We are also members of the Puppetry Arts Guild of Utah which hosts an annual puppetry workshop in April where you can learn all about puppets, puppet making, puppet performance, and see performances by puppeteers from all over Utah.

The Bunraku Bay Puppet Troupe, based at the University of Missouri, will be performing at the Pardoe Theatre at Brigham Young University in Provo, on January 16th and 17th.

Bunraku is an amazing form of traditional Japanese Puppetry, more properly called ningyō jōruri.

Martin Holman, is the coordinator of the Japanese studies program at University of Missouri and the director of the troupe.  He studied Japanese at BYU, and is the first non-Japanese to ever be trained in and perform ningyō jōruri in Japan.

Holman contacted us through our Utah Puppetry website. ” We are, to my knowledge, the only troupe outside Japan that performs traditional Japanese puppetry,” he said.  He wanted to clarify that he was slightly misquoted in the BYU press release.

The release stated:

“Though this performance will be family friendly, Bunraku is intended for adults. Some thematic elements could frighten young children, Holman said.

Holman clarified to us:

“I am not quite quoted accurately at one point. Kids from kindergarten up will probably be okay with the show, but it could be boring for younger kids (because they will be seated in a large theater, which doesn’t always work for little kids) or just a bit scary for early elementary age if they skittish. (We have been known to take some puppets out into the audience.)”

The performance will also be entirely in Japanese, with English supertitles, which could also be a factor for parents to consider for their individual children.  But families, including children, are encouraged to come.

Holman also indicated that if ticket sales warrant it, BYU may add a matinee on Saturday.  Tickets are $11, or $6 with a BYU or student ID, and are available online at www.byuarts.com, by phone at (801) 422-4322 or in person at the Harris Fine Arts Center Ticket Office.

Don’t miss this chance to expereince this beautiful cultural experience with your family.

Click here to view the album

I don’t have any pictures of our Maxed Out Puppetry performance at the festival, but if I get a hold of some I will post them as well.

The annual Timpanogos Storytelling Festival is this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday in Orem, Utah. Woot!

If you have never attended this fabulous event, you really should check it out. My family and I have been attending every year for the last seven years or so and it is awesome. Many of the stories we have heard at past festivals have remained with us for years.

This year, the festival is featuring another great group of professional storytellers, including Kevin Kling, from NPR’s “All Things Considered.”

Among the local entertainers, my puppetry troupe, Maxed Out Pupptery will be performing again as the pre-show for the Friday evening “Bedtime Stories” event at the beautiful Mt. Timpanogos Park up provo Canyon from 5:30pm to 6:20pm.

Then on Saturday, I will be performing mime with my friend, professional Mime Joe Flores, from 11:00am to 11:30am.

If you come, be aware that for the events at the Mt. Timpanogos Park you must park at designated areas near 800 North and 800 East in Orem and then ride shuttles up the Provo Canyon to the park. The Construction on 8th North has changed this arrangement from previous years, so be sure to pay close attention to the Festival Signs along 800 North.

If your time is limited and you want to experience the festival without attending the whole thing, I recommend Saturday Night’s Laughin’ Night at the SCERA Shell. You can buy tickets to just that one event and it will be well worth your time.

The late August weather this year has been exceptionally mild compared to previous years, and the Provo Canyon is especially beautiful. Come join us for a weekend of stories. You wont regret it.

I’ll try to take some photos while at the festival and post them here in a follow up post.

The Hardware Store. – A hardware store clerk meets a very persistent customer.

Enjoy.

The storytelling festival is absolutely awesome! If you have never been, and can be in Utah County this week, it really is worth checking out.

Every year, they invite ten or so of the most accomplished national and even international storytellers to come to Utah to teach workshops and perform for the festival. The festival is well known among professional storytellers, and each year the tellers comment on how impressive the event is when compared to similar events nation wide. Thousands of people attend.

Most of the daytime events are held at the beautiful new Mt. Timpanogos Park, just up the mouth of Provo Canyon, which Orem City built specifically for the festival. Large evening performances are in the SCERA Shell Amphitheater at SCERA Park in Orem.

My Puppetry Troupe, Maxed Out Puppetry, has performed as part of the festival as local entertainment, for at least six years.

This year, though, we have the first-time opportunity to provide the pre-show entertainment for the Bedtime Stories event on Friday Night at 5:30pm. It should be a ton of fun.

Additionally I will be performing briefly on Saturday Morning at 11:00am with local, professional Mime, Joe Flores. Joe has been teaching me mime on and off for the last few years, and I have performed with him periodically before. Mime is such a cool form for theater. And the kids love it.

If you have never been to the festival before, I recommend going to the “Laughin’ Night” event at the SCERA Shell on Saturday night. The ten featured storytellers each tell their funniest stories. You’ll laugh until you choke. Tickets for just that event are available.

You can find out all about the festival at www.TimpFest.org .

See you there!

My cousin Rus Wilson, his wife Kelly, my close friend Sean Healy, my wife Chastity, and I founded the Maxed Out Puppetry – Puppet Comedy Troupe nearly a decade ago while still students and recent graduates of Brigham Young University. Since then we have performed at museums, libraries, festivals, parties, churches, and many other venues, primarily in Utah County, but also as far north as the Davis County Library in Layton and as far south as Filmore.

Since then we have been joined by additional puppeteers: Caitlin Shirts, Patrick Svensson, and David Wilson.

We are very excited to present our brand-spanking-new website:

www.MaxedOutPuppetry.com

As usual, the website is still partially under development, but it already has some fun features.

For the first time, those of you outside of Utah can enjoy Maxed Out Puppetry’s original material. The website features a Video Section with streaming video to which we hope to add continually. So far, the response from kids and adults who have visited the video section has been excellent.

You can subscribe to the video podcast with iTunes or another podcatcher and watch the videos on your video enabled iPod. For those of you who, like me, don’t have an iPod, you can still subscribe to the normal video feed with a feed reader like Google Reader. For those who like it even more basic, you can even subscribe to receive notifications of new videos in your email.

For those of you who do live in Utah, the website also features a Calendar where you can find out about upcoming live performances. Like the video, you can subscribe to the calendar with a feed reader or by email to keep abreast of upcoming events.

One additional, experimental feature is a new Puppet Blog, where the puppets themselves will be posting thoughts, observations, and responding to questions and fan mail from visitors. This represents a creative writing endeavor for the members of our puppet troupe.

Two of our puppets will be traveling to Europe at the beginning of September and posting a puppet travelogue, we hope along with some video.

The Puppet Blog also features RSS Feed and Email Subscriptions to help you keep up with new posts.

Feel free to let me know if you run into any bugs on the website.

So gather your kids around the computer and check out some Maxed Out Puppet Videos, then come back to see what is happening on the Puppet Blog, or to find out about upcoming shows. Also feel free to have your children send questions, comments, or fan mail to the puppets through the contact form on the website.

A big thanks to all of you who have supported our quirky hobby through the years! It’s has been, and hopefully will continue to be, a blast!

PS – www.MaxedOutPuppetry.com is rated PG – “Puppet Guidance Suggested” for moderate puppet violence and imitate-able behavior)