Life Membership Awards for Richard Hart and Julia Davis

On 18th August 2024 at our UNIMA Australia Annual General Meeting, we were pleased to award Life Memberships to Richard Hart and Julia Davis from Dream Puppets. They recently relocated from Melbourne to South Australia and zoomed in, with a special appearance from their camel puppet, Kassius Kamel.

Richard and Julia have made significant contributions to the puppetry community and UNIMA Australia.

Richard Hart joined UNIMA Australia in 1994/1995, quickly assuming the role of Treasurer from 1995-1997 and Secretary from 1997-1999, then again in 2002-2008. He was President from 2014-2020, which means he has served on the Committee for 17 years! 

He played a crucial role in maintaining Australian puppetry media, contributing to the production of the Manipulation magazine before transforming the UNIMA Australia newsletter into a magazine. His efforts helped increase membership and sustain regular puppetry publications, including the first email newsletter, UNIMA OZ. He was the Artistic Director of Tarrengower Puppet Festival 2012 and Maldon Puppet Carnival 2014 (VIC). Richard continues his role as the UNIMA Australia Representative for the UNIMA Asia-Pacific Commission, further supporting our regional connections. 

Julia Davis worked on the Australian Puppeteer Magazine from 2002-2009 and was a major contributor for her editing and proof-reading. Alongside Richard, she was instrumental in establishing the independent O.P.E.N (Oz Puppetry Email Newsletter), which operated outside of UNIMA and gained notable success. 

Both Richard and Julia’s dedication to supporting puppetry and navigating the challenges of arts organization politics has been invaluable.

Their contributions, including their work with Dream Puppets, have significantly enriched the puppetry landscape in Australia. Their life memberships are a testament to their longstanding commitment and impact on the field.

Dennis Murphy Awarded Life Membership to UNIMA Australia – His gift to us was an incredible Bibliography of Puppet Character Comedy!

Dennis Murphy was our special guest speaker for UNIMA Australia’s World Puppetry Day on 21st March, 2024.
At the end of his Artist talk, we awarded Dennis with a Life Membership to UNIMA
Australia, in appreciation of his contribution to Australian Puppetry.
Congratulations Dennis!

His gift to us was an incredibly extensive bibliography of Puppet Character Comedy, which you can download here below. Thank you so much Dennis!

Download Bibliography of Puppet Character Comedy compiled by Dennis Murphy

Remembering Penny Francis

There is so much to be said about Penny Francis and her enthusiastic support of puppetry.

Penny Francis!  What a powerhouse for puppetry! The last time we saw Penny was at the end of our last visit to Europe in 2017, when we spent a few days in Clapham staying with her.  We had stayed with her so many times and were not the only puppetry people who benefited from her great generosity.  I’m glad to say we had a few chances to return hospitality because she came to Australia a number of times, and was a guest speaker at the first National Puppetry and Animatronics Summit [Melbourne, 2002].  Her uncle, Phil Smith, had been a popular comedian in musical comedies in Australia in the first half of the 1900s, and there was family in Perth.  [Please note that I didn’t make the mistake of writing “1900’s”.  Penny was a stickler for correct expression!].   When quite young she had acted Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion  on tour in the U.S.A. and it was her marriage to the actor Derek Francis that kindled her interest in puppetry. 

 Derek was an amateur puppeteer of a professional standard, and made superb marionettes.  I was lucky enough to see a sample of one of the shows they did for some visiting Indian puppeteers in the marionette theatre at the back of their home in Barnes [London] in 1965.  (As some of you may know, Penny was born in what was then Calcutta.)  Recently I came across a letter I had sent home from England telling of that afternoon in Barnes in which I referred to Penny only as “the wife of Derek Francis”!  (It was Sunday, 24 October 1965. I had quite forgotten that Violet Philpott performed The Egg then, and I had premiered two shadow items that were still in my last performance, in 2020.)  At Penny’s invitation, I visited them again some years later in the big house in Wimbledon, when Penny had become an energetic advocate for puppetry.  

Penny was a driving force behind the Puppet Centre in Battersea, and its publication, Animations.  In 1979 she was the organiser of Puppet Theatre 79, London’s first international puppetry festival, an astounding achievement in a city where publicising such an event is a huge task, but even buses carried the festival’s logo.  She was responsible for a puppetry course at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, a course which is sadly no longer offered, and was editor for three books on puppetry and puppet history by Henryk Jurkowski.  Her own book, Puppetry: a Reader in Theatre Practice, was published in 2012.

It was great that Adam Bennett was able to visit Penny when she turned 92 earlier this year.  That was a happy link to UNIMA-Australia through someone she was very fond of.  When we got details of the live broadcast of her funeral I forwarded them to Nancy Staub in Louisiana.  (Nancy organised UNIMA-1980 in Washington, D.C.).  She wrote:  “ Penny was an inspiration and so kind to me …. Celebrated my 90th birthday June 30, one day after Penny left us.”  And after watching the ceremony wrote: “I always enjoyed her wit and wisdom. We spent a week together at UCONN in 2015 that I will always treasure. I miss her.” 

 And all who remember Penny will miss her.

Richard Bradshaw

Remembering Margaret (Peggy) Hetherington (1923-2022)

Peggy Hetherington once amusingly characterised her role in puppetry as “self-effacing back-up”, and while there is no denying the major part played by her brilliant husband in the TV series Mr Squiggle and Friends, as the script-writer she was invaluable. Peggy died peacefully in September, at the grand age of 99, having spent the last year in a retirement home, but until there she had managed to cope with the 39 steps that led up to the Hetherington family home in Mosman, not far from where her daughter Rebecca now lives. 

Margaret Purnell was born in Sydney in 1923, and as an art student in 1943 she accompanied a friend to drop off some paints at the New Theatre League during a rehearsal of Oriel Gray’s play Lawson, and ended up playing a part in the play.  She then became involved in other productions as stage-manager, costume-maker or actor.   [Someone she remembered from the New Theatre in her time there was a U.S. soldier then stationed in Sydney, Corporal Will Lee Lubovsky.  Some of us will remember him as the Will Lee who played the grocer, Mr Hooper, in Sesame Street from its beginning in 1969 until his death in 1982.]  One of Peggy’s surprising achievements was travelling from England to Sydney in 1952 on a small sailing ship as one of a crew of three!

In 1958 she married cartoonist/puppeteer Norman Hetherington and Norman’s puppet of Mr Squiggle, destined for fame, began appearing on ABC TV in 1959, with scripts written by Peggy.  Edith Murray, secretary of the Puppetry Guild, was delighted by the marriage because Peggy was a distant cousin!  And at one time Peggy herself was secretary of the Guild.

In 1974 she assisted Norman when he compiled Puppets in Australia, a booklet richly illustrated with photos, funded by the Australian Council for the Arts [now known as the Australia Council] and issued free, ahead of a puppet festival in Melbourne in January 1975.   She wrote Mr Squiggle and the Great Moon Robbery [1980], Mr Squiggle and the Preposterous Purple Crocodile [1992], both of which Norman illustrated, and Mr Squiggle to the Rescue [1998], an audiobook of three stories, narrated by Rebecca.  Of special interest to puppeteers is the delightful book Hand Shadows [ 1988] by Norman and Margaret Hetherington. [Until Norman had a nasty accident in the 1950s, with a chisel cutting into a tendon to a thumb, he used to do a charming shadow show using his hands and “add-ons”.]

I have many happy personal memories, but especially of 1968-9, my last years of teaching, when my grandmother was in a retirement home just around the corner from the Hetheringtons.  Several times I was able to combine a visit to Grandma in the afternoon with a meal in their home to follow…and lots of laughter.  Sadly I haven’t seen Peggy since Norman’s funeral in 2010, but Murray Raine made a point of visiting when up from Melbourne.

Left to right are Albrecht Roser (crouching!), me, Stephen (now Prof. Stephen Hetherington), Rebecca (peeking around), Norman and, in front, Peggy. The photo was taken by Albrecht’s assistant, Ingrid Höfer.

The attached photo was taken at the Hetherington home in Mosman one Sunday in early 1975, when the great German marionettist, Albrecht Roser, was in Sydney to perform.  (Roser had earlier seen a performance by Norman at the puppet festival in Melbourne that January.)  Left to right are Albrecht Roser (crouching!), me, Stephen (now Prof. Stephen Hetherington), Rebecca (peeking around), Norman and, in front, Peggy. The photo was taken by Albrecht’s assistant, Ingrid Höfer.

Richard Bradshaw

Footnote:  In November, Peggy’s grandson Tom Hetherington-Welch, Rebecca’s younger son, used puppets he made in a well-received show he co-wrote for the Sydney University Drama Society [SUDS].

Vale Elka Schumann (1935-2021)

Elka holding a bunch of flowers waving next to a door.
Source: Bread and Puppet Theatre

The large extended family and community whose lives were touched by Elka Schumann mourn the end of her rich life on August 1st.  I count myself among that group. I met Elka in the mid-1970s, when I was fresh out of college and trying to make sense of the world. She was the person who introduced me to singing, to puppetry, and to theater. She remained a dear friend and mentor.

Elka was the backbone of Bread and Puppet Theater. While raising five children, she was also able to be chief counsel and critic to her brilliant and prolific husband Peter. She managed the theater’s finances, founded and ran the Bread and Puppet Press – disseminating posters, calendars, books and recordings throughout the world. She was the primary caretaker and curator of the theater’s huge barn museum. And, when I first connected with her, she was designer, writer and director of Dancing Bear Children’s Theater, performing hand puppet shows in public schools throughout northern Vermont. She was an accomplished singer and flautist, and was responsible for introducing me, as well as Bread and Puppet, to the a cappella hymn tradition known as shape-note singing, which became a mainstay in the theater’s productions.

Elka was born Elka Leigh Scott in Magnitogorsk, Siberia. Her father, John Scott, was an American Communist, interested in the radical re-imagining of economic structures and the creation of a new social order in the Soviet Union. Her mother, Masha Dikareva, was Russian; she had one sister, Elena. When the Nazis invaded Russia, the family fled. Her father’s politics took a sharp turn toward conservatism, and they spent time in Germany, New York State, and New York City, finally settling in Ridgefield, CT.  She attended Bryn Mawr College, and met Peter Schumann during a junior year abroad in Munich, Germany, when she was enlisted to join his non-dancer dance company.

Elka’s grandfather was Scott Nearing, whose back-to-the-land democratic socialism had a powerful influence on her as well.

Through this heritage, and through her partnership with Peter, Elka developed an acute sense of justice, and a belief in the possibility of building new structures, and imagining new worlds. Bread and Puppet’s deep ethical foundations – anti-war, pro-democracy, frugality, living in harmony with the earth – were well-lived in Elka herself.  There was always room at the table for one more roaming puppeteer. There was always a song, a slice of bread, and an encouraging word.

I spent my first months as a Bread and Puppet company member after they had already escaped the streets of NYC for a more pastoral existence on Cate Farm in Plainfield, VT. The company was on tour in Europe and I was alone with Elka and her kids. I joined adventures of her design on picnics, hikes, and cultural trips. I loved those escapades, complemented by visits to many remote elementary schools to perform puppet shows. Later, I had opportunities to tour with Elka, often to distant lands, and I was struck by how open her eyes always were, how eager to see and learn new things, how willing to extend herself to new situations.

In Glover, the theater took up residence on a farm purchased by Elka’s parents. Elka was a consistent strong protector of the land – pine forest, apple orchard, hay fields, sugar bush, house, barn and outbuildings – especially as they were transformed into amphitheatre, workshop, puppet storage, museum and venue for tens of thousands of annual spectators. Creating a balance between private home and public space, between the needs of her family and the needs of the theater, and between the grandeur of Peter’s vision and the simplicity of the life-style they chose, was an ongoing struggle. But her expansive generosity was its own art form. She was the definition of hospitality for me and countless other puppeteers. Her guiding light continues to shine.

Trudi Cohen (August 16, 2021)

Vale Rose Hill 1922-2022

Rose Hill of Mildura, a devotee of puppetry and the mother of the brilliant puppeteer, Ross Hill, died in Melbourne aged 99.  As she says in this link to a short ACMI video from 2017, she became involved with puppetry as an aid to helping Ross overcome a speech defect resulting from a bout of encephalitis.  Those of us who knew Ross would never have suspected that he had ever had such a problem, but the puppetry not only helped him to overcome it, it launched what would become his career.

https://www.acmi.net.au/works/117301

or

Rose and her husband Arthur, had a poultry farm in Mildura.  They built the house themselves despite the constraints of wartime Australia, and there they raised a family of four boys, John, Keith, Ross and David.  John has a strong boyhood memory of the day that Ross was born, 7 November 1954. Rose had been bedridden with encephalitis for some time before being transferred to the hospital and late that afternoon a tornado had swept across the district doing extensive damage.  

With Rose’s help and encouragement Ross was presenting a regular marionette segment on local TV in Mildura when he was 14 and still at school. He had been particularly inspired by Peter Scriven’s Tintookies, and in Rose’s video you will see some of his marionettes from that time, many (such as the goat and the chook), clearly showing that influence.  Especially interesting were the figures he had made which did not have the basic humanoid construction, and in later life Ross had an amazing skill in turning a free-hand sketch into a working puppet.

Rose made contact with the puppetry community, and puppeteers passing through Mildura often paid a visit.  In 1973 Ross was invited by L. Peter Wilson to join the Tasmanian Puppet Theatre in Hobart and while there was responsible for a 13-part TV series. From 1977-1984 he was with Richard Bradshaw at the Marionette Theatre of Australia in Sydney where he was invaluable as a brilliant puppet-maker although he was also a gifted performer.  

Rose, Arthur and Ross attended the UNIMA Festival in Moscow in 1976 and Rose also went to the 1979 festival organised by PUK in Tokyo celebrating 50 years of UNIMA.  At that festival Ross worked as a puppeteer in the M.T.A.’s The Mysterious Potamus, for which he had made the puppets (to Norman Hetherington’s designs).  Ross’s manipulation of Paul the Peacock and Calvin the Crocodile was outstanding. His cruel death in1991 at the age of 36 was a tragic loss to Australian puppetry, and a devastating blow for Rose and the Hill family.

Two political figures Ross made to designs by cartoonist Patrick Cook were installed in the Museum of Democracy in Old Parliament House, Canberra, near puppets by Peter Nicholson for the ABC’s Rubbery Figures which Ross had originally had a hand in making while at the M.T.A.  After he left the M.T.A. Ross freelanced, and even worked for Jim Henson in London on the movie Labyrinth.

Rose Hill created the Mildura Puppetry Centre in a large room added on to the house.  There she displayed Ross’s early marionettes and many other figures she had gathered or made.  Some of Edith Murray’s figures from the Clovelly Puppet Theatre in Sydney were there.  The Centre was visited by schoolchildren and other local groups and puppeteers who visited when they were passing through Mildura were surprised by the extent of the collection.  The following link will give you some idea: 

Source: Weeklytimesnow.com.au Picture: Andy Rogers

https://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/country-living/93yearold-rose-hill-is-milduras-puppet-master/news-story/2081ba7e1da081788d15ffac6fb8a0c3

Rose Hill had been in hospital in Mildura where her mind was fading before being transferred to a hospital in Melbourne, to be close to her son, John and his wife, Kerry, and also to have the company of grandchildren and great-grandchildren.  She died three days after catching COVID-19 in hospital.   A great character, with enormous energy, a good sense of humour and, to the very end, devoted to puppetry, especially as an educational tool.  

There remains the problem of the future of the Mildura Puppetry Centre with Rose’s large collection of puppets.  Rose would have liked to extend the facility to set up a museum as a tourist attraction but unfortunately it remained a dream.  Rose’s sons hope there might be an enterprising puppeteer willing to purchase the property and restore the facility to its former glory.  Perhaps they may even build that museum that Rose and Ross would have loved.

There are some excellent museums of puppetry in other countries and it would solve a growing problem if somehow, somewhere in Australia, a home for “retired puppets” could be established.  If it can’t be in Mildura then hopefully another solution can be found to keep the collection together.

John, Keith & David would welcome any enquiries: 0408 688 122

by Richard Bradshaw and John Hill

Vale Lyndon Peter Wilson

Lyndon Peter Wilson
We are very sad to inform the greater puppetry community of the recent passing of Lyndon Peter Wilson, who died peacefully at his home in New Zealand on 22nd March, 2021. 

Among his many achievements, he was the co-founder of Spare Parts Puppet Theatre (WA), which is marking its 40th anniversary this year. Here is the piece that Spare Parts wrote about Peter:
 REMEMBERING AND CELEBRATING THE LIFE OF LYNDON PETER WILSON

“Puppetry people from around Australia, New Zealand and the world both remember and celebrate the life of Lyndon Peter Wilson, known as Peter Wilson, who sadly passed away earlier this week.

Spare Parts Puppet Theatre was formed in 1981 by Peter, together with writer Cathryn Robinson and designer Beverly Campbell Jackson, to share the magic of puppetry in Western Australia.

From the outset, Peter brought an international flavour to Spare Parts. He had earlier established the Tasmanian Puppet Theatre in 1970 and studied theatre and puppetry with Puk Theatre in Tokyo, the Bunraku Theatre, National Theatre of Japan, the Central Puppet Theatres of Prague and Moscow, and Cannon Hill Puppet Theatre in the UK.

The company’s first production Faust was presented as part of the 1981 Festival of Perth (now Perth Festival) and was billed as a “total visual experience”. The work was directed by Peter and developed with Japanese artists Noriko Nishimoto and Takeshi Hoshino.

We celebrate the enormous legacy Peter built for puppetry and for his vision in igniting the art form in Australia and later in enriching the lives of artists and audiences in New Zealand. He is fondly remembered by all of us at Spare Parts and by the many artists who received their start under his leadership.”

 Peter won many awards in his career, including the National Drama Critics Award (1979), Sidney Meyer Performing Arts Award (1988) and the UNIMA Australia Lifetime Achievement award (2006) at the 2nd National Puppetry Summit in Hobart, Tasmania (you can read about it in this issue of Australian Puppeteer Magazine, p10-11). 
 In 2018, UNIMA Australia nominated him to be a Member of Honour for UNIMA International, which was to be decided at the UNIMA Congress in Bali in 2020. The congress was unfortunately postponed until April 2021 due to Covid. Peter’s global interaction with puppetry, the establishment of training programs in Australia, (which have been the main driver of the development of puppetry in this nation) and his cultural exchange programs that have also supported innovation in the puppetry arts, were principal factors in his nomination for Member of Honour.

Our hearts go out to Peter’s family, friends and the wider puppetry community as we grieve his loss.

Here are some more photos of Peter below, courtesy of Spare Parts Puppet Theatre:

Thank You Richard Hart

After 6 years as President of UNIMA Australia, Richard Hart has stepped down from his role. We thank him for his years of service and significant contribution to our organisation – especially developing ties with UNIMA International as well as the Asia Pacific Commission.

He represented UNIMA Australia in the 5th China Quanzhou International Puppet Festival in 2017 and has advocated for artistic partnerships and skills exchanges with artists in Australia and overseas.

He will be sorely missed, and we wish him all the best with his future endeavours.

Best regards,

Kay Yasugi
General Secretary
UNIMA Australia

Applications are now open for the 2020 Lorrie Gardner UNIMA Australia Biennial Scholarship!

Dear Members,

We are excited to announce that applications are now open for the 2020 Lorrie Gardner UNIMA Australia Biennial Scholarship! You can get all the information at https://www.unima.org.au/grants/ or read the details below.

We realise the deadline for applications is quite soon, so if you have a project/course in mind but need more time to put your application/support documents together, please let us know (contact Sue Wallace from the scholarship committee at spuppet@ozemail.com.au). 
 Application Information Guidelines
Closing date: Tuesday 31st March, 2020
 
Scholarship amount: Up to $2,500 AUD
 
Projects must start no earlier than May 1st 2020.
 
Successful applicants will be notified by Saturday 25th April, 2020.
 
Please send your application to the General Secretary, Kay Yasugi at secretary@unima.org.au. She will forward them to the current scholarship committee: Joanne Foley, Philip Millar and Sue Wallace.
 
 About the Scholarship
Lorrie Gardner of Gardner’s Puppet Theatre was a longstanding and active member of UNIMA Australia. She was President for 3 years until illness forced her to retire in 2004. In 2005 Lorrie Gardner bequeathed a substantial contribution to the fund and the renaming of the scholarship fund is to honour not only her financial contribution but her artistic contribution as an outstanding puppetry practitioner, teacher and colleague. The Scholarship Fund has been created through the individual contributions of members, and supported by further donations from the Gardner family. 
 
 Purpose of the Scholarship
The purpose of the scholarship is to assist the development, evolution and growth of Australian puppetry arts & culture by benefiting UNIMA Australia Inc. members.  All activities, projects and situations must be puppetry oriented.
 
The Scholarship is offered to individual puppetry practitioners to further develop their puppetry practice.

 Scholarship Guidelines
The scholarship can be used toward tuition costs or travel expenses to attend training institutions, workshops, appropriate festivals, etc. or to work with a specialist teacher. It can also be used towards the costs of bringing a specialist teacher to work with an individual member or group of members or for any other activity that the scholarship committee deems worthy.
 
It cannot be used for production costs or capital purchases.
 
 Who is eligible?
 Applicants must be Australian citizens or Permanent Residents.
 
Applicants must have been continual financial members of UNIMA Australia for a minimum of 2 years up to the closing date of the application. In the event of a group application, all members of the group must be UNIMA Australia Inc. members (with at least one participant being a continuous financial member for 2 years at the time of application).
 
Members of UNIMA Australia Inc. executive and scholarship committee members are not eligible to apply during their terms of office.
 
 How to apply
 1. Check your eligibility. If in doubt about the length of your membership contact the UNIMA Australia Membership Secretary, Katherine Hannaford, by email to membership@unima.org.au.
2. Check that the proposed project meets the guidelines. If in doubt contact Sue Wallace from scholarship committee (spuppet@ozemail.com.au
3. Clearly articulate your proposal in writing in a maximum of 2 pages. If you are applying to attend a course or festival include source material about the course or festival e.g. festival program, web site link, course brochure etc.If you are applying to work with a specialist teacher/artist please check with the scholarship committee if you need to include a CV for that artist. Provide a 1 page CV for each member applying highlighting information relevant to this application. Provide a project budget detailing the Scholarship proponent. 
 
Acquittal
 Successful applicants must submit a report of their scholarship project no later than 6 weeks after completion of the project. Visual illustration should be attached, including photos, drawings &/or video .  This report will be published on-line and/or in print and also circulated to members. Reports must be sent by email to the General Secretary, Kay Yasugi at secretary@unima.org.au

 Previous Recipients of the Lorrie Gardner Scholarship: 
2010 RECIPIENT: TIM DENTON
(AboutFace Productions)
Tim travelled to Vermont, USA, to take part in Peter Schumann’s Bread & Puppet Theater’s Residential Apprenticeship Program – An intensive 5 week experience.

2011 RECIPIENT: LANA SCHWARCZ
Lana was invited to be one of three emerging Artists at the 2011 National Puppetry Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Theatre Centre in Waterford, Conneticut (USA). It was a 2 week experience of Artist development. (Photo shows here shadow work for her show, ‘Small Talk’. Photo by Richard Termine).

2012 RECIPIENT: BETH MCMAHON (the indirect Object)
Beth underwent specialist training with Puppeteer, Film maker and Marionettiste Yvette Edery in Los Angeles, USA. She learned about new creative techniques for Theatre and Film.

2013 RECIPIENT: LAUREN REDPATH
Lauren did a summer internship with Phantom Limb Company in New York City, USA. She learened more about their puppet making process while gaining perspective about her own practice, and challenging herself creatively in an unfamiliar landscape.

2014 RECIPIENT: JHESS KNIGHT
Jhess used her scholarship to complete her Diploma in Professional Puppetry at the London School of Puppetry (LSP) in the UK, and also attend the Fifth Annual “Festival des Marionettes aux Estampes”, a Puppetry festival in the south of France.

2015 RECIPIENT: MICHAEL BEVITT (the indirect Object)
Michael used his scholarship towards developing the experimental work “For the Love of an Orange” for the Prague Quadrennial Makers Exhibition and working with internationally acclaimed Object Theatre Specialist, Stéphane Georis, in Belgium. (Photo: Gabriel S. Partington and Michael Bevitt performing ‘For the Love of an Orange’.

2016 RECIPIENT: KATHERINE HANNAFORD
Katherine went to Beyond the Sock – A Puppetry for Film and Television Workshop in Denton, Texas USA.

2018 RECIPIENT: FIONA FINLEY (The Drama Studio)
Fiona had a 2 day private workshop with puppeteer Kay Yasugi (Pupperoos) to learn various puppetry skills (including shadow puppetry, marionettes and rod puppets) in order to practically apply them in both classes and productions at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre in Wollongong, NSW  

Randwick Puppet Festival 17-19 January 2020 – 3 days of puppet mayhem and fun

Randwick Puppet Festival 2020 is coming to a venue close to you! You will find great puppet performances, puppet making workshops and even a puppet picnic at Randwick Environment Park where you can rub shoulders with the biggest puppets you have ever seen. All the shows are family friendly except for the Puppet Cabaret for the grown-ups. You’ll find some old favourites like Dreamer who returns to the Randwick Literary Institute but this time from space! Miss Muffet emerges from a giant pop-up book and Showko brings her brilliant stand-up comedy show Showko: Absolutely Normal to the Randwick Community Centre. Pop in to the library to see the exhibition The Magic of Puppets and to hear Richard Bradshaw talk about his life as a famous shadow puppeteer. Check the website for venues and bookings. See you there! BOOK NOW!