About me First off, let me say that I am not an expert at puppetry and I have never taught classes or made presentations to crowds of people. I had a small puppet ministry when I was a Children's Church Pastor. That was a while ago but the concepts haven't changed much. The first step in any project for God is to pray about it. I asked for guidance on how to get started. I had seen many puppet shows but I realized that I didn't know much about the behind-the-scene requirements. So I went to the public library. I checked-out a couple of videos and several books about puppets and puppetry. Some of the books were elementary, kids books, but they gave me some really fun ideas. After I read and studied these books and videos, I prayed some more. Prayer is crucial to a good puppet ministry. If you are going to reach kids, not just entertain them, God must be your co-pilot. I tried to make my puppet programs enhance my kids church lesson materials. I chose to have some sort of Puppet interaction every week. Other people choose to have a big play once a month or quarter. Choosing Puppeteers It important that your helpers commit to the ministry and attend regular practice sessions! Don't overlook the potential of younger teens in your ministry. They sometimes will be more committed and have fewer distractions than older teens. One problem with using younger teens is transportation to and from practices. It's important to practice getting the puppet mouths to "say" the words. Regular practices with your puppeteers is a MUST. Scripts A script can make or break your presentation. It should be short and sweet, especially for younger children. Their interest wanes after about 5 minutes especially if there is little action and a lot of "talking" in your script. There are a multitude of scripts available on the internet. Many of them are free for non-profit presentation. Most of them are just short printed plays which you can edit and adjust to suit the needs of your program. You can enlarge the type and print the pages with big words for your puppeteers. I "pinned" the scripts to the stage curtains so they could read it and have their hands free to manipulate their puppet. Another way is to pre-record your scripts onto a cassette tape. This way the puppeteers can focus on moving their puppet in time to the recorded script. Again, let me say, it is important for the puppet's mouth to move in time to the words. So practice, practice, practice. You can get started with a simple tape recorder, a couple of microphones, a few blank tapes, and a quiet place for recording. To improve acoustics, I found that a large box with one side cut-out made a big difference in the quality of my homemade recording. I placed my tape recorder inside the box and put my microphones as close as possible to eliminate surrounding area noises and echos. This gave me the best recordings. You can improve your presentations by adding sound effects and background music using another tape recorder or cd-player. There are pre-recorded puppet scripts available for purchase on-line. However, the voices on the ones I purchased were not very good so I wasn't happy with them. I was on a limited budget so I could not spend big bucks to get quality recordings. The more you spend for a production, the more likely it is that it will be of acceptable quality. If you can listen to a sample of the production before you buy it, you can make a better choice but it's difficult to find audio samples. For me personally, my own recordings were better than the ones I bought and frequently I just used printed copies and did live presentations. If my puppeteers ad-libed, so much the better because they had practiced and knew the idea the play was supposed to present. Interacting with your Puppet As an ice-breaker at the start of my children's church programs, I had a single puppeteer read a script from behind the stage while operating a puppet. We called the puppet Jake and he talked to me and to the kids. I wrote a script each week and Jake and I talked about the weather, told Knock-Knock jokes, did a short review of last week's lesson and "setup" for this week's lesson. I ad-libed to Jake's comments and the kids participated in the lesson review and the "knock-knock" joke. Sometimes I had all the puppets (3 or 4) lead the singing. I used recorded tapes and CDs for my music and added props and background scenes to liven up the stage during the singing. The kids loved it when the puppets clowned around and pretended to sing. Involve the children Children love to get involved with a puppet of their own. Do an internet search to locate more ideas and tips. You will find that there is a huge amount of helpful and free stuff available. In one lesson, we made paper-plate puppets and each child and a partner acted out parts of the lesson. Puppets behind a curtain are not the only way to teach children. Preparing to present My web site, russthings.com, has a link with instructions for making a stage using PVC pipes and another site offers a free pattern for making a puppet if you know how to sew. There are also links to places that sell ready-made puppets. Puppets are not cheap but if you buy or make "kid-size" (size 2-4) puppets, you can find lots of inexpensive clothing for them at the local GoodWill or Thrift shop. If you need to raise "money" to buy puppets and/or build a stage, you might try an "adopt-a-puppet" campaign. This is where you get friends and church members to adopt a particular puppet from a catalog. Then they donate money or raise funds to help you purchase it and dress it. A small contribution from several people can add-up really fast and you will have your puppets and stage in no time. Store-bought stage curtains are expensive but anyone who can sew a semi-straight line can make one although sometimes the "corners" can be tricky to cover. Choose thick dark-colored material so no one can see through it and be sure it reaches the floor. When I gave my very first show, the curtain on my stage was a little too short. That was a big mistake. One child kept trying to see who was behind the curtain because he could see the feet moving back there. It was very distracting and disruptive. Make sure the curtain covers the puppeteers completely! A Few Links to get you started The Art of Puppetry 68 Ways to make really big puppets Let Us Teach Kids Make a Wide Mouth Puppet Puppetry Home Page Do it your way Be innovative ... There are hundreds of ways to present puppet plays. Do it your way and people will love it. And remember, it's not just for kids. May God bless your efforts with puppet ministry. russthings.com Marie B. Russ Fayetteville North Carolina USA