By Lois Harmeyer
The meeting on May 2 was quite unusual and it was great to feel the excitement of everyone there. We did not have our recording session as scheduled, but we all had fun selecting some fantastic puppets and books that Thom Fountain brought to the meeting, donated to the L.A. Guild by member Evey Brown.
By Lois Harmeyer
The meeting on May 2 was quite unusual and it was great to feel the excitement of everyone there. We did not have our recording session as scheduled, but we all had fun selecting some fantastic puppets and books that Thom Fountain brought to the meeting, donated to the L.A. Guild by member Evey Brown.
The money he received for the books and puppets will sponsor a local puppet troop to go to a Puppeteers of America Festival and perform. Our guild signed up three new members: Don and Lana Zucconi and Carolyn Franks. We also had an election and the officers were accepted as presented. We will have our installation next month.
Afterward, we sat around the tables and started discussing a problem all of the Puppet Guilds are having. Many of them have lost so many members they have closed down. Some states have only one guild in the whole state. However, California is a state that has multiple guilds. Most of the members of the guilds are long –standing as well. Another concern is how to draw young people into puppetry? Can puppetry ever become as interesting as a cell phone or an IPAD to those technologically attached?
Years ago, we had many schoolteachers as members because teachers were using puppets as a teaching tool. Now, there isn’t any money or time in schools to give the children the opportunity to experience the wonder of puppets. It was brought up last night that puppetry involves all the educational subjects that a child learns in school.
They have to use math when they build a puppet stage, language and writing skills for thinking up and writing a puppet play, and many skills in making puppets. It is too bad the school system does not realize this, as after-school puppetry would be an amazing program to have available for children.
