Grab a sock and let's make it talk.

Ventriloquists and their puppet partners have won the world's largest talent shows, headlined in Vegas, and performed for sold out stadiums.

Now you can learn the secret to this unique and magical art and all you need to start is a simple sock.

In these pages, you'll discover how to create a sock puppet partner of your very own and make it talk without moving your lips in just ten simple steps.

Ventriloquism is a fun way to build self-esteem, bolster confidence and help kids express themselves in ways they never could before.

This engaging picture book, illustrated by former Disney animator Peter Raymundo, brings a fresh approach to teaching the art of ventriloquism and puppetry.

Learning an art ventriloquism enhances concentration, improves communication skills, boosts creativity, increases confidence, develops discipline plus It's a great ice breaker.

Making a sock puppet and learning ventriloquism is a fun family activity and also makes a great gift.

Targeted for children ages 6-14 (and even adults), kids are sure to have a blast and feel empowered as they learn this new and valuable skill.

Kids ages: 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 and 15

--Jimmy Vee

Step inside a world where imagination dwells!

2022 SILVER Winner for Performing Arts & Music, Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards

Bob Baker Marionette Theater has enchanted families in Los Angeles and beyond with delightful marionette performances since 1963. Enchanted Strings captures the visual history of this palace of puppetry from Bob Baker's earliest days to the theater's transformation into a thriving hub of creative culture. You'll meet the remarkable visual artists and craftspeople who worked alongside him, contributing their talents to build the theater, design the shows, and hand-craft over two thousand incredible marionettes. Archival images and ephemera provide a behind-the-scenes look at Bob's amazing work for Walt Disney and iconic Hollywood films. With more than 300 vintage and contemporary photographs, Enchanted Strings will delight Bob Baker Marionette Theater fans around the world, and fascinate everyone who is a child at heart!

A Master Class in Puppetry

Teachers, parents, actors and students can now learn 50 professional puppetry techniques from a hand puppet master. Learn ancient puppet secrets and skills while playing and having fun!

Your puppet will breathe, think, walk, emote and much more after reading this fun and easy to understand manual on hand puppet technique.

Puppeteer Chad Williams has performed thousands of hand puppet shows and studied under some of the most prestigious names in American puppetry. Combining techniques from European, Chinese and Modern hand puppet styles, he developed his own system and has taught it to actors, puppeteers, teachers, parents and others at universities and international festivals.

Drawing on thirty years of making theatre with objects, this field-defining book maps the terrain of applied puppetry.

Through a range of case studies both personal and practical, Matt Smith offers a reflective and engaging study which provides makers, thinkers and students alike with a toolkit for thinking about and making puppetry in community settings.

Through eight chapters, Smith muses on the nature of creativity, explores approaches to puppetry through ecology, and considers how puppets and objects affect the act of making and - in turn - how they affect those who make, use and experience them in performance.

Along the way, Applied Puppetry offers practical exercises in theatre-making, demonstrates the political power of puppetry beyond borders, and interrogates the limitations and possibilities of puppetry and object theatre in local communities, volatile contexts and difficult circumstances.

A Galaxy of Things explores the ways in which all puppets, masks, makeup-prosthetic figures are material characters, using iconic Star Wars characters like Yoda and R2-D2 to illustrate what makes them so compelling.

As an epic franchise, Star Wars has been defined by creatures, droids, and masked figures since the original 1977 movie. Author Colette Searls, a theatre director and expert in puppetry studies, uncovers how non-humans like Chewbacca, semi-humans like Darth Maul, and even concealed humans like Boba Fett tell meaningful stories that conventional human characters cannot. Searls defines three powers that puppets, masked figures, and other material characters wield--distance, distillation, and duality--and analyzes Star Wars' most iconic robots and aliens to demonstrate how they work across nearly a half-century of live-action films. Yoda and Baby Yoda--two of popular culture's greatest puppets--use these qualities to transform their human companions. Similarly, Darth Vader's mask functions as a performing object driving mystery and suspense across three film trilogies. The power of material characters has also been wielded in problematic ways, such as stereotypes in the representation of service droids and controversial creatures like Jar Jar Binks. Bringing readers forward into the first Star Wars live-action streaming series, the book also explores how the early 2020s stories centered material characters in particularly meaningful, often redemptive ways.

A Galaxy of Things is an accessible guide to puppets, masks, and other material characters for students and scholars of theatre, film, puppetry, and popular culture studies. It also offers useful perspectives on non-human representation for researchers in object-oriented ontology, posthumanism, ethnic studies, and material culture.

Puppeteers have enthralled audiences for millennia with their unique charm, not just telling stories but enacting history, sharing knowledge, and preserving culture. In this dazzling and immersive volume based on the 2019 exhibition Shadows, Strings and Other Things (UBC Museum of Anthropology), puppets from all corners of the globe are resplendent in striking photographs that illustrate texts from ten scholars and puppeteers. Bodies of Enchantment highlights still-vital traditional puppetry practices, as well as examples of modern adaptations of the form: translucent leather shadow puppets depict ancient Indian epics in modern-day Indonesia; Taiwan's long-running Pili glove puppetry show thrives in the digital era; and Indigenous filmmaker Amanda Strong uses stop-motion animation to create entrancing new realms. Bodies of Enchantment: Puppets from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas features over 150 full-color images, and chapters by nine additional contributors: Anthony Alan Shelton revels at the alluring uncanniness of puppets; Annie Katsura Rollins explores Chinese shadow puppetry; Sutrisno Setya Hartana introduces us to Indonesian wayang; Jo Ann Cavallo unpacks the archetypes of Sicilian opera dei pupi; Mary Jo Arnoldi encounters the Sogob masquerade in Mal ; Izabela Brochado shows the continued vibrancy of mamulengo in Brazil; Kathy Foley and Catherine Ries uncover the significance of clothing in Javanese wayang golak cepak; and Jill Baird shares the history of puppetry at the Museum of Anthropology.

Based on more than three decades of experience assisting puppeteers with their first marionettes, Kurt has focused his simple, little book on the topics most frequently misunderstood and the most common mistakes made by beginners with marionettes.

A range of topics to be considered when creating a marionette are covered; design, joints, string placement, controls, stringing, movement and untangling.

Recommendations:

I love It! There are so many very good suggestions. You have covered all or most of the potential pitfalls and how to avoid them when starting marionette work. I would have found this work very helpful when I was a beginner puppeteer, but even as a seasoned profession I enjoyed seeing all the points so clearly stated. - Phillip Huber, internationally acclaimed marionette artist

This charming and deceptively simple book is chock-a-block full of tips and techniques valuable to all levels of marionette practitioners, presented with clarity and a clear affection for the craft. Kurt has created a manual worthy of any puppeteer's library and workbench, one I wish I had when I was beginning. Small but mighty fine, this book is a delight. - Ronnie Burkett, another internationally acclaimed marionette artist

It is a concise treasure trove of hard-earned knowledge and should be an essential reference for all practitioners of marionettes. - Luman Coad, award winning puppeteer and author of Marionette Sourcebook

2012 Reprint of 1935 Edition. Exact facsimile of the original edition, not reproduced with Optical Recognition Software. As engaging today as when it originally appeared, this book has two parts. The first describes the colorful life of two artist-puppeteers and their travels through the famine and revolution torn land, into remote oriental provinces. The second is the practical part. It tells just how the author conceives her plays, and make and works her puppets, whether they be hand-puppets, shadow figures or the special hand and rod combination type she evolved. No other book has gone so deeply into the heart of the artist using puppets. The Efimovs invented an original design of puppets on rods, which enabled them, by way of experiment, to stage scenes from Macbeth.

Darren Griffin has been a ventriloquist since 1974. Now, after years of experience and thousands of shows, he brings you techniques that are easily mastered. Learn to speak without moving your lips, the different voices that will bring your characters to life, and how to combine your imagination and your voice to create real magic. Contact him at griffinvent@gmail .com.

Written by an experienced theatre and puppetry director, Mervyn Millar's Puppetry: How to Do It focuses on the performer and the craft of bringing any puppet to life. No puppet-making is required to use this book: starting just with simple objects, it lays out the skills required to unlock a puppet's limitless potential for expression and connection with an audience.

Inside you'll discover fifty practical, easy-to-follow exercises - for use in a group or on your own - to develop elements of the craft, build confidence and help you improve your puppetry through play and improvisation. Also included are sections on different types of puppet, thinking about how the puppeteer is presented on stage and how to direct and devise puppet performances.

Ideal for actors and performers, for directors and designers, and for teachers and students of all ages and levels of experience, this book will demystify the art of puppetry, and help you become more confident and creative with all kinds of puppets and objects on stage.

Winner of the Vern Williamsen Comedia Book Prize, Association for Hispanic Classical Theater, 2023
Winner of the Nancy Staub Award, UNIMA-USA (Union Internationale de la Marionnette), 2023

In its exploration of puppetry and animation as the performative media of choice for mastering the art of illusion, To Embody the Marvelous engages with early modern notions of wonder in religious, artistic, and social contexts.

From jointed, wood-carved figures of Christ, saintly marionettes that performed hagiographical dramas, experimental puppets and automata in Cervantes' Don Quixote, and the mechanical sets around which playwright Calderón de la Barca devised secular magic shows to deconstruct superstitions, these historical and fictional artifacts reenvisioned religious, artistic, and social notions that led early modern society to critically wrestle with enchantment and disenchantment.

The use of animated performance objects in Spanish theatrical contexts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries became one of the most effective pedagogical means to engage with civil society. Regardless of social strata, readers and spectators alike were caught up in a paradigm shift wherein belief systems were increasingly governed by reason--even though the discursive primacy of supernatural doxa and Christian wonder remained firmly entrenched. Thanks to their potential for motion, religious and profane puppets, automata, and mechanical stage props deployed a rationalized sense of wonder that illustrates the relationship between faith and reason, reevaluates the boundaries of fiction in art and entertainment cultures, acknowledges the rise of science and technology, and questions normative authority.

For more than eighty years Chicago has been home to several unique miniature grand operas. In 1935 Ernest Wolff and his mother premiered the Chicago Puppet Opera Company.

In 1941 the theatre was installed as after-dinner entertainment at Fredrik Chramer's Kungsholm Scandinavian Restaurant. When the theatre was destroyed in 1947, a 208 seat jewel-box opera house was created as the state-of-the-art home to the unique rod puppets.

The Kungsholm Miniature Grand Opera closed in 1971 but William Fosser's Opera in Focus continues the miniature opera genre in a Chicago suburb.

Here is the story of these three entrepreneurs and their determination to create grand opera. The book includes a study of the puppets' construction and manipulation.

Nations in Southeast Asia have gone through a period of rapid change within the last century as they have grappled with independence, modernization, and changing political landscapes. Governments and citizens strive to balance progress with the need to articulate identities that resonate with the pre-colonial past and look towards the future. Puppets and Cities: Articulating Identities in Southeast Asia addresses how puppetry complements and combines with urban spaces to articulate present and future cultural and national identities. Puppetry in Southeast Asia is one of the oldest and most dynamic genres of performance. Bangkok, Jakarta, Phnom Penh, and other dynamic cities are expanding and rapidly changing. Performance brings people together, offers opportunities for economic growth, and bridges public and private spheres. Whether it is a traditional shadow performance borrowing from Star Wars or giant puppets parading down the street-this book examines puppets as objects and in performance to make culture come alive.

Based on several years of field research-watching performances, working with artists, and interviewing key stakeholders in Southeast Asian cultural production-the book offers a series of rich case studies of puppet performance from various locations, including: theatre in suburban Bangkok; puppets in museums in Jakarta, Indonesia; puppet companies from Laos PDR, the National Puppet Theatre of Vietnam, and the Giant Puppet Project in Siem Reap, Cambodia; new global puppetry networks through social media; and how puppeteers came together from around the region to create a performance celebrating ASEAN identity.

Puppets, Puppetry and Gogmagog is a manual which shows how to create 24 different puppets and their variations in a precise and meticulous way. With 260 pages and over 900 illustrations this manual is an invaluable resource for educators, theatre professionals and whoever would like to create puppets.

Theatre-Rites are regarded as pioneers in the field of object-led and site-specific performance, creating ground-breaking work for family audiences since 1995. This book marks the company's 25th anniversary, offering the first in-depth exploration of artistic director Sue Buckmaster's visionary practice, in which anything can be animated.

This book draws on original research, including five years of in-depth interviews between its authors, images from Theatre-Rites' archive and Buckmaster's private collection, detailed observations from the company's professional training workshops and personal reflections on past productions. A timely and compelling advocacy for the importance of high-quality experimental arts provision for young audiences is made, distilling learning from decades of the company's professional activities to motivate and empower the next generation of object-led theatre-makers.

Theatre-Rites: Animating Puppets, Objects and Sites is an invaluable resource for any puppeteer, actor, dancer, visual artist, poet or student interested in expanding their understanding of how to incorporate puppetry and/or symbolic objects as metaphors in their work.

Given that slaveholders prohibited the creation of African-style performing objects, is there a traceable connection between traditional African puppets, masks, and performing objects and contemporary African American puppetry? This study approaches the question by looking at the whole performance complex surrounding African performing objects and examines the material culture of object performance.

Object Performance in the Black Atlantic argues that since human beings can attribute private, personal meanings to objects obtained for personal use such as dolls, vessels, and quilts, the lines of material culture continuity between African and African American object performance run through objects that performed in ritual rather than theatrical capacity. Split into three parts, this book starts by outlining the spaces where the African American object performance complex persisted through the period of slavery. Part Two traces how African Americans began to reclaim object performance in the era of Jim Crow segregation and Part Three details how increased educational and economic opportunities along with new media technologies enabled African Americans to use performing objects as a powerful mode of resistance to the objectification of Black bodies.

This is an essential study for any students of puppetry and material performance, and particularly those concerned with African American performance and performance in North America more broadly.

Drawing on the author's two decades of seeing, writing on, and teaching about puppetry from a critical perspective, this book offers a collection of insights into how we watch, understand, and appreciate puppetry.

Reading the Puppet Stage uses examples from a broad range of puppetry genres, from Broadway shows and the Muppets to the rich field of international contemporary performing object experimentation to the wealth of Asian puppet traditions, as it illustrates the ways performing objects can create and structure meaning and the dramaturgical interplay between puppets, performers, and language onstage.

An introductory approach for students, critics, and artists, this book underlines where significant artistic concerns lie in puppetry and outlines the supportive networks and resources that shape the community of those who make, watch, and love this ever-developing art.

Martin Stevens was one of the great North American puppeteers - creating such notable productions as The Passion Play, Joan of Arc, and Taming of the Shrew. Steve, as he was affectionately called, was a frequent performer and teacher at the national festivals of the Puppeteers of America. In the 1950's he wrote a correspondence course with nineteen published lessons plus a final session written specifically for each student. Here are all the published lessons plus all the known final session.

It is a happy day that this material is once again visible and available to nudge young puppeteers to find their own way of seeing and doing shows. Bravo to Steve. George Latshaw in the Puppetry Journal, Spring, 1998

By the end of its five-year run on television, The Muppet Show had transformed its motley cast from fistfuls of felt to multi-media celebrities. Sophisticated and highly individuated, each of the Muppets embodied a conventional character type from classic television comedy. Kermit functioned as straight man to the majority of the show's jokes. Miss Piggy, the resident diva, evolved from first season chorus girl to full-fledged megastar. A Costello to Kermit's Abbot, Fozzie peddled his vaudevillian shtick to a tough audience, but his genuine sweetness made him lovable even when his jokes were lame.

These essays represent the work and ideas of a global community of scholars and Muppet enthusiasts, providing a unique perspective on just how Kermit and the rest of the frogs, dogs, bears, and chickens became cultural icons with influences reaching far beyond the world of 1970s television comedy.