Since last December we’ve been traveling nearly every week to lead and participate in workshops, to attend film festivals, to see great puppet theater at festivals, to make new work in development workshops, and perform new pieces in puppet slams. This year has been so remarkably full thanks to everyone who has hired us, hosted us, collaborated with us, encouraged us, and cheered us on.

Here’s a small thank you: 13 minutes of real-time puppet prototyping. No tutorial, no time-lapse, no explanations- just me fine tuning a 4 bar linkage mechanism started by Lin Boyle, a repeat participant in the Shadow Puppetry II workshops and a great multi-disciplinary visual and performing artist. I later adapted it for another squirrel puppet for a show at UConn Puppetry Arts, seen at the end.

I added Nutcraker music so you could think of it as a sort of Yule Log video. Or if you really want to get into making mechanized shadow puppets and don’t mind a lot of fussing and redoing, follow along.