The puppet creates delight and fear. It may evoke the innocent play of childhood, or become a tool of ritual magic, able to negotiate with ghosts and gods. Puppets can be creepy things, secretive, inanimate while also full of spirit, alive with gesture and voice. In this eloquent book, Kenneth Gross contemplates the fascination of these unsettling objects - objects that are also actors and images of life. The poetry of the puppet is central here, whether in its blunt grotesquery or symbolic simplicity, and always in its talent for metamorphosis. On a meditative journey to seek the idiosyncratic shapes of puppets on stage, Gross looks at the anarchic Punch and Judy show, the sacred shadow theater of Bali, and experimental theaters in Europe and the United States, where puppets enact everything from Baroque opera and Shakespearean tragedy to Beckettian farce. Throughout, he interweaves accounts of the myriad faces of the puppet in literature - Collodi's cruel, wooden Pinocchio, puppet-like characters in Kafka and Dickens, Rilke's puppet-angels, the dark puppeteering of Philip Roth's Mickey Sabbath - as well as in the work of artists Joseph Cornell and Paul Klee. The puppet emerges here as a hungry creature, seducer and destroyer, demon and clown. It is a test of our experience of things, of the human and inhuman. A book about reseeing what we know, or what we think we know, "Puppet" evokes the startling power of puppets as mirrors of the uncanny in life and art.

Get ready to start nursery with the classic Sophie la girafe toy, in this boardbook full of gentle messages and tips. Join Sophie for her first day at nursery in this book specially made for little ones settling into a new day care environment. This short story is perfect for reading aloud together with babies and toddlers, building familiarity and confidence about their days at nursery or with a childminder. Each scene picks out key first words, to help toddlers building their language skills. Textured, trace-the-shape pages will engage curious readers as they turn the pages. For parents and carers, each page features short practical tips to help you and your child, consulted by Early Years expert Lizzie Noble. Sophie la girafe has sold more than 50 million teether toys worldwide, and now the iconic toy from France turns 60. Celebrate with Sophie as she steps into the pages of a brand new series of baby books. Designed for reading together with your baby or toddler, this would also make the perfect birthday or returning to work gift.

Foam Patterning and Construction Techniques: Turning 2D Designs into 3D Shapes explains how to create your theatrical prop, puppet, or costume design using the unique and tricky medium of foam. Step-by-step instructions, photographs, and explanations illustrate how to translate your design from paper to reality by creating custom "skin" patterns, followed by creation of a foam mockup. The book details how to bring your project to life with varied finishing techniques, including using fur and fabric coverings and dying and painting foam. Numerous supplies, tools, and safety procedures and protocols are also covered.

A chronicle of the "life," times, and travels of the famous puppets, this survey examines Punch and Judy's moral and cultural significance as well as the people who played them behind the curtain. Scholarly yet entertaining, it includes 30 illustrations by Victorian artist George Cruikshank, Dickens' illustrator of choice.

This stunningly illustrated book introduces for the first time the beauty of theatre puppets from all major Asian traditions, taking the reader on an inspiring journey through hundreds of years of craftsmanship and creativity in nearly 350 glorious photographs. Asian Theatre Puppets will have immense appeal both to audiences with an interest in the Asian arts, as well as to the general reader, as it opens up a whole realm of artistic expression that has hitherto been largely unknown in the West.

A practical, accessible and inspiring guide to using puppetry in theatre - the perfect entry point for anyone looking to use puppets in their productions, to explore what puppets can do, or to develop their puppetry skills. Written by an experienced theatre and puppetry director, Puppetry: How to Do It focuses on the performer and the craft of bringing any puppet to life. No puppet-making is required to use this book: starting just with simple objects, it lays out the skills required to unlock a puppet's limitless potential for expression and connection with an audience. Inside you'll discover fifty practical, easy-to-follow exercises - for use in a group or on your own - to develop elements of the craft, build confidence and help you improve your puppetry through play and improvisation. Also included are sections on different types of puppet, thinking about how the puppeteer is presented on stage and how to direct and devise puppet performances Ideal for actors and performers, for directors and designers, and for teachers and students of all ages and levels of experience, this book will demystify the art of puppetry, and help you become more confident and creative with all kinds of puppets and objects on stage. 'Based on the workshops he developed for training performers for War Horse, Mervyn has written this book to share his craft... the exercises are clear and easily reproducible for many different types of participants... a wonderful gift to the field of puppetry. I hope that it will be used widely to introduce adventurous spirits to this dynamic art form.' Cheryl Henson, President of the Jim Henson Foundation, from her Foreword.

The puppet creates delight and fear. It may evoke the innocent play of childhood, or become a tool of ritual magic, able to negotiate with ghosts and gods. Puppets can be creepy things, secretive, inanimate while also full of spirit, alive with gesture and voice. In this eloquent book, Kenneth Gross contemplates the fascination of these unsettling objects--objects that are also actors and images of life.

The poetry of the puppet is central here, whether in its blunt grotesquery or symbolic simplicity, and always in its talent for metamorphosis. On a meditative journey to seek the idiosyncratic shapes of puppets on stage, Gross looks at the anarchic Punch and Judy show, the sacred shadow theater of Bali, and experimental theaters in Europe and the United States, where puppets enact everything from Baroque opera and Shakespearean tragedy to Beckettian farce. Throughout, he interweaves accounts of the myriad faces of the puppet in literature--Collodi's cruel, wooden Pinocchio, puppetlike characters in Kafka and Dickens, Rilke's puppet-angels, the dark puppeteering of Philip Roth's Micky Sabbath--as well as in the work of artists Joseph Cornell and Paul Klee. The puppet emerges here as a hungry creature, seducer and destroyer, demon and clown. It is a test of our experience of things, of the human and inhuman. A book about reseeing what we know, or what we think we know, "Puppet" evokes the startling power of puppets as mirrors of the uncanny in life and art.

Wondrous Brutal Fictions presents eight seminal works from the seventeenth-century Japanese sekkyo and ko-joruri puppet theaters, many translated into English for the first time. Both poignant and disturbing, they range from stories of cruelty and brutality to tales of love, charity, and outstanding filial devotion, representing the best of early Edo-period literary and performance traditions and acting as important precursors to the Bunraku and Kabuki styles of theater. As works of Buddhist fiction, these texts relate the histories and miracles of particular buddhas, bodhisattvas, and local deities. Many of their protagonists are cultural icons, recognizable through their representation in later works of Japanese drama, fiction, and film. The collection includes such sekkyo "sermon-ballad" classics as Sansho Dayu, Karukaya, and Oguri, as well as the "old joruri" plays Goo-no-hime and Amida's Riven Breast. R. Keller Kimbrough provides a critical introduction to these vibrant performance genres, emphasizing the role of seventeenth-century publishing in their spread. He also details six major sekkyo chanters and their playbooks, filling a crucial scholarly gap in early Edo-period theater. More than fifty reproductions of mostly seventeenth-century woodblock illustrations offer rich, visual foundations for the critical introduction and translated tales. Ideal for students and scholars of medieval and early modern Japanese literature, theater, and Buddhism, this collection provides an unprecedented encounter with popular Buddhist drama and its far-reaching impact on literature and culture.

Learn how to throw your voice! Make your hand talk, your shoe sing, and your mother-in-law shut up! Everyone will be tongue-tied when you start talking to the lamp shade - and it talks back! Paul Stadelman, a professional ventriloquist who starred on his own television show for many years, shares with you the secrets that have made him a hilarious success. Ventriloquism, as taught in this book, is easy to learn. If you follow a few simple rules, anybody can do it. And it's so fun that once you start, you'll be talking to yourself for hours. The book explains how to use standard puppets as well as novelty figures such as balloon animals and gym socks. It includes 22 complete comedy dialogues to get you started. All are outrageously funny.

With the advancement of cybernetics, avatars, animation, and virtual reality, a thorough understanding of how the puppet metaphor originates from specific theatrical practices and media is especially relevant today. This book identifies and interprets the aesthetic and cultural significance of the different traditions of the Italian puppet theater in the broader Italian culture and beyond. Grounded in the often-overlooked history of the evolution of several Italian puppetry traditions - the central and northern Italian stringed marionettes, the Sicilian pupi, the glove puppets of the Po Valley, and the Neapolitan Pulcinella - this study examines a broad spectrum of visual, cinematic, literary, and digital texts representative of the functions and themes of the puppet. A systematic analysis of the meanings ascribed to the idea and image of the puppet provides a unique vantage point to observe the perseverance and transformation of its deeper associations, linking premodern, modern, and contemporary contexts.

"Making and Manipulating Marionettes" is a superb guide to a craft and performance art that has fascinated audiences for over 2,000 years. Handsomely illustrated throughout, it presents precise instructions for the making of marionettes, both for plays and for acts in the variety tradition. All aspects of marionette design, construction, and control are covered, and there are rare insights into specialized designs and stringing techniques. Contents include an introduction to the marionette tradition and the principles and practicalities of marionette design; advice on materials and methods for carving, modeling, and casting puppet parts; detailed explanations for marionette control, stringing, and manipulation; step-by-step instructions for the construction and jointing of human and animal marionettes; and professional secrets for achieving a wide range of special effects.

In its exploration of puppetry and animation as the performative media of choice for mastering the art of illusion, To Embody the Marvelous engages with early modern notions of wonder in religious, artistic, and social contexts. From jointed, wood-carved figures of Christ, saintly marionettes that performed hagiographical dramas, experimental puppets and automata in Cervantes' Don Quixote, and the mechanical sets around which playwright CalderOn de la Barca devised secular magic shows to deconstruct superstitions, these historical and fictional artifacts reenvisioned religious, artistic, and social notions that led early modern society to critically wrestle with enchantment and disenchantment. The use of animated performance objects in Spanish theatrical contexts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries became one of the most effective pedagogical means to engage with civil society. Regardless of social strata, readers and spectators alike were caught up in a paradigm shift wherein belief systems were increasingly governed by reason-even though the discursive primacy of supernatural doxa and Christian wonder remained firmly entrenched. Thanks to their potential for motion, religious and profane puppets, automata, and mechanical stage props deployed a rationalized sense of wonder that illustrates the relationship between faith and reason, reevaluates the boundaries of fiction in art and entertainment cultures, acknowledges the rise of science and technology, and questions normative authority.