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From marionettes to Muppets, puppetry comes in many forms and styles. Menlo Park Library is again celebrating all things puppet with its annual Summer Puppetry Festival, running June 15 through Aug. 26, with events at both the downtown and Belle Haven library branches. The fest includes live performances, special workshops and talks, a documentary screening and even a Zoom call with a puppet legend.
“Puppetry is special, one, because you’re witnessing something come alive, and there is a really special synergy that happens between audience and performer, where there’s this shared imagination that happens and everyone’s agreeing to this same imaginative space,” said Risa Lenore Anderson Dye, the artistic director of the Berkeley-based Possibly Puppets.
Dye, who works under the name Risa Lenore, will be at the Belle Haven Library on Aug. 23, presenting her original show “Save the Day for Snail.” Dye often uses upcycled and recycled materials to create her handmade puppets, so they’re all one of a kind.
“I am materials-led in my puppetry. I tend not to be stuck to one form” she said. She’s also not a hidden puppeteer – rather, she remains visible as part of the show, guiding the audience along.
“Save the Day for Snail” tells the tale of Gladsy, the titular snail, who needs the help of her neighbors to find a new shell when hers blows away. The story, best suited for kids ages 3 to 9, explores how communities deal with climate catastrophes and is highly interactive for the audience, Dye said.
“I have them make sound effects, I have them make the wind, I have them be puppeteers.”
With Big Tech company Meta also headquartered in Menlo Park, Dye said it was especially meaningful to have a festival celebrating a physical, literally hands-on art form like puppetry there as well.
“I think that’s a lovely contrast,” she said.
The development of Possibly Puppets is the result of years of experience.
“I was always making costumes, I was dancing, I was involved in experimental theater and I was also always creating my own art,” she said. She’d also been active in early childhood education through storytelling, art and movement.
“At some point I had the wonderful realization that it all … fit under the umbrella of puppetry,” she said.
If anyone has the opportunity to try puppetry, “they should,” she said. “It’s tactile. As a medium it really allows us to engage in the handmade, and explore three-dimensional objects with our whole bodies and whole minds. It’s a very meaningful practice in this day and age when we’re so two-dimensional. And if you add stories, it’s a fourth dimension.”
Attendees can try their hands at creating shadow puppets at a workshop led by Linda Janklow of Peopleologie at the Belle Haven Library on July 18.
Shadow puppets can be found in many cultures around the world, Janklow said, and her workshop, recommended for ages 8 and up, mostly takes inspiration from Indonesian tradition. Participants will make characters using upcycled card stock with simple moving parts. To activate the shadows, all that’s needed is a light source, be it the sun, an oil lamp or a flashlight.
Janklow has been leading community workshops for many years and said that she continually sees a dip in students’ abilities to work with their hands, which she attributes to the shift to computer and screen-based education and activities. The relatively simple act of making a shadow puppet — in particular, drawing a face or figure in profile — can be a welcome challenge these days.
“Just putting pencil to paper has become a bigger lesson than I ever planned it to be,” she said. “The opportunities to just play around are gone.”
Ancient techniques such as shadow puppets, Janklow noted, can be considered the beginning of projected images, and puppets continue to inspire wonder and joy.
“I think play and entertainment, drama, is something embedded in us,” she said of puppetry’s enduring appeal. “I think it’s the other self. Historically, I think it’s about storytelling. It’s almost always a teaching tool.”
Janklow called herself “a child of Shari Lewis times,” referring to the late, iconic, award-winning creator and ventriloquist of the adorably sassy puppet Lamb Chop, who started out on the children’s TV show “Captain Kangaroo” in 1956 and whose legacy lives on thanks to her daughter Mallory Lewis, Lamb Chop’s current puppeteer.
Lewis and Lamb Chop are actually part of this year’s puppetry festival as well (apologies if “The Song That Doesn’t End” is now running through your brain). They’ll be taking part in a Zoom call with the Menlo Park Library on Aug. 12. And the festival will conclude with a screening of the documentary “Shari and Lamb Chop” at the downtown branch Aug. 26.
During the virtual meeting, they’re looking forward to answering any questions folks may have.
“Lamb Chop and I are an open book … Or maybe two open books,” Lewis told this news organization in an email interview.
Part of what has made Lamb Chop so popular for so many years, Lewis said, is that she’s “a very pure and authentic character. It is her authenticity that has made her so beloved, and keeps her in the forefront of people’s hearts.”
Growing up, “Lamb Chop was always a wonderful sister to me. She never told on me when I was a kid. I could tell her secrets and she wouldn’t tell mom. She continues to be my best friend and partner in crime,” she said.
Lamb Chop has had a busy career, and in 1993 even testified before congress to advocate for strengthening the provisions of the Children’s Television Act of 1990, according to Shari Lewis’ obituary in the New York Times. When asked, via email, if she had any message for our readers, Lamb Chop replied, “Vote Blue. That is all.”
Michael Shupbach grew up in Palo Alto, encouraged by his parents to watch educational children’s programming, including “Sesame Street” and “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” on KQED.
“Mister Rogers did an episode where they pulled the camera back and showed the television studio itself. And I remember seeing adults milling about and working. There were the camera guys, the live musician, and all the people working together behind the scenes. That was my first realization that working in this medium was a job that you could go out and get,” he told this news organization in an email.
Shupbach has indeed gone on to have a successful career in creative design, with a résumé including “Sesame Street,” “Avenue Q,” “Jurassic World” and “Ms. Rachel.” Thanks to his work, he’s well acquainted with perhaps the best-known puppets of all, The Muppets.
Shupbach is kicking off the festival with a talk on “The Science and Psychology of Muppet Design” at the library on June 15, discussing the tools and tricks designers use to build puppet characters that are emotionally resonant.
“This talk and the festival have been a nice trip down memory lane,” he said. “These days, much of my work is in animatronics, robotics and tech-heavy character work. A lot of the same skills that go into making a puppet feel alive also apply to designing robots and theme park experiences. It’s been fun researching the lecture on how many of the skills I learned working at the Muppets apply to making robots come to life.”
In his view, part of why puppetry remains compelling is because it can be used to subvert audience’s expectations of what “puppet” can mean.
“If you look at ‘The Mandalorian,’ or ‘Project Hail Mary,’ or ‘Avenue Q,’ all of them are using the same simple techniques that can be taught to just about anyone. But each show is applying them in new and interesting ways,” he said.
In terms of favorite characters, he said it’s usually whatever he’s currently working on.
“What excites me now is building systems that allow a creature, robot, or interactive environment to respond to an audience in believable and emotionally engaging ways,” he said. “And to do that, you don’t have to be emotionally invested, but it helps. And frankly, if I am getting paid to bring to life a creature, effect, or character for TV that has never existed before, the goal is to be fully invested. It’s one of the best gigs in the world, and I try to enjoy it as much as possible.”
He does have especially fond memories of his time on “Sesame Street,” though, working with some of the same folks he idealized as a KQED-loving young Palo Altan, such as Caroll Spinney of Big Bird fame. Now, when he wears his crew hoodie with the year of his first season on it, people often stop him and remark about their own memories of watching the show at that time.
“It’s nice to have done this long enough to see your audience grow up,” he said.
Other events in the Summer Puppetry Festival include a performance by Pop and Go Puppets June 28, a show by The Puppet Company July 9, an interactive presentation by The Fratello Marionettes July 26 and a performance from Puppet Art Theater July 30.
Summer Puppetry Festival, June 15-Aug. 26, presented by the Menlo Park Library (800 Alma St. and 100 Terminal Ave.), check online for schedule and locations; free;.menlopark.gov/News-articles/City-news/20260508Menlo-Park-hosts-9th-Annual-Summer-Puppetry-Festival.
