Zombie Prom Parent Puppets

Projects

Zombie Prom Parent Puppets

Quick Description

For the Naugatuck Teen Theater presentation of John Dempsey's Zombie Prom directed by Michael Candela, I was approached to create two completely absurd caricature-style puppets of a mother and father. As my first ever paid design job, I was quite happy with the results even though there were last minute changes beyond my control which quite fuddled things up. My original designs called for the actors to bring the puppets out, set them up, and then climb inside. All of this was done during a blackout scene of which plans had been discussed with the director and tech crew long in advance. When I arrived to deliver the puppets, I was told that the blackout was cut, that the puppets had to enter and travel down the entire audience aisle, and that no one could climb inside them. The ensuing last-minute on-site changes that had to be made resulted in the puppets seeming much less animated than I had hoped as well as causing the father puppet to endure a number of technical issues. Overall, things were fixed adequately and the audience quite enjoyed the camp factor involved.