CactusHead Puppets

The Emperor's New Clothes

2011-12-29T08:37:00.000-08:00

We had two great sold-out shows of Just So Stories this week! Thank you to everyone who came- we had a lot of fun performing for such great audiences. 2011 has been a good year at CactusHead Puppets, and we are excited to announce our new show for April of 2012 will be The Emperor's New Clothes.

The Emperor's New Clothes.

Fashion is the most important thing to the Emperor, even more than taking care of his own kingdom. When two strangers come to town promising the most beautiful clothes anyone has ever seen, the Emperor learns a lesson in fashion he will never forget.

The show will run April 16th- 21st at the Eric Carle Museum, and be available for touring afterward. Look for posts about the making of The Emperor's New Clothes in the new year, as well as listings of our performances around the region.

Hope you are having a great holiday season, and Happy New Year!

Tickets for Dec.'s Just So Stories now on Sale!

2011-11-23T06:59:00.000-08:00

Tickets for our performances of Just So Stories at the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, MA are now available. The shows are Dec. 27th and 28th at 2pm each day. Tickets are $5 each, and you can purchase them by calling 413-658-1126. It is a fun show, and a great idea if you are looking for something to do during the winter vacation!

Here is a little more info and pictures from the show.

Just So Stories

Enjoy these three tales of mischief and magic that tell how some of your favorite animals came to be. Join us for silly adaptations of How the Camel Got His Hump, How the Rhino Got His Skin, and The Beginning of the Armadillos.

Hope to see you at one of the shows!

Just So Stories performances in December!

2011-10-02T11:38:00.000-07:00

We just added two performances of Just So Stories to our schedule! The shows will be December 27th and 28th at 2pm each day at the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, MA. Save the date, and we will post more info as the shows get closer and tickets go on sale.

Little Red Ridding Hood Show Pictures

2011-08-22T15:07:00.000-07:00

Our Little Red Riding Hood performances went very well! It is a very fun show to perform, and our audiences really enjoyed it too. We have a few pictures taken during the show to share, so that if you missed it you can see what the puppets look like in action. We are also adding Little Red Riding Hood to our list of touring shows, so please contact us if you think you would like us to come perform at your location!

Little Red with her basket.

Mom on the phone with Grandma.

Red meets the Wolf for the first time.

Red discovers the Wolf in Grandma's house.

Little Red and Grandma set their trap.

Then they capture their wolf!

Photos by Kristin Angel

Little Red Ridding Hood Sneak Peek!

2011-08-06T05:04:00.001-07:00

We are excited for the opening of Little Red Ridding Hood on Monday, and thought we would share a few pictures of the puppets in the workroom to give you a little preview!

Here is the hand puppet version of the wolf:

and here he is as a shadow puppet:

This is the hand puppet Little Red and Grandma:

and here they are as shadows with Red's mom as a shadow too:

The show runs Aug. 8-13 at 1pm each day at the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, MA. Tickets are $5, and you can pre-order them at 413-658-1126. Hope you get a chance to see the show, and check back here later this week for more pictures from the show!

Little Red Ridding Hood Starts Next Week!

2011-08-01T07:14:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder that you can see our new show, Little Red Ridding Hood Aug. 8-13 at 1pm each day at the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, MA. Tickets are $5, and you can pre-order them at 413-658-1126. Hope to see you there!

Pied Piper on June 18th!

2011-06-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

We will be performing The Pied Piper Sat. June 18th @ 1pm at the West Springfield, MA. Celebrate The Arts festival, which takes place at Landmark @ Monastery Heights, Monastery Ave. If the weather is bad the festival will be at Grace Lutheran church, Westfield Street in West Springfield. It should be a fun day with all kinds of great activities!

Little Red Ridding Hood

2011-04-29T10:01:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to announce our next new show, Little Red Ridding Hood! Shows will be August 8th-13th at the Eric Carle Museum, and then it will be available for touring performances afterwards. We are in the script writing process now, but will soon have pictures of the puppets in progress to share. Mark your calendars, we hope to see you at the show!

Just So Stories Performance Pictures

2011-04-27T18:00:00.000-07:00

Last week's Just So Stories performances were a big success! We had a great time performing, good audiences each day, and we really enjoyed answering questions and sharing how the puppets worked after the shows. We have several pictures from the show to share with you.

How The Rhino Got His Skin

The Beginning of The Armadillo

How the Camel Got His Hump

Hope you liked the pictures, and check back soon for news about our next new show and upcoming performances this summer!

Just So Stories Sneak Peek!

2011-04-12T17:24:00.000-07:00

Our performances of Just So Stories at the Eric Carle Museum start next week! The show runs April 18-22 at 1pm each day, and tickets are $5 or $4.50 for museum members. Tickets may be purchased at the Admissions Desk or by calling (413) 658-1126.

We are currently hard at work putting the final touches on the show, and thought it would be fun to share a few pictures from the workroom of puppets we made for the show.

Here is the Djinn from How the Camel Got Its Hump

This is the Hedgehog shadow puppet for The Beginning of the Armadillos.

This guy is the man from How the Rhino Got His Skin.

Hope to see you get a chance to see the show next week!

Building the Seagull Puppet

2011-04-08T13:55:00.000-07:00

We recently finished a seagull puppet for the The August Company's upcoming show in Northampton, MA, and thought it would be fun to share some pictures from the building process.

We started out by sketching some designs, and decided on this one.

Then we built the moving parts of the puppet. The wings flap on this puppet, and we rigged them first to make sure they would work before adding the other details.

Then we started on the more decorative parts. Here is the paper mache head being painted.

Finally, we put all the pieces together for the complete, working puppet.

If you would like to see the seagull in action, or just see some great theater, the show runs April 14-16 and tickets and more information can be found here.

CactusHead Puppets Presents Just So Stories

2011-03-30T07:12:00.000-07:00

Just a reminder that our performances of our new show, Just So Stories, are coming up soon! The show will be April 18- 22 at the Eric Carle Museum in Amherst, Ma. Here are all the details!

CactusHead Puppets presents
The Just So Stories
April 18 - April 22, 2011
1:00 pm
$5 (Members $4.50)
Enjoy these three tales of mischief and magic that tell how some of your favorite animals came to be. Join us for silly adaptations of How the Camel Got His Hump, How the Rhino Got His Skin, and The Beginning of the Armadillos.

Tickets may be purchased in advance at the Museum Admissions Desk or by calling (413) 658-1126.

Beauty and The Beast Pictures

2011-03-26T07:04:00.000-07:00

We went to see O.H. Platt High School's production of Beauty and The Beast on Friday night, and really enjoyed the show. Congratulations to the cast, crew and everyone involved ! We also took some pictures of the puppets and wolves in action to share with you. These were taken from our seats, with no flash, so they aren't the best photos in the world, but you can at least see how they were used.

The Enchantress

The Beast

The Wolves

CactusHead Puppets in the News!

2011-03-22T05:53:00.000-07:00

Our show at the Danbury Library got a nice write up in the local Danbury Patch! Here is a link to the article and photos by Christine Rose. This is what she had to say about the show:

"The mini set enjoyed a puppet show from University of Connecticut Puppetry grads, John and Megan Regan. The story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin was adapted from the original fairytale, though here with a much happier ending. There was a lot of laughter from parents as well as the kids, and many were inspired to go off afterwards and host a puppet show of their own."

Here are a couple of the pictures she took after the show during our workshop, and you can see more in the article's photo gallery.
Photos by Christine Rose

Wolf Costumes Sneak Peak

2011-03-21T08:33:00.000-07:00

Pictures of the Beauty and the Beast puppets and costumes in action are coming soon, but I wanted to share this close up of the wolf heads from the construction process. The heads are masks that cover the performers entire head, and then the performer sees out of a mesh panel inside the wolf mouth.

Puppets and Costumes for Beauty and The Beast

2011-03-16T08:47:00.000-07:00

For the past several weeks we have been hard at work making shadow puppets and wolf costumes for the upcoming production of Beauty and the Beast at OH Platt High School in Meriden, CT. The students have also been hard at work rehearsing the show to get ready for their performances on 3/24-3/26 at 7 pm each day. It should be a great show, and if you are close enough to see it, you really should. More information about tickets is at the school's website. We will be posting pictures of the shadow puppets and wolves in action soon too, so if you can't make it to the show you can still get a little sneak peak.

Pied Piper Performance this Saturday!

2011-03-16T08:26:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the short notice, but this coming Saturday, 3/19/11, we will be performing The Pied Piper at the Danbury Library in Danbury CT and offering a puppet making workshop afterward! The show at 11 am, and it is free but registration is required. More information and details on how to register can be found here. If you are in the area we would love to see you there!

Just So Stories

2010-12-01T08:47:00.000-08:00

We are pleased to announce we have started working on our new show, Just So Stories! We have selected three of the classic Rudyard Kipling stories for the show, and will be performing How the Camel Got His Hump, The Beginning of the Armadillos, and How the Rhino Got His Skin. Shows will be April 18th- 22nd at the Eric Carle Museum. Mark your calendars and look for more posts about the making of the show!

Workshops & Classes

2010-09-10T08:37:00.000-07:00

CactusHead Puppets offers workshops as well as shows. We have taught workshops for many different groups, and can tailor them so you get a fun and educational workshop that fits your needs. We offer:

-Classes for all ages- We have taught workshops for ages 4- adult!
-Workshops ranging in length from1 hour to classes that meet multiple times over several weeks
-Workshops in hand, shadow, or rod puppets about puppet making or performance or both!
-Classes tailored to fit the theme your group is studying

Email cactusheadpuppets@gmail.com for more information about workshops and performances!

Pied Piper Performance Pictures

2010-09-08T08:32:00.000-07:00

These are a few photos from our performances of The Pied Piper at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art. We had a blast performing, and the audiences really loved the show too. The show itself was half an hour, and then we did about 10 minutes of Q & A and demonstrating how the puppets work. The photographer said she was laughing too hard during the show to take clear pictures, but these came out very well.
Enjoy the peek at the show!

The rats and the banana slide.

Rats are tempted by the cheese costume.

The Mayor unveils his moon ladder plan.

Photos by Kristin Angel

The Making of The Pied Piper of Hamelin

2010-09-04T05:56:00.000-07:00

We had our first performances of our show The Pied Piper of Hamelin at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art a few weeks ago. It was a lot of fun to perform, and we had great audiences all week! For this post, we are going to share some behind the scenes pictures of how we made the puppets and built the stage.

The first step in making the puppets is to sculpt the heads out of clay, and then papier mache over the clay to make a hard shell. Here are some of the heads during the papier mache process.

The next step is to sand and paint the papier mache so they are very smooth.

Here are some of the heads before the hair is added, and a pair of hands carved out of foam.

We made all the hands out of foam, and then papier mached them to add strength. Here they are all ready to be sanded smooth and then painted.

The puppets' bodies are cloth sleeves which you can see here, and the costumes are sewn and then attached to the sleeves. Here is Sally getting her costume fitted!

Here is the whole cast costumed and ready to go!

Our stage is made of hinged wooden frames that we put a curtain around. Here you can see the frames that will become the front of the stage, and in the bottom corner are the frames that will become the sides of the stage.

A shot of the stage from the side with the curtain.

This is a view from backstage as we set up for rehearsal.

We also use shadow puppets in this show, and this is our shadow screen lit up in the backdrop of the stage.

Here is another picture from the side of the stage so you can see the shadow screen, curtains and down into the stage a little bit.

Hope you enjoyed the peek into how we made everything for the show. Our next post will have pictures from the performances!

CactusHead Puppets also now has a page on facebook. You can check it out here, and be sure to "like" the page for news and updates about upcoming shows.

Hello!

2010-07-28T11:39:00.000-07:00

Welcome to our blog! CactusHead Puppets is a new puppet company based in the Pioneer Valley of Massachusetts. We are hard at work on our up coming production of The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Check back soon for more information about the show and pictures of the puppet making process.