Is this Pandemic Goodenough?

When she’s not clowning around as a children’s party entertainer, or cheering up kids as a pediatric clown, Honey Goodenough produces PuppetPandemic, a touring showcase of works developed at the O’Neill National Puppetry Conference.  Since 2009 Puppet Pandemic has raised funds for alumni scholarships at the conference.  Honey has a BA in Theater and Dance with a focus in costume design and technology from the University of Texas, and a Masters in Educational Theater from NYU.  Currently, she is a NYC Teaching Artist, developing literacy based puppetry programs for Shadow Box Theater. 

Handle with Care, Puppet Pandemic NYC 2010, Photo Credit: Richard Termine

Marsian: When did you start performing in Puppet Slams?

HG: My first official puppet slam was in 2008, at CoLab’s Puppet Slam produced by Mary Gragen Rodgers. But, with the help of Matthew Leonard, I debuted my first original piece called BJ Tucker’s Freak Show at the Margo Rose Scholarship Fundraiser, hosted by the CT Guild of puppetry in 2005.

M: Tell us about one of the acts you have developed at puppet slams?

HG: Most of the pieces I currently tour were originally developed at the O’Neill National Puppetry Conference. But the slam piece I like to perform most of all was developed with Marta Mozelle MacRostie, specifically for Jon Levin and Josh Luxenburg’s Puppet Playlist in NYC. Its called Nothing Compares to You, the story of a girl suffering from a heart-break and is seduced by ice cream. [Seen on this link under Cream]

M: What inspired you to start Puppet Pandemic?

HG:  Puppet Pandemic is based on the idea that Puppetry is an infectious art form.  It is also a fundraiser for the O’Neill National Puppetry Conference Alumni Scholarship.  I was inspired to start Puppet Pandemic because I attended the 2009 O’Neill National Puppetry Conference, and that year the shows sold out early.  I was shocked that so many puppeteers were driving 4 hours from NYC to see a show of peers and then couldn’t get seats.  So, I thought, Lets bring the show to NYC!   Once I began contemplating the finances, I thought it might be more beneficial to everyone to use the funds for a scholarship to attend the O’Neill to produce more work.  So basically, the mission is to produce art in order to fund more art!

  

M: Who have you partnered with and where have you toured?

HG: I’m constantly surprised by the support this movement has inspired. With the help of many friends from the PSN, I have partnered with other Slams to tour Puppet Pandemic:

Puppet Pandemic (NYC) - October 2009 & September 2010

PuppetShowplace Slam (Brookline) with Roxie Myrum - January 2010 &November 2011

Puppet Co.Playhouse (Glen Echo, MD) with Eric Brooks – March & October 2010, October 2011

AustinPuppet Incident with Caroline Reck & Connor Hopkins - March 2011

Puppet Pandemic (Philadelphia) with Martina Plag - November 2011

Many other slam producers have been willing to host fundraisers in conjunction with their own Puppet Slams including Beau Brown of The Puckin’ Fuppet Show in Atlanta, Katie McClenahan’s  of Beady Little Eyes in Portland, Mary Gragen Rogers  of CoLAB Puppet Slam in New Jersey, Hannah Miller of Action Puppet Force in Orlando, and Madison Crips of The Wham Bam Puppet Slam in Asheville. 

Carole D'Agostino , Object Theater Time, Puppet Pandemic, Glen Echo, MD, Photo: Bruce

M: That’s quite a list! And in such a short period of time! What cities will Pandemic spread to next?  

HG: I hope to partner with Puppet Slamwich in Baltimore, and I hope to go to Minneapolis, Chicago, and Portland. But, in order to tour I need a contact person in the prospective city who will help me organize our tech, travel, and housing. If anyone is interested in helping me organize a new tour or fundraiser, please contact me at Puppetpandemic@gmail.com

M: What are some of the acts that have traveled with you on the Pandemic circuit?

HG: Carole D'Agostino Object Theater Time, Carole takes objects from the audience and invents and performs a story with them on the spot. It’s very exciting to hear the audience’s reactions to some of Carole’ s re-interpretations of their common everyday objects. Its like everyone shares the same huge a-ha moment.

Alissa Hunnicutt,  Red Dress - Puppet Pandemic, 2010, Photo: Richard Temine.

Alissa Hunnicutt is a conservatory trained singer, and it is always to pleasure to see her blend her love of singing and puppetry together to create a auditory and visually stunning pieces like Uninvited and Red Dress.

In Z Briggs’ Dumb Lovers, Z not only performs this beautiful puppetry piece without the use of puppets, but she also demonstrates the amount focus it takes to create two independent characters through one puppeteer.

M: How much money have you raised for scholarships?

HG:  In 2010 we raised $2,500 or the equivalent of 7 scholarships. In 2011 we raised $5,500 or the equivalent of 9 scholarships. If you want to donate to the 2012 scholarships, you can donate online through Flock Theatre.

Honey Goodenough - Making of Handle with Care, O'Neill 2009, Photo Credit: Honey Goodenough

M: What is your goal with fundraising for scholarships?

HG: My goal is to inspire other alumni of the O’Neill to consider ways they can give back to their community. It can be challenging for artists to find time and the funds to follow their passion and produce their art, while working a day job. I’d like to remove as many financial hurdles as possible.

There is no clear path as to how to become a puppeteer and learn about the art of puppetry, but the O’Neill National Puppetry Conference has been an important part of my artistic process and the crux of my puppetry community. It is my goal to raise as much as possible each year. I haven’t made any official announcements about the scholarship funds this year, but I hope we can award at least 7 scholarships.  That would mean we would have awarded 23 scholarships in just 3 years. That’s one more scholarship that there have been years of the conference!

M: How do you see what happens at the O'Neill Puppetry Conference being relevant to Puppet Pandemic and the Puppet Slam Network? 

HG: The O’Neill Puppetry Conference has a component that is called “participant pieces” for works 3 minutes or less. It’s a great place to work with other creatively powered professionals. If you need a singer, a director, a writer, or a musician, you and just ask for it and someone will help you. It’s an artists dream!

M: Where do you see Puppet Pandemic in the next few years?

HG: Currently, Puppet Pandemic is in search of a new home in NYC. I would love for La Mama ETC to invite us to perform in their theater.  Pandemic is an ensemble of very dynamic puppetry pieces, produced by young artists.  I think the concept of Puppet Pandemic is something Ellen Stewart would be proud to support.

M: What do you think of the current crop of slam names? Puppet Pandemic sounds infectious like a disease. Austin Puppet Incident sounds like they have a problem with the police. Puppet Meltdown has nuclear disaster connotations. Puppet Rampage - Do they have anger issues? My favorite name this year,  King Friday’s Dungeon less apocalyptic and more kinky - sounds like Mr. Rogers + S&M. 

HG: I love it! I chose Puppet Pandemic because I wanted a name that had the word puppetry in it, but didn’t sound like it was for children. I think these names have a similar vibe. The names promise an intense puppetry experience.

Alissa Hunnicutt with Honey Goodenough & Kate Katz - Puppet Art Attacks, Photo courtesy of Honey Goodenough

M: Any advice to future slam organizers or slam organizers who are just starting?

HG: Above all, be good to your performers. There can be a lot of stress related to producing an event, but if you want people to continue to work with you it must be worthwhile for the performers. We have to support this art form, from the ground up! So work hard, be kind, and have fun!

M: Anything else you’d like to tell the readers of our blog?

HG: I would like to thank the Puppet Slam Network for supporting this movement. It’s not only helping support our artists on a micro level, but also making it possible to connect with other artists and producers who believe in the same principals. I think of puppet slams as more than just one show, but a rather a collection of shows that the audience gets to see in one sitting. I think the format really appeals to today’s audience. And it can give wings to young artists who are learning how to create full-length works.

I am always trying to think of innovative ways to fund raise, and looking for donations for our raffles and silent auctions. If anyone has any suggestions, please contact me at: Puppetpandemic@gmail.com

Chatting with Slam Curator Roxie Myhrum

Roxanna (Roxie) Myhrum is the Artistic Director at Puppet Showplace Theatre (PST) where she curates year-round programming for adult and family audiences, including six Puppet ShowplaceSlams each year. She regularly provides support, guidance, snacks, and firm-but-loving critique to Boston's community of emerging puppetry artists. When not working at PST, Roxie is a freelance theatre and opera director and puppet coach in the Greater Boston Area.  

 

2001, Photo: Rachel Krowe

Marsian: Hi Roxie! First off, who does your hair?

Roxie: Wait, what? I have the world's most boring hair, often hidden under a hat. When I went temporarily insane and got bangs I cut them myself. Your hair is much more interesting, Marsian.

M: Flattery will get you everywhere with me!  (dramatic pause) So you are the artistic director of the Showplace.

R: Two years and three months of glory!

M: How does the puppetry for adults at your slams fit in to your regular programming for kids (or not)?

R: I hate the term Adult Puppetry. PST has a history of using Puppets at Night as a way to indicate that a certain event is not part of our regularly scheduled family or kids programming, which takes place in the mornings and early afternoon.  Most of our kid audience is in bed when our slam starts. The audience for the slams is pretty age-diverse, though, including many people who are older adults as well as students and even some teenagers.  Occasionally there are people who come expecting something super raunchy who are disappointed, but I guess I'm OK with that.

M: We all have a cross to bear..
R: Generally I'd say our slam content is pretty much PG-13 rather than X-rated (although not always). I saw some of the best puppetry of my life when I was a young teenager at a puppet slam in my hometown of Springfield, MA.  I was glad that the slam felt like an adult event but was still accessible to me as a kid. That's something I want to replicate for our audiences at PST.

M: You are one of three puppet artists I know of who have graduated from Harvard! What was the puppet scene like there?

R: There wasn't much of a puppet scene - some people did a production of Little Shop of Horrors, which was pretty good (I think they rented the plant) and I once got asked to "consult" (that's a very Harvard thing) on a puppet production of Macbeth, which was pretty bad from its conception and there wasn't much I could do. I called Fred Thompson when I directed a production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Yeomen of the Guard" because I wanted a raven puppet and he helped me out.

Julie Taymor is a graduate of the ART, which is sort of like Harvard, and Cheryl Henson is a Yale Grad. Are those the other people you meant?

M: One is the president of UNIMA and the other is the co-CEO of a movie studio. Just curious if you knew any other Ivy Leaguers in Puppetry..

R: There are lots of other Ivy League folks in puppetry -John Bell (UCONN) did his dissertation at Columbia, Annie Evans (Sesame Street writer) went to Brown, Jen Bodde (who used to work at the Center for Puppetry Arts Education Department) is a Yale Grad. I'm sure there are others. Maybe we should try to have a very exclusive table at the next PofA Festival!

M: Or a support group! I want you to regress back to your very first puppet slam experience.
R: As a puppeteer, I mostly work on other people's stuff, or work as a director, or work as a host. My first slam performance experience was when I was 16 and I was showing a piece I made called The Litterbug featuring a puppet I made out of trash. I have never been so terrified in my life: to have responsibility for every single element of a show AND to perform while under a black hood? Terrifying.

M: Where have the slam pieces you have had a hand in traveled to?
R: A piece that I coached was in the National Puppet Slam (Michelle Finston) and I was super proud to be there, although I wish Beau Brown had thrown me more candy. But really Sandglass should take the credit for instigating that piece.

M: You travel to a lot of slams, just to watch and look for acts. What have you been to recently?
R: I had a very trippy experience at the UCONN Puppet Slam that was part of the conference on performing objects in the 21st century. There was a guy who set things on fire in his piece, and the tech people apparently didn't know about this and freaked out and stopped his show part way through. There were some great pieces, one terrible piece, and it all ended with Erminio's dancing latex monsters.  Trippy. 

M: I hosted that one! I too was shocked that he was suddenly lighting things on fire on stage. Its wild what happens when you host or organize a slam..
R: I enjoy hosting a bit, but mostly I enjoy watching slams.  The amazing Jon LIttle (Little's Creatures) had actually taken on the responsibility of curating and hosting the slams while PST was still looking for an Artistic Director, and he did a great job. He stayed on as host (and as the closing act!) for a little over a year after that, but he was happy to pass on the headache of coordinating acts.  To be honest, producing slams is a unique kind of hell. 

M: Tell me about it! No really, tell me about it..

R: You have to convince people to perform for not very much money and beg them not to walk out on you the week of the performance. You have 3 hours to tech between 7 and 10 acts. You need to figure out how to cover all of the tech-transitions. And you have to deal with an audience who will love some things and hate others. It's a very manic process. But when it works, it's awesome.

M: Would you say you are part of a slam circuit?
R: We're near Providence, RI where Blood From a Turnip takes place…

M: Yes, when I was curating BfaT with Vanessa Gilbert, I organized the very first Slamtastic Puppet Mini-Tour between Perishable Theatre and PST and it sounds like you continue to have many of your events on the same weekend to encourage touring… What other cities are you close to that have puppet slams?

R: ..We're reasonably close to UCONN and Hartford. The slam circuit is a goal of ours, but it's still in development. We have definitely shared many performers with BFAT, and each year people do their slam on Friday and ours on Saturday. What makes our slam unique? We're in a dedicated and historical puppet theatre, so it helps to frame the evening as a puppetry event (rather than an adult event or a comedy improve event or as an evening of experimental theatre).


M: Many performers, including myself, have used slams as a way to develop short portions of larger shows..
R: We have excerpted from full-length shows. Sometimes we ask the family performer to do part of their shows, or we use slams as a way to try out a scene from a longer piece. We did this a lot for Brad Shur's show The Magic Soup and Other Stories.

M: Tell us about a fabulous failure at a slam and what you've learned from it.
R: I once put together a slam with a lot of artists who typically did shows in all different styles of puppetry, but somehow I overlooked the fact that the pieces they wanted to do for the slam were all shadow puppet acts. Oops. After that I implemented a more thorough tech form. We also once had a speaker fall on an audience member. Now we warn people who sit in the front row.

M: And the moral of the story would be to have audience sign sworn affidavits before they leave… If you were to sign an affidavit about why puppet slams are important, what would it say?
R: I think they let people see so much about the art form all in one night. They learn about different styles of puppetry, they see how an individual artist creates a piece unique to their vision, and they can experience art that is improvised or do-it-yourself or in progress alongside art that is mature, polished, and complete.

I think "slam" is a great word to describe this: a puppet slam is a high-impact event.

 

M: Do you have any upcoming slams you plan on performing at or organizing?
R: There is always another slam. There is one [this] Saturday [March 10^th]. There will be another one in two months. Oy vey.

M: What inspires you to create a puppet slam piece?

R: I most often give feedback to other people who get inspired by all sorts of things to make slam pieces. Sometimes they have a puppet but nothing for it to perform so they need to write a piece for it. At PST we have a semi-regular meeting called "Incubator" where people can try out new work and develop it with their peers.

M: Who are some other artists on the puppet slam circuit that inspired you?

R: BonnieDuncan [of Snappy Dance Theatre] is my hero. When she was pregnant with twins, she called me up and said "hey, there's this slam piece I want to do that I can only do while pregnant," and she showed up with this amazing puppet face festooned on her belly and did a puppet burlesque act. She has also teamed up recently with Puppet Master Jake to make some amazing shows (If you give a mouse a cookie he'll come back from the dead and eat your brains; and Keep off the Grass).

Michelle Finston has performed in several of our recent slams. She's a great interdisciplinary artist who stumbled into puppetry one day and found herself at home. She has trained hard since then and has taken some great risks as a performer, and she has been very successful--she represented us at the P of A Festival, and she won the Connecticut Guild's Who Wants to Be a Puppeteer? contest.

 
I have to give a shout out to our slam tech, Allie Herryman. Allie is my rock: without her, all would fail. The same goes for Brad Shur, our Artist in Residence. Both of them do so much to support the production side of our slam. On top of all that, they are amazing creative artists, and they make and share new work on a regular basis. 

I am also really proud of all the adult students who have taken classes at PST and then used their newfound skills to create slam pieces. They are very brave!

M: What is the future of puppet slams?

R: I see more collaboration between puppeteers and musicians. Puppet Playlist did this successfully, and many of our regular performers are musicians themselves or are tapped into the musician community. And puppet shows are infinitely better with live music.
 

M: What advice do you have for up and coming slam artists or performers who are just starting out?

R: Document your work! It's a pain in the ass, but it's well worth it--if a curator can see you looking awesome and rocking it out at one slam, they'll want you to do the same at their venue. Also, see lots of work! It's easy to get stuck in the studio or to be swamped by your own projects.  You'll grow as an artist by getting out more!