The Village Puppeteers

Happy Birthday Erin Wilkinson from The Village Puppeteers

www.kuklafest.com

KuklaFest Puppeteers' Conference The official website of KuklaFest Puppetry Conference in Saugatuck, Michigan.

Join The Village Puppeteers for their puppet making workshop. Learn more at www.kuklafest.com. Sign up now for this exciting ZOOM conference, August 7 & 8, 2021, featuring Marionette Artist, Phillip Huber, and special presentations by Professor Jason Yancey, Kevin Kammeraad, Steven Ritz-Barr, and Joseph Emory.

KuklaFest Puppeteers' Conference The official website of KuklaFest Puppetry Conference in Saugatuck, Michigan.

KuklaFest Puppeteers' Conference The official website of KuklaFest Puppetry Conference in Saugatuck, Michigan.

Friday workshop was a blast. Great family day. Here are two puppets a brother and sister made. A princess and her Knight.

Announcing a new annual event!
www.kuklafest.com

http://www.villagepuppeteers.com/

Don't forget, The Village Puppeteers are playing Fridays and Saturdays at noon, through September 1st, 2018. Reserve your tickets online at www.villagepuppeteers.com.

The Village Puppeteers Friday 22 Saturday 23 Friday 29 Saturday 30

Detroit area puppeteers! We will be performing in Huntington Woods, Thursday night.

This week's Family Fun Night is an AMAZING puppet performance by the The Village Puppeteers! Please note the location change: we'll be at the Gillham Recreation Center in the Warming Room in order to accommodate their AMAZING puppet stage. This performance is funded by generous donations from Michigan Humanities Council, Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the Friends of the Huntington Woods-Pleasant Ridge Library.

The Village Puppeteers present a fast paced, high energy puppet comedy in downtown Saugatuck, Fridays and Saturdays at noon, July 7 through August 26 (no performance Venetian Day, July 29th). It's a raucous comic romp, packed with silly antics and featuring a cavalcade of colorful puppets, Puss 'n Boots, The Three Little Pigs, Humpty Dumpty, Little Miss Muffet and Rumpelstiltskin are joined by a host of others, including a handsome prince, a maiden in distress and a dazzling dragon.

Here's some news on Tally-Ho in Sparta, March 11, 2017.

Tally-Ho Puppet Festival We talk puppets with Mary Riley and her involvement with the Tally-Ho Puppet Festival.

Pics from Douglas Elementary School Fruit and Vegetable Program coordinated by Jeff Swanson and many others 2006. Building and promoting good food in our neighborhood.

Time for non profit organizations to fill out the grant applications. Apply to bring The Village Puppeteers to your location.

http://www.michiganhumanities.org/humanities-grants/?utm_source=2016+March+Enewsletter+&utm_campaign=2016+March+ENews&utm_medium=email

Humanities Grants – Michigan Humanities Council Humanities Grants emphasize collaboration among cultural, educational and community-based organizations and institutions in order to serve Michigan’s people with public humanities programming. These grants play a vital role in defining our culture, our state, our community and ourselves, and are int…

"Thank you very much for bringing "Lost in Storyland" to the Deerfield Public Library. I have only heard great reviews from our patrons which included the words "phenomenal," "fantastic" and "very entertaining." The Village Puppeteers were a big hit! Thank you!"--Noreen Trotsky, Deerfield Public Library

Save the Date! AYS is excited to announce a benefit performance of Lost in Storyland by internationally acclaimed The Village Puppeteers on Sunday, July 12 at 5pm at Winnetka Congregational Church. Tickets are $10 at the door. Visit www.villagepuppeteers.com to learn more about the show. We hope to see you there!

Good news for The Village Puppeteers. After the application process, we will be included in the 2015-2018 Arts & Humanities Touring Directory. The directory offers performers and presenters the opportunity to present their work through nonprofit recipients of Arts & Humanities Touring grants throughout Michigan.

Any of our friends in the northern Suburbs of Chicago, Come support this performance benefiting Asian Youth Services of Chicago. I guarantee you will have a fun time.

Save the Date! AYS is excited to announce a benefit performance of Lost in Storyland by internationally acclaimed The Village Puppeteers on Sunday, July 12 at 5pm at Winnetka Congregational Church. Tickets are $10 at the door. Visit www.villagepuppeteers.com to learn more about the show. We hope to see you there!

There is still time to sign up!!! Also, did you know that we have scholarships available? Check it out!

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Two weeks ago, The Village Puppeteers performed Lost In Storyland at the Puppeteers Potlatch, an annual gathering at Pokagon State Park in Angola Indiana. The reviews are in and we thought we'd share some of them here:

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"If you ever get the chance to see The Village Puppeteers of Saugatuck, MI perform "Lost In Storyland", you absolutely must. More fun than I've ever had at a puppet show - absolutely hilarious, tremendous performances, beautiful puppets... just a fantastic show. I haven't felt that swept up in a show since I saw the Flying Karamozov Brothers ages ago." -- Kipley Wentz

"Dear "young" puppeteers and theater artists,
I just saw The Village Puppeteers perform Lost in Storyland! Please study them. EXPERTLY handled from introduction to final bow. The design, script, acting, pacing, originality, simplicity and effectiveness of puppet design and manipulation, the characters, THE CHARACTERS all perfect! oh... and the tuffet! BLEW ME AWAY!.. not because of the type of joke but because it was so brilliantly handled and played that we, the audience, pleaded to the heavens for it do its thing one more time! This is solid stuff, the real thing and a standard to strive for." -- Kevin Frisch

"Well said, Kevin! It's one thing to have show that gets all of the kids laughing, but when you've got a roomful of puppeteer "adults" laughing so hard that it hurts -- that's just some incredible work! Can't wait to see them perform again." -- Guy Thompson

"I agree with Kevin Frisch 100%. Young puppeteers take note of this and them. You have allot to learn from this show and these two men." -- Marc Dunworth

"The comedic timing of this show is just perfect! You have to go along way to find a show that is this entertaining to both children and adults." ... "It is definitely a don't miss show for anyone interested in puppetry, or anyone who wants to have an amazing experience with their family. This show sets the bar very high." -- David C. Herzog

"The puppets were beautiful! The writing, acting, and timing were so fine, it would have been fun to see them just act it out sans puppets. These brilliant performers could have used sticks and rocks in place of puppets, and we still would have loved the show. Well done!" -- Anne Newman

"It was so funny and so well done! I loved it." -- Doria Pliura Martuzzo

"Fantastic puppet theater!" -- Tim Koeller

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Thank You All for the kind words.

Douglas Nighttime Halloween Walking Parade for Adults - 2014 was a very good year! There are far too many people to thank for helping to make the parade everything it was this year... it wouldn't all fit here... so look for more to come, an...

So this evening was the years biggest night of events in Douglas Michigan for the year. The Halloween Walking Parade for Adults. Erin K. Wilkinson took over the event that her mother started 20 years ago for the third year now and has done a bang up job. A fellow volunteer and I counted a crowd of 50 to 150 onlookers every ten feet for three city blocks with crowd spilling out east and west of the parade route. This has definitely grown over the years. I feel particularly happy this year because Erin was able to raise the funds for The Village Puppeteers to build a new rendition of The Pumpkin King we built for The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a vignette played after the kids parade in Saugatuck on the parade day for our sister communities, hosted by the Saugatuck-Douglas Convention and Visitors Bureau when we first came to town in 2004. That year we took the Pumpkin King out to the Walking Parade for Adults in the evening, and the crown roared! The old one was built on a strict budget and only lasted eight years. The new Pumpkin King comes to you courtesy of donations from individuals and mostly by the shops in Douglas, Michigan and Saugatuck, Michigan and through the generous support of The American Legion Post 137 of Saugatuck for the space to build the giant parade character over a two week time slot. A special shoutout to the folks at the City of Douglas City Hall who received the donations for the Pumpkin King, the DDA and the Saugatuck Douglas Police Department and of course The Douglas Department of Public Works. Thank you Mark Chancey and Thomas Owens for handling the arms of the Puppet King, Michael Schwabe and Larry Basgall on body and head. The winds were high and difficult to navigate.

Thank you Saugatuck and Douglas for a great summer run of Puppet Show Saturdays and Magic Tonight! Our gratitude goes to The members of The American Legion Post 137 for allowing us the opportunity of performing in their hall for the third year. Many thanks to the business and residents of our towns who talk up the work we present. And finally to our patrons without whose support we wouldn't be able to bring the only continuous performances for family audiences in the area throughout the summer for seven years.

Thank you all our friends. The Village Puppeteers has surpassed 500 likes.