CALLBOARD: Where are the Puppets?

Amanda Cooper, Associate General Manager of 59E59 Theaters

I was watching Muppet Treasure Island the other night, an annual tradition in my household, and I found myself asking the age-old question, “Where is the modern puppet content?”

Yes, I know, Sesame Street still exists. But since I mastered my ABC’s two decades ago, I’m probably outside its target demographic. Where can a 25-year-old go for some solid puppet storytelling these days?

I find myself having to turn back the clock to scratch that fuzzy puppet itch. Thank goodness for Disney’s catalogue of streaming Muppets content or I’d be stuck with my A.L.F. DVDs and never ending re-runs of Little Shop of Horrors and The Empire Strikes Back.

As computer generated characters soar to new heights of fantastical reality, I’m still drawn to the simplicity of Kermit the Frog strumming a banjo and singing about rainbows. Maybe the CGI Yoda can do backflips in an epic lightsaber fight, but is he nearly as charming as that enigmatic and quirky puppet strapped to Luke Skywalker’s back? James Cameron made Pandora look beautiful with a budget over $200 million for Avatar, but it cannot hold a candle to Peter Jackson’s sweeping helicopter footage of New Zealand in The Fellowship of the Ring. In the effort to remove all physical limitations in screen media, is the intangible quality of reality forever lost from the medium?

That’s a little dramatic, I’ll admit. But as many forms of media continue to embrace the digital future, the "solid" things, the "real" things, the "puppet" things, may have to return to their old friend…the theater.

Live theater is just that: live. It is inherently solid, grounded in reality, human speaking to human (or frog to human, pig to human, etc.). Despite being a TV show, The Muppet Show was in a theater! The scramble backstage, the ever-shuffling sets, the constant heckling from the audience… and in the middle of it all, a little felt creature reflecting back to us all the chaos, contradiction, and contentment of being human.

And theater still remains, in my opinion, the true home of puppetry. No one who has witnessed Julie Taymor & Michael Curry’s genius in The Lion King could doubt it. In addition to Disney’s 230-puppet visual masterpiece, Broadway has blessed us with the life-size equines of War Horse (Handspring Puppet Company), the complex menagerie of Life of Pi (Nick Barnes & Finn Caldwell), and the loveable Henson-esque hand-and-rod figures of Avenue Q (Rick Lyon). And if you continue to explore beyond the bright lights of commercial theater, you’ll find La Mama’s Puppet Series, Leslie Carrara-Rudolph’s Moonlight Madness cabaret, and artists like my friend Kaia hauling a suitcase of puppets through the subway to her next show with NYC Kids Project, a non-profit visiting over 100 classrooms per year to bring puppet programing to New York’s elementary students.

So maybe it’s not like it was, when Jim Henson’s creations flashed across the screen hand-in-hand (or hand-in-puppet, if I may) with Julie Andrews or Harry Belafonte. But maybe it’s a return, a sort of homecoming, a reunion of true partners. Because the puppets are here in the city — not with their celebrity friends, but with theater artists, tucked away in schools, dimly lit cabaret stages, and occasionally shining under the bright lights of Broadway. And they’re telling their stories and singing their songs to anyone who’s willing to join the lovers, the dreamers, and me.