With Mike Petersen
Saturday May 21st, 10 am to 4 pm. $100 registration
How can we make our puppets truly awake, aware, alive? How do puppeteers create the illusion of life?
Breath and movement isn’t quite enough. We must also perfect the visual cues that we feed to our audience so they will really believe it when our puppet needs something, wants something, likes something, listens to something, displays a feeling, and reacts to its surroundings.
In this workshop we’ll put a new instinct into our hands and make our puppets think, look, hear, see. They will seek, find, eat, taste, and drink. They’ll feel; they’ll give; they’ll share, and they’ll play. Whatever the style of puppet you choose to bring, we will give it the illusion of thought.
Mike Petersen’s career began on Jim Henson’s Fraggle rock in 1984. Since then he has performed around the world with such companies as Mermaid Theatre, Neptune Theatre, Theatre Antigonish, Kaleidoscope Theatre, The Edinburgh Puppet Company, Poland’s Teatr Arlekin, and Theatre Beyond Words. Film and television credits include Fraggle Rock, Labyrinth, Emily of New Moon, and the award-winning pre-school series The Mighty Jungle. Mike created and performed in As You Puppet at YPT, and played host “Papageno” in a series of classical music concerts for children called Music & Truffles. Mike recently completed 65 episodes of Toopy & Binco Vroom Vroom, airing now on Treehouse, and he is a proud member of the Dora Award winning ensemble performing Old Man and the River with Theatre Direct. As a teacher of puppetry Mike has worked alongside Graham Whitehead at Mermaid Theatre, Allen MacInnis at YPT, Lynda Hill at Theatre Direct, Eric Wolfe at Eldrich Theatre, Puppetmongers Toronto School of Puppetry and Seanna Kennedy, director of the first Canadian production of Avenue Q at the Lower Ossington Theatre, Toronto.