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Drama Workshops
Students learn lip sync, eye focus, walking, arm movement, emotion, character voices, and stage craft.
Each student is provided with a professional workshop puppet to use in the session and will learn eye focus using little puppet “hand eyes”.
Students will learn the puppetry arts practice that informs:
- TV shows like Sesame Street, The Muppets, Fraggle Rock and Dark Crystal.
- Characters such Grogu from The Mandalorian, Bobby from Sweet Tooth, and Thing from Wednesday.
- Stage puppets for theatre such as Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors, Olaf from Frozen The Musical, and the puppets from the Bluey stage show.
Drama Curriculum alignment:
- Use voice and movement to sustain character and situation, and sustain belief in character.
- Develop and refine expressive skills in voice and movement to communicate ideas and dramatic action in different performance styles and conventions.
- Build, refine or extend understanding of role, character and relationships.
- Incorporate language and ideas and use devices such as dramatic symbol to create dramatic action and extend mood and atmosphere in performance.
- Consider social, cultural and historical influences of drama.
- Engage an audience through manipulation of dramatic action, forms and performance styles and by using design elements.
- Understand the historic development of different traditional and contemporary styles of drama.
- Explore different drama forms to understand that dramatists can be identified through the style of their work.
- Understand the roles of artists and audiences by engaging with more diverse performances.
Puppetry Performance Workshop – 1 hour
Max 50 students per workshop
Includes:
- a short puppet show demonstrating how the puppets look when performed – 10 mins
- an educational talk about different styles of puppetry – 5 mins
- an educational talk about Muppet-style puppetry and how the puppets work – 5 mins
- a hands-on puppetry performance workshop – 25 mins
- a performance of skits from students to demonstrate what they have learnt – 10 mins
- Q&A session – 5 mins
Puppetry Performance Workshop Featuring Behind The Scenes Tour – 1 1/2 hours
Max 50 students per workshop
All the inclusions of a Puppetry Performance Workshop PLUS the students will:
- view the short puppet show from both the audience perspective and from backstage, watching the puppeteers in action.
- learn a group puppet dance choreography.
Puppetry Performance Workshop For Stage & Screen – 2 hours
Max 50 students per workshop
All the inclusions of a Puppetry Performance Workshop PLUS the students will learn the unique and challenging skill of monitor puppetry for Film and TV including:
- a demonstration of monitor puppetry.
- an explanation about “how” and “why” monitors are used for film and TV puppetry.
- how to use a monitor to perform a puppet within a camera frame.
- how to make a puppet seem real on camera using eye focus, walking and lip sync, all while keeping human/puppeteer heads and arms out of the shot.
- how to frame a single puppet and work with more than one puppet in a frame, in conversation.
- performing a group puppet dance choreography, recorded on video.
For costs, visit the Rate Card #2: High School.
Visual Arts & Drama Workshop
Larrikin Puppets offers a cross-curriculum workshop that combines visual arts and drama – and it’s our premium option for high schools.
Sock Puppet Making Craft & Performance Workshop – 2 or 2 1/2 hours
Max 50 students per workshop
The workshop runs for 2 or, preferably, 2 1/2 hours (with a recess break) and features:
- a short puppet show demonstrating how puppets look, including sock puppets, when performed live – 10 mins
- an educational talk about different styles of puppetry – 5 mins
- an educational talk about Muppet-style puppetry and how the puppets work – 5 mins
- sock puppet making craft workshop – 70-80 mins
- puppetry performance workshop – 35-45 mins
- Q&A session – 5 mins
Using colourful puppetry kits featuring a range of pre-cut materials, including foam mouthplates, we teach students how to construct a beautifully detailed, quality sock puppet they can perform with and take home – something that has a long shelf life that won’t just be thrown away. The craft segment is followed by a puppetry performance workshop where we teach how to operate Muppet-style puppets. We lend everyone a professional puppet to work with as we teach lip sync, arm movements, emotions, voice work, walking and various other techniques used to bring puppets to life.
Drama Curriculum alignment: See above.
Visual Arts Curriculum alignment:
- Build on awareness of how and why artists, craftspeople and designers realise their ideas through different visual representations, practices, processes and viewpoints.
- Explore different forms in visual arts to learn that over time there has been further development of techniques used in traditional and contemporary styles.
- Develop an understanding of the roles of artists and audiences.
- Develop planning skills for art-making by exploring techniques and processes used by different artists.
- Adapt, manipulate, deconstruct and reinvent techniques, styles and processes to make visual artworks that are cross-media or cross-form.
- Analyse the characteristics, qualities, properties and constraints of materials, technologies and processes across a forms, styles, practices and viewpoints.
For costs, visit the Rate Card #2: High School.
Media Arts Workshop
Monitor Puppetry Workshop For Film & TV – 2 hours
Max 30 students per workshop
Larrikin Puppets offers a curriculum aligned media arts workshop, a rare opportunity for students to learn the basic techniques that bring Muppet-style puppet characters to the screen.
This interactive, practical workshop is led by professional film and television puppeteers Brett Hansen and Elissa Jenkins who were formally trained in the USA by Jim Henson puppeteers from Sesame Street and The Muppets.
Brett and Elissa regularly perform puppetry for television, music videos, corporate videos and online. Most industry professionals do not know what’s involved in filming puppetry for film and TV. It’s harder than it looks – and most people don’t know how it works!
Students will learn the puppetry media arts practice that informs:
- TV shows like Sesame Street, The Muppets, Fraggle Rock and Dark Crystal.
- Characters such Grogu from The Mandalorian, Bobby from Sweet Tooth, and Thing from Wednesday.
Students will learn the unique and challenging skill of monitor puppetry for Film and TV including:
- a demonstration of monitor puppetry.
- a presentation of clips of puppets in film and tv.
- an explanation about “how” and “why” monitors are used for film and TV puppetry.
- how to use a monitor to perform a puppet within a camera frame.
- how to make a puppet seem real on camera using eye focus, walking and lip sync, all while keeping human/puppeteer heads and arms out of the shot.
- how to frame a single puppet and work with more than one puppet in a frame, in conversation.
- performing a group puppet dance choreography, recorded on video.
- Q&A session.
Media Arts Curriculum alignment:
- Understand and use time, space, sound, movement, lighting and technologies.
- Understand the roles of artists and audiences by engaging with diverse media artworks.
- Plan, structure and design media artworks that engage audiences.
- Explore media forms to learn different traditional and contemporary styles.
- Evaluate how established behaviours or conventions influence media artworks they engage with and make.
- Analyse how technical and symbolic elements are used in media artworks to create. representations influenced by story, genre, values and points of view of particular audiences.
- Identifying a variety of ways in which media can be produced, including through sole digital producers, cross-media organisations, public and private sector, and multinational organisations.
For costs, visit the Rate Card #2: High School.
