Library Lou Lou - The Hoozits, Summer 2008

The village of Yellow Springs, Ohio, has always had an amazing arts scene. Currently there is a great upwelling of the visual and performing arts here, with a summer long weekend festival scene for villagers and our many visitors. Village arts folks are busy and happy, with so many opportunities to share.

My own contribution is in the realm of puppetry - actually, a mix of storytelling and toy theater. My little troupe (one human and several toys) is called "Carolion And The HOOZITS,"* and we just performed a new show this Saturday past. True to the spirit of playing with toys, my shows usually come to me at the last minute, as this one did. I went to bed Friday night with the thought that I'd wake up with a great show idea on Saturday morning. Great ideas, of course, are one thing; a coherent, entertaining show is another.

Between waking up and set-up time (3:15 for the 4 p.m. performance) I develop the story line, paint eyes, nose, and mouth on a new character (a standing metal spinning top, named "Spinner"); cut out a cardboard "book" and cut holes in the covers (eaten by a bookapillar, of course - her name is "Lou Lou") and paint the covers, adding words that have holes eaten out of them, and get the paint dry in the sun; make our sign ("Carolion and the Hoozits in - LIBRARY LOU LOU - featuring Music Al the Xylogator, Spinner the Top, and Lou Lou the Bookapillar") and figure out how I'll hang it; pack "scenery scarves" and a "magic flute" into my Magic Hat; figure out logistics of performance set-up (a small take-apart plastic table with a cloth over it so I can hide things underneath, with a little stool so I can sit behind it when I'm not standing or walking). Then I shower and get dressed (puppeteer's black - all the way to my wrists and my toes - nothing else feels right), pack the car and head downtown.

I park in the grocery store parking lot, carry my puppets and simple set and sign to our performance location - a nice shady ex-restaurant space bounded by a wooden fence and the side of a bookstore and wrought iron picket fence. There is plenty of seating and enough shade. I set the backdrop (an old red bedspread) and hang our sign. Emily, my arts council coordinator hasn't arrived yet, so I decide to approach people with young children to let them know there will be a puppet show at 4 p.m. Emily arrives with more signage, and our audience begins to gather. I wait the requisite 10+ minutes past 4 (we operate on "Yellow Springs time"), and during that time I make small talk with the small people in the audience. One little boy explains to us that you don't have to have a lot of performers - that one person can just change voices and make us believe that there are lots of characters. He knows my style - he and I go back a few library storytimes together. I say, "You're right! Maybe one day you'll be a puppeteer!" He beams.

Show time!

I introduce Music Al the Xylogator first, and we sing his signature song to the accompaniment of the rainbow xylophone which is his spine. Al then tells me he wants to go to the library to find a new book. I say, "But Al! You have 50 zillion books at home!" Al responds, "Yeah, but you've read them to me 50 zillion times!" To which I say, "But you asked me to......" But Al is bored with his books at home, so we begin to walk "to the library," along the edge of the little stage. One little boy in the audience warns Al not to get too close to the edge of the stage, or he might fall off "into the water." Al says that he likes the water - that he even sleeps in a wet bed (the swamp) and loves it that way. We go merrily on our way, and Al decides to stop at his new friend Spinner's house, and take him along with us to the library.

Spinner, of course, is so pumped-up about going to the library that he begins to spin and spin, and I have to tell him to slow down or he might get dizzy and throw up. So on to the library we go, singing a little song about that. Finally at the library we talk about being in the World of Imagination. I say, "Good thing I brought my Magic Hat!" and begin to pull scarves out of it, to put in the hands of little audience volunteers. Yellow for the Sun, green for the Trees, and a flowered scarf for the Flowers. We make up a little story about Sun, Trees, and Flowers, and then our volunteers return to their seats. Music Al and Spinner and I find just exactly the book we want, yay! But when we pull it off the shelf, it has big holes chewed in the front and back covers, and all the pages have been eaten. Suddenly Lou Lou appears and confesses to having eaten all this, because she's a bookapillar and she's planning to make a coccoon and become a bookerfly. She's afraid that the librarians will discover her and put her out of the library.

The solution? I decide to pay for the damaged book, so we can take Lou Lou home with us. That way she can be safe to spin her coccoon. Spinner is delighted, and volunteers to help with the spinning. So - it all works out in the end. For the very, very end we sing a goodbye song, with Al's accompaniment.

After the show, children always want to have a visit with Music Al. He's a popular guy. It's a good way for me to wind down, finish out the performer energy, and get back to my everyday self. After a while of visiting Al and our new hit star, Spinner - and after some photos taken by parents - I tell my friends that Al and Spinner and Lou Lou have to take their naps. I tuck Al into the bottom of the Hoozits' basket, and tuck in Lou Lou and Spinner as well, with the Magic Hat and the Scenery Scarves.....Basket closed, sign and backdrop down, little table taken apart and put in its bag....We're ready to go. Emily has children's arts activities set up, and community volunteers there to help. It's another great arts afternoon in Yellow Springs.

Remembering Princess Zucchinia - 1984

When my younger daughter Corrie was seven years old, she and I started a puppet company. We called ourselves PUMPARILLA PUPPETS. Our first show was "The Humpty Show," based on the tragi-comic tale of Humpty-Dumpty. Corrie was the voice and manipulator of the lovely Princess Zucchinia, a little puppet who had such a love for zucchini that she had turned green from eating it all the time. I was the voice and manipulator of the Sad-and-Lonely King (sad in part because his daughter never listened to him.) "I'm the sad-and-lonely King, hoya-hoya-hoya" he would sing, dancing a sort of Russian dance in his blue and red satins and his big gold crown. I also spoke and manipulated Humpty Dumpty, which was quite a challenge, since I had to hold the top of his head on with one finger through a pair of plastic loops inside his head until it was time for him to "break" his egg head. I also played "All-The-King's-Men," rather, the Potato-Skin Men, who happened to be fashioned from baked potato skins that I had hardened with acrylic gel, and mounted all together on a contraption of black-painted dowels. They all had black top hats. "Oh, we're the Potato-Skin Men! Humpty-Dumpty, diddle-de-umpty!" they sang.
Corrie had a lovely, clear way of speaking Princess Zucchinia. A born actress, she. We didn't have set lines - we always simply improvised on the story line, and somehow it always worked. Princess Zucchinia was a great friend of Humpty's, and she was really terribly concerned that he was showing off too much, and might fall off the wall - which he did. That meant that the Princess had to call on the Giants for help. Uh-oh! She carefully instructed them to be sure, absolutely certain, to give him a smooth ride in the stretcher on the way to the hospital.
Corrie and I were also the Giants. We put on hats and came out from behind the puppet theater, acting giant-y and carrying a puppet-sized stretcher with poor foolish Humpty lying on it, his egg-head definitely cracked. We spoke in "dumb giant" voices, and of course we got mixed up and turned the Princess's directions around backwards. Merrily we went, jostling the stretcher and singing "Bumpy-ride, bumpy ride" until, horror of horrors! Poor Humpty fell off the stretcher and the top of his head came off - and out came his brain (a fried egg sewn of white and yellow satin). Oh, dear! One of the giants - me actually - just happened to have a spatula - and flipped Humpty's fried-egg brain up-up-up like a flapjack, nearly flipping it out into the audience, and getting great giggles out of the delighted spectators. Finally, finally, the Giants managed to get the brain back into Humpty's poor broken head, and then they carried the stretcher to the "hospital" - back behind the puppet theater. Soon the show was done - Princess Zucchinia, in order to help Humpty get well and behave himself better, decided to cut back on the Zucchini. Go figure. Then the Sad and Lonely King was happy again at last; and - oh, happy day! - Humpty's head was mended.

Meet The Hoozits - Autumn 2005

As I walked past a little recycled children's clothing and toys store in Oak Ridge, Tennessee one day, I saw the most wonderful being posed in the window, looking right into my eyes. I couldn't get over this creature: a plushy light green long-armed big-eyed orangutan. I had to have it. My first thought was, "I'm going to have to get back into puppetry! This one belongs on stage!"
I went into the store and before I could reach for the orangutan, another being caught my eye: it was a hard plastic green alligator-xylophone on wheels, with big eyes looking - yes! - looking right at me! This one had a moveable jaw, and a pull-string. I could not resist. Now I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I'd be getting back into puppetry. How not?
In the next aisle there was another being - a floppy green-and-blue plush plaid dog. Of course this one was a member of our troupe, too. By the time I was finished in that store I had acquired Dr. Orangy-tangy, Music Al the Xylogator, and Nursie Nosey-Dog. There were several more to come. Within a few days we were joined by a very colorful McCaw; and then by Bunnee Rabbat, the long floppy-legged (knots for knees) fat-bodied lady rabbit made of an old chenille bedspread and big bright buttons. I'm still looking for her "Majeek Hat," her magic hat, where I am sure she lives. When we find it she will make her entrance before the audience by being pulled - and pulled - and - eeeeeeeee - pulled - POP! - from the hat. "Oh, my goodness! My Majeek Hat 'as shrunk! Eet ees too small for my skinny leetle self! Tch tch!" and like that.
As I gathered member after member of my new puppet troupe, I knew we had to have just the right name. Years before, when my daughter and I puppeteered together (she was seven; now she's nearing 30, and she's a professional actress and a new mom), we called our troupe "Pumparilla Puppets." I knew, now, that I wouldn't re-use that name; and I was waiting for just the right inspiration. Finally one morning I had the strongest sense that the spirit of Jim Henson was with me. I received some great hints and ideas, and very soon our name was apparent: The HOOZITS.
Every now and then The HOOZITS and I put on a little show. There's always a lot of audience participation: Dr. Orangy-Tangy likes to swing through the trees, so children and parents get to be her trees. Party-Hardy McGraw, the Real McCaw, loves to get audience members echoing his wild jungle sounds. And Music Al the Xylogator has a song to teach. He woke me up with it one morning, and now every show we do, Music Al insists on getting the audience to sing along while I play accompaniment on his little rainbow xylophone spine. Al's song goes like this:
Once upon a time, there was a Xylogator.....
His name was Music Al
And he was everybody's pal.