How 'Strange New Worlds' Made Sure the Puppet Episode Still Felt Like 'Star Trek'

gizmodo.com: The long-awaited puppet episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds beamed onto Paramount+ this week, maybe the most out-there swing yet for a show that never met a gimmick it didn’t like. But much like season two’s musical episode, “Subspace Rhapsody,” season four’s “Level-Five Transporter Accident” manages to still feel like Star Trek—despite the fact that most of the characters have gotten a Jim Henson’s Creature Shop makeover.

Logan Square Neighbor's Puppet Web Series A 'Kid Show For Adults'

blockclubchicago.org: Spoon, Scribbles and Grandpa have been tasked with teaching aliens about Earth. The puppets are characters in Logan Ludwig’s web series “For Alien Eyes Only,” a puppet comedy show about a package of VHS tapes and a television sent into space in hopes that other life forms would find them and learn about Earth. The web series releases episodes about once per month, with five out so far.

Puppetopia: The Magnificent Ms. Pham

New York Theater: This elaborate, tuneful puppet musical doesn’t just tell the story of the journey of Kim Pham from Vietnamese “hometown girl” riding a water buffalo to young romantic in Saigon to war refugee “boatperson” to mother of four sons in Houston, Texas. It threads the tale with Vietnamese history and mythology, populates it with elephants, lions, dragons and demons, presents it as shadow puppetry and a contemporary downtown spin on traditional Vietnamese water puppetry (complete with a stage-wide pool of water), and accompanies it with sixteen songs from rock to pop to country – all in 60 minutes. It’s a lot to take in: clever and colorful, but also crowded and confusing.

Paddington Bear costume designer ‘overwhelmed’ by response to musical’s puppet

Yahoo News Canada: Costume and creature effects designer Tahra Zafar has worked on a number of productions and national events, including the 2012 London Olympics where she met the late Queen to design a replica wig for a stunt double for a James Bond sketch.

‘Sex Lives of Puppets’ explores candidly carnal conversations about sex, no strings attached

Chicago Sun-Times: Nothing ruins a Las Vegas sex party like a phone call from your spouse in which she explains that she’s just discovered a lump in her breast. Sex is messy, complicated; it is true for humans and, it turns out, for puppets too. They have hang-ups. They’ve got saggy bits. They enjoy kinks.

Chicago hosts a festival entirely dedicated to puppetry—and you won’t believe what it has in store

www.timeout.com: Since the dawn of time—or at least since someone first glued string to a wooden limb—puppetry has been one of the world’s most polarizing art forms. Some find puppets downright adorable; others are still unpacking childhood trauma involving carved smiles and unblinking eyes. Chicago, however, has clearly chosen a side. The city’s appetite for puppets is downright ravenous, which is why the 8th Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival kicks off its 12-day takeover tomorrow, January 21.

'Broadway Is Built for the Dreamers': Rob Lake and Kermit the Frog on the Magic of Theatre

Playbill: It’s a Monday morning, and I'm the most nervous I’ve ever been in my career. I’m about to interview one of my childhood heroes, and he is a two-foot-tall amphibian. “Hi ho, Jeffrey,” he says with that instantly recognizable voice that transports me right back to my childhood home, watching The Muppets on TV. Yeah, I’m sitting across from Kermit the Frog and next to him, illusionist Rob Lake, radiates the quiet assurance of someone who understands how to create wonder right in front of your eyes. “There’s just something magical about live theatre,” Kermit says, almost shyly. “Especially with a little extra magic from Rob Lake.”

Why Jim Henson should be recognised as one of the foremost creators of fairytales on screen

theconversation.com: In March 1955, an 18-year-old Jim Henson built a puppet from his mother’s old coat, a pair of blue jeans and some ping pong balls. The lizard-like creation first appeared on Afternoon, a television series on Washington D.C.’s WRC-TV, but became a regular on the five-minute Sam and Friends puppet sketch comedy show from May 1955. Over 70 years, the creature evolved into Kermit. The bright green frog now is a cultural icon.

Puppets on Stage in November

New York Theater: There are puppets in long-running New York shows like “The Lion King” and “The Little Shop of Horrors,” muppets are making their Broadway debut (albeit briefly) in “Rob Lake Magic with special guests the Muppets.”

Mr Squiggle, Blackboard and Gus the Snail: inside the wonderful world of puppet-maker Norman Hetherington

Television & radio | The Guardian: Norman Hetherington’s love of drawing and puppets came together when he created Mr Squiggle, the ‘man from the moon’ with a pencil for a nose. His impatient sidekick was Blackboard: ‘Hurr-ry up!’

Disney Cruise Line Is Enhancing Entertainment Through Storytelling And Technology

www.forbes.com: The Disney Destiny, Disney Cruise Line’s seventh cruise ship, will launch later this year. The vessel is themed around the stories of heroes and villains. One story that will be performed inside the Walt Disney Theater is Disney Hercules, a Broadway-style retelling of the classic animated film. The show will feature larger-than-life musical numbers, puppets, cutting-edge technology and more to bring new energy to the stage adaptation of Hercules.

How Into the Woods' Milky White Became the Toast of Moo-sical Theatre

Playbill: Never work with children or animals goes the common stage idiom; the original wordsmith clearly never met actor Kennedy Kanagawa, who is currently starring in Broadway’s Into the Woods as the audience favorite: the cow Milky White.

From Puppets to Apocalyptic Series About Viruses, Jaymes Neon Knows How to Outfit a Character

Portland Monthly: Jaymes Neon née Hansen has been around the Portland wardrobe block. Between selling her reworked vintage pieces and handmade designs at indie boutique Seaplane and glamming out GLOW-style wrestling costumes for a Menomena music video (full disclosure: I was one of the wrestlers) in the early aughts to blinging out animation puppets for Bent Image Lab, she’s become an essential component of the city’s fashion world.

How 'Pinocchio' Team Turned the Actor Into a Puppet Without VFX

Variety: Matteo Garrone’s retelling of “Pinocchio” got a surprise boost when his spin on the children’s classic made the Academy shortlist for hair and makeup. Rather than rely on visual effects, he called on Mark Coulier to realize his vision and transform the actor into the puppet who becomes a boy.

With French Theaters Closed, Puppetry Takes Center Stage

The New York Times: In December, while French theaters remained shut because of the pandemic, Hubert Mahela was able to perform his latest show a dozen times. The reason? He makes puppet shows for young audiences, who happened to be in school — and in need of entertainment.

Giant refugee puppet to walk from Syria to UK in public art event

World news | The Guardian: A giant puppet of a nine-year-old refugee girl will travel 4,971 miles (8,000km) from the Turkey-Syria border through Europe to the UK in what is being billed as one of the most ambitious public artworks ever attempted.

The Good Chance team behind The Jungle, the celebrated dramatisation of refugee life in Calais, is teaming up with the creators of the War Horse puppets to present an adventurous work that will last from April to July next year.

A ‘Puppet Slam’ Hosted By Clowns Is The Most Joyful Meeting On Zoom

The Theatre Times: It’s late on a Friday night in July and I’m setting up my kitchen for co-hosting an online puppet cabaret, Slamalicious, with the Calgary Animated Object Society (CAOS). This raucous, interactive slam with a pirate theme is hosted by clowns and will feature new works by a roster of both established and emerging puppeteers.

Online alchemy with the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival

Performing Arts Feature | Chicago Reader: Shadow and light. Wood and paper. Dust and clay. Alchemy. These are the tools of Chicago’s master puppeteers. Within the implacable constraints of quarantine, they remain—as ever—monarchs of infinite space, conjuring sentience where none exists and creating vast worlds even as a pandemic walls us away in spaces that often feel small enough to be bound by a nutshell. Of all the live art forms, puppetry is arguably the one most readily adapted to the privations of lockdown.

Sleight of Screen

Chicago magazine | August 2020: A group of puppeteers huddles around an array of vintage overhead projectors. A meticulous cutout of a London skyline moves up across the light box, the projected image suggesting a camera panning down. Cut to another projector, where the silhouette of a quill touches the silhouette of an inkwell; elsewhere on stage, a foley artist creates the tapping sound of the quill on the jar. On the other side of the stage, an actor’s shadow casts against another screen.

“We Decided Early On That There was Never Going to Be A Single Lock-off Shot”: DP Erik Wilson on The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance

Filmmaker Magazine: The original Dark Crystal was released on December 17th, 1982 , four days before my fifth birthday. I don’t remember exactly when my mom took me to see it. I can only tell you that when she did, the movie–and its lizard-like villains, the Skeksis—scared the crap out of me. There is a generation of kids who were similarly terrified and enthralled by the film, which was much darker than unsuspecting parents anticipated from Jim Henson, the man behind The Muppets and Sesame Street.