From fun to fuss-free entertainment, puppet shows have a lot to offer, but one program is using puppetry for something a bit out of the ordinary—promoting children’s literacy.
This summer marks the third year the Travelling Puppet Show has returned to Powell River Public Library. The program, which is sponsored by IslandLink Library Federation, Young Canada Works and Canada Summer Jobs, travels throughout Vancouver Island and the surrounding area every summer to perform at local libraries.
“It’s literacy at its best,” said Jeannette Jones, children’s service coordinator at the library, explaining why the library decided to participate in the program. “It’s where language and art meet in a really fun way.”
Jones said she sees the shows, which she calls “the antidote to TV,” as a way to educate and connect the community. “It brings us together.”
Randi Edmundson and Jon Mason, both recent graduates of the theatre program at University of Victoria, are this year’s puppeteers. Since the beginning of July, they have travelled to almost every library in Victoria, as well as libraries in Nanaimo, Salt Spring Island and Alert Bay. From July 26 to 30, they gave 10 performances in the Powell River area organized by the library.
Performance venues included everywhere from the Tla’amin (Sliammon) First Nation Child Care Centre to Olive Devaud Residence. “They’ll do the same show for completely different audiences and both will be delighted,” Jones explained. Children’s responses however, were the most priceless. “Children react to puppets like people react to rock stars,” Jones said. “They get that excited.”
Mason agreed. “They immerse themselves so much in the show that they actually yell out warnings to the puppets,” he explained.
Mason and Edmundson adapt all their material from books as a way of promoting reading—for example, their tween performance is a spinoff of Homer’s The Odyssey complete with a rapping Athena. Holding the show down are hosts Milly, a lanky, shoe-obsessed puppet with the face of a Shih Tzu, and Jeremy, Milly’s blue, perpetually nervous counterpart.
Both puppeteers have found that using puppets to act has some unexpected benefits. “They break down barriers,” explained Edmundson. “You can say things to a puppet that you don’t say to a complete stranger who just walked into the room.”
Mason has also learned that children respond better to puppets than they do to the actors themselves. “Kids won’t listen to us tell them to sit down, but they’ll listen when a puppet said it,” he said, laughing.
Neither Mason nor Edmundson had any puppeteering experience before being trained by the program, but Edmundson said it was a sharp learning curve because of their drama school experience. In the process, the drama students-cum-puppeteers have had to deal with the many challenges of running a two-man show.
“You have to be the stage manager backstage, as well as do the directing and acting,” said Mason. Surprisingly, one of the most challenging parts is turning the pages of the script. “There are times when you’ll both have both hands onstage and you have to do it with your foot,” said Edmundson.
Besides reading and literacy, the main goal is laughs, explained Edmundson, “but if [participants] leave with that extra sense of inspiration to go home and try things on their own, then that’s awesome.”
