Michael Todd
Assistant Spectrum Editor
The long-running and popular television show “Sesame Street” uses puppets to teach children simple lessons, like how to count or to be nice to your neighbor.
“Avenue Q,” the hit Broadway show and VCU Theatre’s next Main Stage production, takes this idea one step further.
“Avenue Q” centers around protagonist Preston, a recent college grad about to face the real world on his own for the first time. On its surface, the show is a lighthearted musical comedy that primarily uses puppets to address very adult content and lessons, like learning to pay bills instead of going out drinking.
However, as VCU students have discovered through the rehearsal process, there is a lot more to the characters of “Avenue Q” than felt, fur and creative sex positions.
The content of the musical—featuring such songs as “If You Were Gay,” “The Internet is for Porn,” and “Everyone’s A Little Bit Racist”—does a pretty good job of entertaining viewers while still communicating points that are everywhere from negative and hurtful to complicated truths. However, to do this, students had to quickly master the technique of puppeteering in order to communicate their character’s stories at all.
The rehearsal process, which began in mid-September, was a difficult one on many levels, the most obvious being the actual operation of the puppets.
On “Sesame Street,” puppeteers are concealed from view. However, all performers operating “Avenue Q” puppets are visible throughout the entire show. This is something audience members are meant to forget as the show goes on and they find themselves focusing more on the puppets and their stories rather than the puppets themselves.
While puppets like Preston require only one cast member for operation, others like Trekkie Monster and Nicky require multiple performers to bring them to life. Additionally, because costume changes for puppets are essentially impossible, each puppet came with multiple versions of itself for each new outfit worn throughout the show.
Matt Johnson, a VCU graduate student, adjunct faculty and, conveniently, master puppeteer, worked closely with students to help them develop a firm grasp on the art of acting through puppets.
Actors received rehearsal puppets that followed the basic construction of the actual show puppets in terms of similar size, coloring and manipulation, but lacked distinguishing characteristics like facial features or clothing.
Cast members engaged in a number of motion and focus-based exercises in order to synchronize their movements with that of their puppets. One exercise involved using the puppets eyes to follow a moving balloon around the room while simultaneously singing. Multitasking exercises such as this allowed the actors to manipulate the puppets almost subconsciously, like a second nature.
“In normal puppeteering, you look at the puppet as you use it, so your focus kind of guides the audience’s focus to just the puppet,” said Alan Vollmer, a senior performance major. “But because we’re seen, we’re supposed to look where the puppet is looking. It’s not harder, it’s just different.”
The actors worked in front of mirrors during the first half of the rehearsal process, observing themselves and the ways in which they acted through their puppets. This allowed them to observe themselves—and their puppets—firsthand, and to see what was working and what needed changing.
Certain obstacles arose after the switch from practice to actual puppets. With no two puppets constructed exactly alike, actors had to make small adjustments in the handling.
Another obstacle in the process involved the character development of the puppets, a normal practice for actors that became complicated in the communication of the puppets’ traits.
To help develop the personalities of their puppets, as well as to continue work with movement, actors engaged in “therapy sessions,” led by Johnson, for their characters, with improvised dialogue.
One-on-one coaching helped establish personalities through movements specific to each puppet. As the process progressed, actors adopted and discarded little movements to help define their character and increase a natural feeling.
“You have to make sure it’s always alive, because if it’s still, it’s dead,” said Maggie Horan, a senior performance major. “Even if its just the smallest movement, you have to make it seem like it’s a human being and nobody is ever just completely stiff.”
The cast found that, rather than over exaggerating with the puppets, subtlety was key.
“What we had to learn was that, the more honest the puppet was, the better,” Horan said. “At first, I was trying to make (the puppet) this cartoon.”
For some cast members, connecting to characters was somewhat seamless, as their own personalities seemed almost to mirror that of their puppet counterparts.
“I relate to my character… in many different ways,” Horan said. “(Kate) has a lot of… personality traits that remind me of myself. She wants to be a good person, and wants everybody to like her … I really lucked out with getting a part that was so similar to me.”
Others, however, did more digging to connect to more abstract traits shared with their characters.
“At first I found it very hard to connect with Trekkie in being a chronic masturbator,” said Mahlon Raoufi, a sophomore performance major. “He watches a lot of porn, and I don’t even have time to watch some porn… but I was able to connect with his passion. He’s very passionate about this one thing, and that’s just like my passion with other things.”
After becoming comfortable with the technique, actors were able to use much of their previous training in their new characters. As the puppets became extensions of the actors’ bodies, working with them became like doing a regular scene without a puppet. At this point, the cast put the “honesty” back into the show.
“This is a puppet show with people in it; it is not a show with puppets in it,” said Gallahan, attributing the quote to Matt Johnson. “The focus is these puppets that we’re giving life to. It’s their stories, not the other way around.”
The VIP show “Avenue Q” will open Friday Nov. 9, with a VCU Theatre Student opening Nov. 10. The show will run Nov. 15-17 and Nov. 29 – Dec. 1 at 7:30 pm, Nov. 11, 18 and Dec. 2 at 3:00 pm.