Better than Bread and Puppet

You may remember that last year a wonderfully talented two-person marionette company called "No Strings" came to the school and performed "The Hobbit."  The previous year, they came and performed "The Snow Maiden" and "A Christmas Carol."  The two people create everything from scratch - they build and paint the sets; they adapt and write the script; they make all the puppets and sew the costumes; they develop and record the voice over and soundtrack. Depending on the show they're working on, it can take a few months to a few of years to complete. They worked on the Hobbit for three years.

This year, the students at GCS were lucky enough to have No Strings take up residency for  8 days to work on a full blown 35 minute puppet and marionette performance. Every student in every grade, k-8, was able to participate. Several months ago, when this idea was still in development, the marionette company requested that the school come up with a theme. Joanie, aka the Glover Historical Society, had already been talking to the school about somehow involving students in the 200th anniversary of Runaway Pond, and thus, a theme was born.

So, the puppeteers came to school, and day by day under their guidance, the kids brainstormed, researched,  wrote, sewed, glued, painted, recorded, and practiced. Wayne was very, very excited about his loon hand puppet. He wanted to learn all about loons.  He checked bird books out of the library and printed pages from the internet. He is now a loon expert. I'm sorry to say, that I did not get a photo of his loon during the play because my camera was having trouble with the low light.  He also thought it was really cool and fun that the puppeteers, Dan and Barbara, recorded everyone's lines. His line was "{loon sound} Another perfect day on the pond! {loon sound}" He was very interested in the electronic process.

While Wayne was very excited, Cole was extremely nervous about his frog puppet. He was afraid he would forget his lines (he didn't have any) or forget what to do (all he had to do was make his frog look around).

The Runaway Pond Puppet Show has been the talk of our household for many days.  The show was held Thursday afternoon and I took Heather and Spencer to see it. Earlier in the day I read them the Dan Cummings children's version of the story so they would have a little background and be better able to understand the puppet show.  Spencer liked sharing his name with Spencer Chamberlain and is pretty sure that he can run even faster than Chamberlain. We also took a little field trip to the Runaway Pond monument.

They had a little snack.  Spencer thought these stone tables were really cool.

It's a fun place to run around and climb on the rocks.

We went home, had lunch and then on to the show.  The parking lot was packed. We had to park far away.  I was surprised to see that WCAX was covering the story.

The first graders did a warm-up act. That's Spencer's brother, Jaden, in the red and black. His puppet is a snake. The guy in the back is Dan, one of the two members of No Strings.

The story of Runaway pond begins long ago with some glacial history.

Then, later in time, the grist mill is having trouble - not enough water to turn the wheel.

There's Cole's frog, lower left, doing a great job of looking around. 

Workers dig a trench from "Long Pond" to meet up with the Barton River to help power the mill.

Oh no! The pond breaks free! Run! Chamberlain, Run! Save the miller's wife!

The most amazing part for me was actually at the end when all the students came out to take a bow.  Seeing all these puppets together was astounding, and to think that every student in the whole school had a role in the show. The organizational process is mind-boggling.  Not to mention the sheer pride and elation on the kids' faces.

WCAX did a very brief story which highly featured Joanie as the local expert and several of the students, including 3 from Wayne's 2nd grade class.  Unfortunately, they did not mention the marionette company or the teachers that helped make it all happen.

When the teachers, Mrs. Townsend and Mrs. Tester were introducing the show, they said laughingly, "If these students didn't know enough about Runaway Pond before, they do now!"

It was a great send-off to vacation.