Puppetry is an exciting, flexible, malleable art form that can engage the creative forces of children or adults. Puppets can not only tell a story, they can be used to enhance the curriculum, present an idea or a concept in a compelling way, or teach any number of necessary skills. Children and adults presenting a puppet play are given a sense of their own inventive power. This reference work offers an A to Z view of working with puppets. It covers everything from the basic strategies of advertising and marketing puppet productions, to assembling the puppets out of household materials such as paper bags, cereal boxes, or gloves, to the more elaborate sculpting of armatures. Stages, curtains and props are also discussed along with the history of puppetry. Numerous illustrations give a visual of many of the finished products. This work concludes with an annotated bibliography and index.

"This reference work includes photographs and illustrations and offers an A to Z view of working with puppets including ideas, materials list and assembly instructions. This work concludes with an annotated bibliography and index"--Provided by publisher.

From The Accidental Drum Circle to Totally Twisted, Mark Burrowss resources are always creative, practical, and full of unique ways to bring fun and learning into the classroom. Threadbare Theatres guide Practical Puppetry is all three and more. There are directions for making more than a dozen puppets, ideas for puppet stages, and five different scripts. And because puppetry is less about the puppets and more about the puppeteer, youll learn how to manipulate your puppet, find its voices, and use it to teach music concepts. Mark even shares his Top Ten Mistakes so that you can be spared the same fate. Children love puppets, and if they love it, theyll learn it. Thanks to Practical Puppetry, you can bring that learning into your classroom and be good to the environment at the same timefound objects make up more than 90% of the materials used to create these puppets.

In recent years, puppetry has enjoyed a huge revival on the stages of our theatres, dance venues and opera houses. Large-scale productions such as War Horse and The Lion King have revitalized age-old techniques to attract new audiences and develop the power of storytelling. Puppetry is now seen not only as a specialist art form that exists on its own, but also as a vital tool in the armoury of theatrical storytellers. A Practical Guide to Puppetry offers a comprehensive overview to this versatile art form, exploring established techniques and offering expert instruction on styles from shadow puppetry to group puppetry. Each method is illustrated with practical and accessible exercises, achievable either individually or in a group workshop or rehearsal. With over eighty exercises for improvising, training, designing and directing puppetry, accompanied by 400 illustrations, this new book gives a complete approach to puppeteering with objects, simple puppets and puppets with mechanisms.

The handbook is composed of chapters by authors who discuss the important features of particular types of toys, provide information related to the developmental importance of this type of toy, discuss social and cultural issues engendered by play with such toys, and review the available research on the characteristics and potential impact on children’s developmental progress of toys of that type. Both traditional toys and technological toys are discussed. The handbook is expected to serve both as a reference for educators, parents, toy designers, and other interested readers, and as a catalyst for further research and ongoing toy development. Its purpose includes helping readers to gain knowledge that enables them to more fully appreciate the value of children’s toy play, find out more about the favorite toys they had in childhood and relive those satisfying play experiences, and learn how to foster the learning, physical development, and social-emotional growth that comes from such toy play.

Expert guide explains how to construct several types of puppets and presents exercises for developing distinctive voices, learning puppet movement. Includes stage design, writing plays, directing productions, more. Over 150 black-and-white illustrations.