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The Inside Scoop on Kids Shows with Puppets...Celebrity Puppets to be Exact
Looking out at the boisterous crowd, I hit the music. A shriek fills the room, and someone stumbles forward---too excited to stay calm. I take a deep breath.
So it’s going to be one of those shows.
I call out: “It’s bubble time!!!”
Immediately, dozens of tiny hands shoot into the air. Eyes fill with joy. My number one fan Ella even lets out a slurred “bubble!” And a huge smile spreads across my face. Who would have thought I would spend my mornings doing puppet shows for toddlers? And who would have thought It would bring me so much delight?
I found this Brooklyn gem about two years ago, and right away I knew it was a match. There’s just something special about the way a baby looks into a puppet’s eyes, lights up, and immediately sticks their hand in it’s mouth. And as an actress and teaching artist, I believe that live and interactive kid’s shows really make a difference. In the age of ever present screens, nothing beats entertainment that you can literally touch. Especially if that entertainment is Sammy the Snail.
Our NYC puppet shows are 45 minutes long, and never like the old fairy tales. We might have a shaker egg party with Chicken, or Mark Ruffalo could pop up to teach the audience about climate change. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might encourage the babies to call their Reps, or perhaps Hipster Bear will bring out his bubbles and colorful parachute. But no matter which characters make an appearance, we always have fun getting the toddlers to cheer AND the adults to chuckle.
Puppetsburg is a lovely community of quirky, New York trained actors, all of whom also have a knack for working with the “under 5” population. Our everyday consists of crouching behind a pop up stage, making our selves small, and belting out a variety of voices. My personal favorite is Old McDonald---for whom I add a Pat Buttram flare (aka Mr. Haney from Green Acres). We get a scripted outline every week, talk through the performances, and plan out the show, all while incorporating Puppetsburg staples like singing “Tap Your Toe” and making Bubble Time. It isn’t too complicated, but we work hard to keep the shows fresh, seeing as we do 10 every week (across both Brooklyn & Manhattan).
Sometimes lugging suitcases of Puppets (don’t worry we make sure Puppet Dolly Parton is comfy when we put her away!), getting random text messages from our Puppetsburg Squad saying: “Where is Senior Giraffe? Does anyone remember the last week they saw him?”, and spending mornings blowing up balloons, beach balls, and “hammers of justice” doesn’t feel terribly glamorous. But it’s all totally worth it when a kid gives me a hug. When a crowd of energetic 3 year olds quietly awaits Clementine to announce what’s next, ready to jump in with gusto to help puppet Nana bake cookies, I know this job is for me.
here's how puppetsburg started + how it stands out as one of the best kids shows in nyc.
After training as an actor for eight years and graduating from Tisch School for the Arts, I found a day job doing puppet shows for young children in Hoboken. The stories were similar to the stories I heard growing up—- stories of nuclear family units, fuzzy animals, or a prince rescuing a princess from a tower. I insisted on changing the tower story when I was the one performing it: the princess would now rescue the prince, and the rest of the plot remained the same.
When I started my own company, PUPPETSBURG, and we kept getting requests for a princess themed show, I wrote the “BQE SHOW: The Brooklyn QUEENS Expressway Show,” in which our protagonist, Clementine, starts out wanting to be a princess but decides it is better to be a Queen—- and not just of a castle, but of all Brooklyn. Our Brooklyn Queen learns karate, rides the subway like a pro, prefers the color red to the color pink, and travels proudly over the graffiti-covered Williamsburg Bridge (a prop made by local artists as a barter for their child’s birthday party.) Queen Clementine meets her friend Ai Wei Wei for soup dumplings in Chinatown, wearing a dazzling crown built of found objects.
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Parents have always responded ecstatically to our interactive, edgy shows, grateful for entertainment that fully engages their munchkins while reflecting their own progressive values and incorporating humor they themselves can laugh about, post about, and talk about to their friends (see above: equal rights demonstration, shattering glass ceilings, celebrating street artist Shephard Fairey). Our newest character, Kaleidoscope, is a nonbinary friend with multicolored hair who uses they/them pronouns and teaches munchkins about colors, shapes, and The Art World. In our “POP MUSIC” show, we dress the audience as BABY GAGA; we go to a club in the meatpacking district, face a judgemental puppet-bouncer, and even bust out a “fake ID,” introducing toddlers to real-world, contemporary NYC culture with humor and irony. Our “Climate Change show” hosted by puppet Mark Ruffalo features Papier and Plastique Recycle Reuse puppets, an earth parachute on which we juggle C02s, and plenty of practice putting solar panels on Scruffy the Dog’s Doghouse. Clementine has traveled to Egypt, Russia, France and China; some of the shows feel like a party, while others have a refreshing amount of baby political commentary or pop-culture references. Simultaneously a “class” and a “show”, PUPPETSBURG provides exposure to theatrical experiences at the youngest possible age. The Puppetsburg philosophy encourages children to become citizens of both NYC and the world.
Every PUPPETSBURG performer is a theatre professional; many have advanced theatre degrees, and all of us maintain active careers as performers in Brooklyn and Manhattan. Along with being one of the best kids shows with puppets in NYC, PUPPETSBURG provides flexible, part-time work for actors; the more weekly shows, birthday parties, and special events we can schedule, the more jobs we can create.
There is so much that makes PUPPETSBURG unique, and we hope to see you at a show soon! We welcome any feedback on your experience so we can keep our shows unique and fresh. Thanks for reading!
screen time versus kid's shows with puppets
april 18th, 12:00pm
