Phoenix puppet theatre | Made in Arizona

For nearly four decades, a Phoenix theater has been bringing stories to life, one puppet at a time. Yeah, the Puppet Theater was founded in 1983 by Nancy Smith and her husband. Now it's really become a place where art, imagination, and storytelling all come together. And Fox 10's Andrelle Mahomes takes us behind the curtain to see how the magic is made in Arizona. It started at Great Arizona Puppet Theater in 1983. My husband and I had started as puppeteers in Florida back in 1976, but I'm from Phoenix and I wanted to come back. And so we came back and started Great Arizona Puppet Theater in 1983. The original vision was we wanted to have a place for puppetry that was open to the public and to showcase puppetry, to do the very best work we could do, and also to bring in guest artists from all over to show the very best in puppetry to the community. We very rarely make them one puppet at a time because we're creating shows. So typically we like, okay, the heads are made first and then the hands and the bodies and then things are all put together and then there's painting and costuming and all of those things and of course the controls as well too. I've got some things up here that kind of show the process of when we're making the puppets, what happens. If we're making a puppet that's carved out of Styrofoam, first of all the puppeteer starts with Styrofoam, just like that, and cuts it to the size that he wants, and then carves it, sands it so it's nice and smooth, and then it's covered with papier-mache. Here's one that you can see where the wood was inserted into it in order to make a good place to add a joint, but we cover it with paper mache. This is one that you can see that's been hollowed out so that the jaw can fit in there. And then what would happen to this next is probably the eyes would be painted and then covered with fake fur. that's probably a rabbit or something. Here's one that's finished and this is a little turtle and when we made the turtle the body was carved out of styrofoam and then was covered I think with like about eight coats of paper mache and then we took the styrofoam out so that the puppet would be able to pull its head back inside and then it is operated with the rod at the back here one rod just to hold the puppet up and another one to operate the head and move the mouth and you can come out like so. A really good puppeteer though is able to take their own acting ability, project it into the puppet and make the puppet come alive. People love puppets. Puppets can say things that people can't say. Most people would rather listen to a puppet talk than a person and of course there's all kinds of different shows you can do something really poetic with them or you can make them do slapstick and funny things and just be kind of crazy they can be colorful they can be beautiful we're devoted to the art we're devoted to the community that we serve we have people who come in now and say oh i brought my children here and now i'm bringing my grandchildren so it's gone on for generations so there might be a lesson in it but we try not to be heavy-handed with the lesson we want it to be gentle and entertaining but always to have a positive positive lesson to help us learn how to to live our lives to the fullest and be good people and for more made in arizona stories you can scan the qr code on your screen and also if you've got a product or you know a business made in arizona let us know and we'd love to share your story you You can email us at [email protected].