We had a blast at the 2nd annual DC Puppet SlamNation on November 2nd at the Takoma Park Community Center. We were thrilled to welcome fellow puppeteers from Baltimore, as well as Takoma Park and Washington, DC for a great night of puppetry for all ages. If you missed the event or just want to relive the magic, here are a few shots of the acts. Schroeder Cherry performing If I Can’t Sell it I Will Sit on It. Photo by Laura D. Meyer MattaMagical performing How Possum Played Death. Photo by Laura D. Meyer Katherine Fahey and Daniel Van Allen performing I Know Moonrise. Photo by Laura D. Mey ..read more

In September, Wit’s End company members Cecilia Cackley and Genna Beth Davidson went up to Brattleboro, Vermont for Puppet Homecoming. This Puppeteers of American regional event was held in conjunction with Puppets in the Green Mountains, an international puppet festival organized by Sandglass Theater. In this post, Cecilia and Genna Beth have a conversation about their experiences at Puppet Homecoming.  Cecilia: Puppet Homecoming was a great experience. What shows did you find the most inspiring or interesting? Genna Beth: Can I say all of them? Haha, each one was so diffe ..read more

The dinosaurs are coming! We are thrilled to be welcoming not one, not two, but THREE fabulous puppet builders to our first Puppet Lobby of the fall. What do they have in common? They’ve all built dinosaur puppets, for very different projects. Francisco Benavides created a mammoth for an immersive theater experience in Baltimore, Matt McGee built a family of dinosaurs for the American classic The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder, and Ingrid Crepeau invented a whole cast of different dinos for her popular children’s show DinoRock. The Puppet Lobby is free and open to everyone and starts at ..read more

Last summer, we went on our first out-of-state tour, taking the shadow show Saudade to six different venues in Minneapolis. This summer, we haven’t performed any shadow work, but I did have the opportunity to see three very different shadow and silhouette based pieces of art in DC and New York City. Back in the spring, we performed Saudade at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, for the opening of a new exhibit of contemporary and historical silhouettes called Black Out: Silhouettes Then and Now. While I knew a little about the history of silhouettes, mainly that they were ..read more

At our company meeting last summer, when I asked if there were any projects we wanted to start for the upcoming year, Patricia Germann mentioned that she’d like to curate a lecture series on puppetry, featuring local artists. She had noticed that we often had lots of people come up to us at our shows looking for more information about puppetry and puppet-building and realized that there might be an audience for a free event bringing artists and spectators together. One year later, we’ve had six great conversations with a wide range of puppet artists. Here’s Patricia, talking a little bit more ..read more

Living in the United States, I don’t have the opportunity to see very much caja lambe-lambe puppetry live. I mostly have to rely on the Internet to show me what other puppeteers are creating! Videos are not the best way to watch caja lambe-lambe, which really does depend on the forced perspective created by looking through the peephole, but they are better than nothing. Here are three I’ve recently found: This caja lambe-lambe show has designs by Marcos Leal and was made by Brazilian puppeteers, if I’m reading the YouTube description correctly. I like the neon colors and the way it gets so mu ..read more

In early March, we shared the full story of Selkie, titled What the Waves Bring at Source Theater in DC. It’s the first time we’ve had all the puppets and prop elements before an audience, and we were lucky enough to have David Moss taking photographs. Here are a few: Seth Langer and Amy Kellett operate the Selkie.  Ashley Ivy as John playing with Alannah, operated by Cecilia Cackley and Alison Daniels The other selkies, played by Nina Budabin Mcquown, Anji Lambert and Alison Daniels. A seal looks over the water.    ..read more

A Heart at Sea. Photo by Half a String.  The wonderful thing about social media is that it enables us to maintain connections with theaters in other parts of the country and the world, and find out about the shows they are performing. The frustrating thing about social media is that I see all these cool pictures of inspiring shows that I won’t get to see in person. Here are three shows either currently running or that have just closed that I wish I could magically teleport to go see. JUNK at Little Angel Theatre in London. This immersive kid’s show using recycled materials looks li ..read more

By Genna Beth Davidson Genna Beth organizing puppet rods for Saudade. Those of us at Wit’s End Puppets think about puppetry a lot. I’m always interested in materials and the characteristics and possibilities of those materials. It occurred to me recently that it might be helpful to think about the limitations of puppetry.  How limited or limitless is it really?  I think of amazing puppet works I’ve seen across the globe. There’s Royale De Luxe with their giant puppets controlled by dozens of people as they move through the city streets telling magical and gigantic stories. I think ..read more

Puppets made by Lisi Stoessel. We’re excited to welcome puppeteers Lisi Stoessel and Francisco Benavides to the Puppet Lobby this month, along with Wit’s End company member Amy Kellett. It’s especially meaningful because Lisi worked with us on the very first project that Genna Beth and I created together back in 2011, a show for the Capital Fringe Festival called The Malachite Palace. While the company wasn’t fully formed back then, we did use the name ‘Wit’s End Puppets’ for our family show about a princess and a little golden bird. Lisi designed beautiful shadow puppets for that project an ..read more