Eric Brooks has been with the Puppet Co. for nearly five years, and has appeared in numerous roles. He will be playing the Prince as a live person in “Snow White and the 7 Dwarves,” as well as two of the dwarf puppets. What some folks may not know is that he works hard behind the scenes, too. Eric created all the feet for the puppets with seven different shoe styles, covered the heads Christopher Piper sculpted with the muslin and hardener used to toughen them up, is sculpting the scenery pieces designed by Allan Stevens, and is composing the music for the production. He also curates the Playhouse Puppetry Slams we hold for adults twice a year.

Terry is Vice President of the Puppet Co., and a marvelous puppet master. He is the man responsible for the wonderful displays in our lobby windows, including the current exhibit of his own work. Terry came up from Richmond to lend his many talents to the production of “Snow White and the 7 Dwarves” last week. He smoothed out the rough spots of countless dwarf feet – (well, actually 14), as well as all the heads, and lots of hands. He also worked with MayField Piper in figuring out the costume patterns for the Tudor style garments the actors will wear.

Seven Dwarves require so many different elements for the puppets to be complete. Fortunately, in addition to our own staff, we have some very nice friends who volunteered to come by and help with some of the intensive labor it takes to get all the surfaces nice and smooth. Modeling paste and sandpaper are used on the hands, feet and faces to give the puppets a very polished appearance. Ingrid Crepeau is known for her giant dinosaur puppets seen, among other places, most summers on the Puppet Co. Main Stage. She shared some new tools and methodology with us, and made the time go by faster with her stories. Marianne Murphy is a former intern, and puppet film maker. When she is not wowing audiences with her videos at the Playhouse Puppetry Slam, she volunteers to help us out. Also helping out, but not pictured, is our good friend and TPC Board Vice President, Terry Snyder. Terry is a puppet master in his own right, and creates our wonderful lobby exhibits, this month with the puppets he created for Theatre IV’s “Velveteen Rabbit” in Richmond, VA. He is also a regular at the Playhouse Puppetry Slam. He came up from Richmond just to give us a hand. It’s good to have friends.

Puppet Co. co-founder Allan Stevens has designed the sets for all 22 productions in our repertory. In this post, Allan is pictured making a model of the set for “Snow White and the 7 Dwarves.” The model is formed mostly of cardboard, and is made to scale so it can be used to determine how the audience will be able to see all the elements of the production, and show our builders the measurements for the full-size set. The set must accommodate the puppets, live actors and projections (in the center frame).

In addition to the puppets and actors, there will be rear-projected animations and scenery. This is a test animation, using a rough model of the “Strong Dwarf” fashioned after one of the puppets featured in this series. Costume and scenery designs are not complete yet, so there will be some filling out to do, and the animations will be far more complex.

Most of the shapes for the seven dwarves are created on a lathe. For those that have not seen one before, we offer this video. In this case, the lathe bench is tipped on its edge so the very large work can be turned almost like a potter’s wheel. The tool being used is a Surform® plane. We also use coarse and fine sandpapers. Because the blocks of Styrofoam® are not wide enough for most figures, we glue two pieces together to turn them on the lathe, then split them again to hollow out the insides. Pictured is the turned piece split in two. We place a metal shaft up the middle to help steady the piece. Otherwise, it could fly off the lathe and cause trouble. See previous posts for pictures of some of the hollowed out pieces. After hollowing, covering and installation of the mechanics, the pieces will be glued back together again.

By now you may have noticed that each of the seven dwarf puppets has a unique shape, and in the story will have a unique ability as well. For the dwarf with a keen sense of smell, we use a 16″ styrofoam ball, which is hollow inside. This saves a lot of work and mess as you will see in the next post. We used a bow cutter from Hot Wire Foam Factory on a makeshift jig to get an even cut. The foam hemisphere was slowly pushed into the stable hot wire cutter, slicing through the foam quite easily. The top part is used for the head, the bottom ring for the shoulders.

Features are added to the face, then covered with muslin and a product called Sculpt or Coat, used as if with papiér maché. The shoulder ring is glued to a second foam hemisphere to make the body, which will also be covered in the “muslin maché” for strength. The nose was made separately in order to be animated. Arms, legs, and mechanics are still to be added.

Since there are seven dwarfs (or “dwarves” to use the Tolkienian spelling as we do in our title), we need 14 hands. We accomplish this by casting them in neoprene rubber. First, we model the hands out of plasticine (modeling) clay (1). We chose to use a one-piece mold, rather than one that could break in half to make removal easier. This method is a little tricker, but the end result is usually smoother and requires less finishing. We are also combining both left and right hands in the same mold. The models are place in a cardboard box with the edges sealed (2). Plaster is mixed (by Christopher Piper (3)), and poured (4) over the model, filling the box to the top (5) and left to harden. When the mold is hard, the clay is removed and cleaned (6). The mold is filled with neoprene, and after a couple of hours, the excess liquid is poured off, leaving the rubber to set overnight. The next day the hands are pulled from the mold and left to cure and harden (7).

(Left) This is one of the dwarf puppets opened up to show the mechanics. There is a wooden block to support the arms and head rods. (Right) The puppet parts assembled. The head and body are lathed styrofoam, the legs are in part a floral accessory and the arms are “pool noodles.”

The mechanics inside the puppet head consist of a block of wood with a dowel inserted in the center, and a hinged piece of wood to move the mouth. The block of wood is epoxied into the styrofoam, and will be reinforced with fabric bindings. The dowel has a hole bored in the center to hold the main rod used to turn the head. The hinged piece will have the jaw fastened to the end, and a spring to keep the mouth closed until a string is pulled to open it. The features have been smoothed out and augmented with a material called “Paper Clay.”

(Left) This is the base shape of a dwarf puppet head, made of blue styrofoam and cardboard. While construction is mostly additive to the lozenge shape, some indentation was made around the eyes and lips to bring out cheeks and other features. After the mechanics are built inside the head, the features will be built up with paper clay, and the whole piece will be covered with fabric and glue in the manner of paper-mâché to strengthen the piece. (Right) The dwarf puppet body is hollowed out, mechanics added, then rejoined. Every effort is made to keep the puppets as light and as strong as possible.

We are experimenting with how best to construct the seven dwarves in “Snow White and the 7 Dwarves” and since each character will have a distinctive symmetrical shape, I thought I would see how well we could make our wood lathe work with rigid insolation foam. This is a type of foam that is more dense than typical white Styrofoam, yet still very light and workable. The work was too large to work in the standard area of the lathe, but could be attached to a platform jutting past the bench. Because the work was so large and heavy (relatively) the bench had to be set on end so the work could be handled vertically. The foam was too soft for even very long screws alone to hold it in place, so an aluminum shaft was used through the center to secure the piece. Various Surform® rasps and sandpaper were used in the sculpting.

Christopher Piper has finished the script for “Snow White and the 7 Dwarves,” and production has started in ernest. TPC staff had a read-through of the script yesterday. Allan Stevens outlined some costume and scenery design ideas, Christopher Piper will create the puppets. MayField Piper will make the costumes, and Eric Brooks will compose the music. Of course, as usual everyone will be involved with all aspects of the production.