GUILD CONNECTION KURT HUNTER
Guilds Deal With Our Changing World T
he world was so different three months ago, when I last checked in with puppetry guild news. Anyone who kept up at all with world news at that time knew that a health crisis was going to be hitting the U.S. We had no idea exactly when or what the fallout would be. After two months of “stay at home,” the trajectory of the virus in the U.S. and globally is still filled with uncertainty. What we know for certain is that the world of puppetry has been hit hard. Live performances, school residencies, and video production have all been suspended. At a time when we desperately need the reassur- ance of community, we are isolated. Fortu- nately, puppeteers are resilient and creative, and puppetry guilds are finding creative ways to maintain community.
Most guilds took some time to figure out how to continue in this time of the pandemic. Many meetings in March were cancelled. Lois Harmeyer of the Orange County Pup- petry Guild has encouraged members to have specific, but imaginary guild meetings. She sent out links to videos so that members could pretend to have a Shadow Puppet video night and instructions for a “Make a Cardboard
Marionette from Things Around the House” workshop. Members were encouraged to send in photos of their completed marionettes.
One of the first guilds to move their meetings online was the Pup-
petry Guild of Greater New York. At the epicenter of the worst outbreak in the U.S., I’m sure that the members of PGOGNY were in need of community. In March, they held a webinar on Skype titled “COVID-19 and Me.” The program featured COVID-19 survivor Joshua Holden and puppet show streamer Chad Williams.
The Los Angeles Guild of Puppetry held an online meeting and check-in early in April to get their community together again and see how everyone was doing. Since then, they have done a great job of making interesting events happen online. Greg Ballora did a very interesting, live-streamed workshop on servos from his shop. Alex U. Griffin presented the workshop that many people were needing, “DIY Puppet Films at Home!,” over two days in April. That workshop also led into the guild’s "48hr Puppet Film Project,” a contest of quickly produced puppet films. This year’s judges were Victor Yerrid, Liz Hara, and Sam Koji Hale. The project was co-sponsored by the newly formed Rocky Mountain Pup- petry Guild and the Puppetry Guild of Greater New York.
The Puppet Guild of South Florida was off to a great start this
year. Their World of Puppetry Exhibit at Sugar Sand Park in Boca Raton ran for the month of February. Their exhibit space was a long hallway between two popular destinations with glass cases lining the walls, so the exhibit was enjoyed by hundreds of park attend- ees. They enhanced the exhibit with a free paper puppet workshop and a showing of Handmade Puppet Dreams. Of course, since the
exhibit closed, public gatherings have been curtailed and they have had to move online. Moving to Zoom meetings, however, has been great fun and has brought in guild members from around the coun- try who wouldn’t be able to attend in person.
My own Twin Cities Puppeteers cancelled our March meeting, but bravely moved to Zoom for an April meeting of checking in and Show and Tell. We had an out-of-town attend- ee as we were joined by Sarah Bourne, who we hadn’t seen since she moved away from Minnesota. We were also delighted to see Edna Garrison, a guild member for over sixty years. She’s in her 90s and doesn’t drive anymore, but she was more adept at the technology than some of our younger members.
The Willamette Valley Puppeteers had an online Open Mic/Show and Tell for their May meeting. The meeting featured Jean Goul, Doris Hicks, Cindy Sekiguchi, Suzanne Class, and Gayle Kahane, who made a plug for Puppetry Journal and PofA membership.
Guild newsletters also hold us together,
and one of the best is the Puppetimes of The National Capital Puppetry Guild. The March–April newsletter featured an exten- sive article about Laurie and Cindy Nickerson of Puppet Pelts. The May–June issue explored the puppetry career of Allan Stevens.
The Atlanta Puppetry Guild reached outside their borders for a virtual meeting in April featuring Alex and Olmsted (Alex Vernon and Sarah Olmsted Thomas). Alex and Sarah talked about their recent performances of Milo the Magnificent at the Center for Puppetry Arts as well as what they’ve been doing since then.
A number of exciting events have had to be postponed by the
San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild, including the “One Puppet Magic” workshop by Lee Armstrong using techniques learned from Nikki Tilroe. Their April newsletter included the article “Corona Virus, Shelter in Place and the Working Puppeteer” by Michael Nelson, as well as a list of pandemic financial resources.
The program planned for the March meeting of the Greater
Houston Puppetry Guild sounded more appropriate than they could have known. Brian Berlin was scheduled to perform Mr. Berlin’s Enchanted Puppet Theatre, a one-man puppet riff about a live stage show trying to survive in a modern streaming society. I don’t know if that meeting happened. Their April meeting, fea- turing a comedy writing workshop presented by Joanne Schroeder, became a Zoom meeting.
Wherever you are, I hope you are holding up in these difficult times and finding ways to connect to your puppetry community. I’ll look forward to hearing how those connections are maintained and what we’ve learned as we get through this together.
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