Being a solo performer with marionettes I wanted a project that would put together my love of performance, my delight at designing and making puppets and my desire to work on a serious piece with other puppeteers. And so was born the concept to adapt Shakespeare’s famous last play “the Tempest” and bring it to young audiences through the medium of marionettes.

Reading the script through a puppeteers eyes I saw a slivery white Ariel whose feet would never touch the ground, a ruffled and somewhat disgruntled Jester, the grief stricken King and the beautiful young lovers as they first lay eyes on one another. So began a year long project and the designing and building of fourteen full-body marionettes.

Rather than build puppets to match a theatre, I decided that the puppeteers would perform in the black against a bare stage, much as Shakespeare was performed in its time. To give them impact, these marionettes are quite tall, with Trinculo the tallest character at over three feet. The set is minimal and props are very few (as marionettes have a hard time picking things up in their hands). I wanted this show to be able to perform on the street, on a deck, under a tent, in a gym, as well as in a theatre on a stage. I wanted the show to go to young audiences, and so it is.

Because the cast is predominantly male, and finding puppeteers who could keep all of those voices, lines and characters straight was going to be a problem, I decided to pre-record the script. I was very lucky in finding wonderful character voice actors with Shakespearean experience in my community. Sit back and let the story take you away.

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