News
“All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey…” i.e. Autumn News
Dear reader,
Welcome to your autumn news update from us folks here at Funny Wonders. It’s been a busy few months for us.
First up, as promised, information about our link up with the Buxton Drama League. Their winter show Alan Ayckbourn’s ‘Season’s Greetings’ has a marionette puppet show in it and over the summer they asked us to make the puppets.
We had to make three pigs, a wolf, a dog and a postman! They all had to be operated with one hand and made out of materials a budding amateur puppeteer would have at home. Quite the challenge.
So we got to work designing them and papier macheing balloons! To see photos from the making process and the final puppets check out the project page here.
We got a mention in the November Artsbeat magazine and on their website and an article about working with the Buxton Drama League in the Nov/Dec Pure Buxton magazine. The play is being performed in the Pavilion Arts Centre on 26th-28th November. Tickets from £11 are available from the Buxton Opera House.
We’ve also continued to run our weekly after-school workshops at The Green Man Gallery. We’ve been trying a few things out. We made up some scary halloween shadow puppets to try out in Pooles Cavern as hand held shadows you could project onto the walls of the cave yourself. They looked great with normal torches but unfortunately, the seven-bulb LED torches available at the cavern produced a blury image as seven images were projected. We’ll need to source some other torches for it to work. Maybe Christmas…
We also made a commemorative shadow scene for Remembrance Sunday.
And finally, we went to Burbage Primary School to perform some shadow puppetry to the infants and introduce how shadow puppetry works and what is involved in making a show.
We have various workshops we can take in to schools. See the ‘Our Work‘ part of our website for more information.
And that’s your lot for this post. Thank you dear reader for taking an interest in our activities.
If we don’t see you again until the New Year we hope you have a lovely festive season.
