fantasy, it can take you wherever the author, director and actors want you to. But they don’t even need to be human, puppetry is a way of creating a fantasy world and do things that human actors simply can’t. At NADS we already have experience working with puppets to great effect. Often thought of as nothing more than glove puppets for children, real stage puppetry can involve figures or objects that can be as large as is possible to manipulate by operators and will fit in the stage area!
Take our production of ‘Wizard of Oz’ 2005 for example, this required one real witch, a real skeleton figure and two lifesize puppet witches, a flying broom and vacuum cleaner for the ‘Witches Scene’. Sounds easy? Wrong!
How do you make the skeleton not look like an actor dressed as a skeleton? Or make two witches fly along with broom and vacuum? The answer is ‘Blacklight’ the art of using a completely blacked out stage with ultra violet light to make objects ‘flouresce’ or glow in the dark.
Each puppet requires two operators to move it working perfectly together in almost total darkness wearing entirely black clothing, gloves and hoods. Sound difficult? Yes it is and it takes weeks of practice to get the performance right.
The result can be spectacular or in the case of ‘Wizard of Oz’ - spooktacular! There were six operators and one actor working in a confined space in the dark, not easy I think you would agree.
Some materials or paints flouresce better than others and half the fun is discovering which work best. It is a technique that can only be used for short sequences as the ‘wow’ effect can soon pall after a while.
Even without Blacklight, puppetry is very demanding but equally effective. Take for example the 2006 production of ‘Little Tin Soldier’ Directed by Amber Bailey and part of a double bill with the NADYS ‘Hound of The Baskervilles’. In this puppet adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen story, Amber then aged 14 not only directed but played the part of the ‘Ballerina’ against the lifesize puppet of the ‘Tin Soldier’ operated by two NADS Junior members plus other puppets. Again, the junior puppeteers wore all black clothing and hoods and spent hours practising their parts.
Two operators are working the Tin Soldier
with Amber Bailey as the Ballerina
The ‘fire’ scene under ‘blacklight’
(moving flames in middle)
