The Puppet and the Puppeteer
This is a beautiful collaboration between myself, Ashley Arechiga, Jason Torres and Elijah Parker along with our best friends Aura Cleveland, Andreas Leonardsen and Sheryl Davis.
A lot of collaborative work went into this piece. I approached Ashley about wanting to do a play that told the journey of ACTLab and the process of graduating and leaving the space. Then, we heard the news about Sandy's retirement and ideas really expanded and grew. We found all inspiration from the ACTLab logo of a puppet and a puppeteer. Our friends enthusiastically joined the project, which truly brought the play's message to life. Everyone was given freedom to create their own vignette. Ashley utilized the famous yellow ACTLab ball. Andreas showed Puppet his singing talent. Aura wanted to hoop and dance. Sheryl performed a veil and belly dance. Elijah beautifully designed a light interaction with Puppet. He was a light force connecting with her through light dance. After she learns about the space through all these different artists she seeks to create her own project with all the influence from her friends. Elijah projected visuals he designed to bring Puppet's project to life. The hair animation was Ashley's masterpiece within this project. The aesthethic is something we have worked on together in the past and we had so much fun with it we wanted to do it again. Jason created and ran the wonderfully appropriate and emotional soundtrack. Sandy willingly worked with us one day in class for the scene where the Puppeteer leaves. We managed to cut together a nice dialogue for Puppet and Puppeteer to have with one another, and of course it was beautiful to see with Ashley's animation. The great thing about this section is Sandy didn't exactly know what she was contributing to and she had never heard the final cut, so we were really excited for her reaction to this moment. Ashley was an amazing stage manager. She was backstage running the computer and projector and also managing my strings. When the puppeteer leaves Puppet to figure things out on her own, Ashley was backstage linking my strings to each performer.
The production and setting of the project was the most extensive, complicated and expensive piece I've ever conducted. There were so many things I had to think about in order to get the set built, but we had a great time putting it together. We stayed up all night positioning the projectors, screens, marionette box and strings. It took us hours to rehearse, learn our cues and practice with those dang strings! It was such a wonderful experience to be telling our story of friendship, ACTLab and change while collaborating and creating and then spending the night in our beloved space, the ACTLab. haha. This was one of the best pieces to work on and I am so proud to have worked with my great friends.