What puppetry groups or courses could I join in Australia?

Every so often I get questions about groups for puppetry in Melbourne, and since I live in Melbourne this is a fairly easy question for me to answer. So I thought I’d post the most recent Q&A here. Most of my reply works just as well for other Australian cities (Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, and Hobart), since there really isn’t all that much available for the general public to get involved with. If you’re from one of those other cities - or anywhere else in Australia - then exchange any mention of a Melbourne-based company with one of the larger companies listed here or here. For the most part, the best advice is to check out UNIMA Australia for something in your area; and if nothing is suitable, to avoid ‘real world’ puppetry altogether and visit the following online puppetry forums or purchase some books from Amazon. … Now for the actual reply:

Names and personal info removed/changed and posted with permission of the author. Questions are in block quotes, my response is below. (There is a bit of back-and-forth discussion with this one, don’t skip it, because there’s some good stuff in the replies)

I will add one more thing: Americans and other countries are lucky, as they have local/state guilds to join as well as the huge national centre of UNIMA (the international puppetry organisation, which has branches in most countries). We in Oz only have UNIMA Australia, and no local or state guilds, which hardly fills up the large space of our country in terms of offering ways to get together with the local puppetry community. If we were in Europe, Asia or the US, the answer would be hugely dissimilar.

Hey,
would you recommend any puppetry courses or groups in Melbourne that I could join? (I know you’ve got a list but what would you recommend?)
Cheers,
‘D’

There are no specific groups that you could join really. In Australia, we have one umbrella organisation, which is UNIMA Australia. However, they don’t run events, they just act as a conduit for people to get information about puppetry that’s locally based. Additionally, there’s no such group that is open to the general public for a wide range of events: that is, if you want to do a workshop, you have to find a company that does a workshop. If you want to perform or audition, then you’d have to look at a different set of companies. And so on. There’s nothing really that would suit beginners outside of an occasional workshop or being an audience member of a show.

For courses you are best off re-reading my list. Sadly the only full-time course at VCA has been cancelled, and short courses do not exist. One day workshops are your best bet, and even then it’s very limited. (Particularly so for adults, but children’s workshops are often found at community festivals, Artplay - at Fed Square - and with small puppetry companies) You may wish to check out Polyglot Puppet Theatre, as I believe they do have classes for adults as well as kids.

This frustrates me as well, so maybe one day I’ll get off my butt and organise a regular group meeting/workshop/event for puppeteers and those interested.

I will add that you’re not limited to what’s in Melbourne: many international puppeteers are getting online and doing live workshops. A really worthwhile resource is this video chat/workshop. A Canadian puppet maker has been running weekly live workshops for a while now. The great thing is that his schedule is roughly in the middle of the day Australian time, and the workshops are recorded so you can play them back later if you miss them. (There are also a couple of really good forums: Puppets and Stuff, Puppet Hub, and the email list Puptcrit. All worthy reading and large communities who share info. There are also other people who have been starting to run entirely online workshops, using patterns, downloadable information, videos, and so forth) There are also plenty of excellent books to be found via Amazon, and a couple of good UK-based sellers. Although it does cost more money getting them shipped from overseas, it would cost the same amount to take part in a workshop (which you’d have to find first anyway) and are often worth their weight in gold.

Having said all of that, it also depends greatly on what kind of things you want to learn. Learning to perform with puppets is vastly different than learning how to make them; likewise, learning to make/use a marionette is going to be vastly different than making/using a muppet-type. Most workshops will focus on one or two different types of puppets, rather than the whole gamut.

Personally, I’ve found it infinitely more useful to purchase some good books and work on my own in my spare time. When and if I need assistance, my first port of call is usually one of the above online forums. Puppeteers are not at all like magicians in the sense that there is no fear or worry of sharing information: someone is most likely bound to offer some sort of advice regardless of their own professional interest/concerns over losing income by sharing tips. Indeed, I’ve found that by searching those sites, many of my questions have already been asked and answered. 

If you let me know specifically what you’re interested in, then I can perhaps give you some references to puppet companies who run workshops in the area you’re looking to learn about.

thanks for that!
Is it possible to undertake puppetry at Swinburne [link to be added] without doing the whole course?

Cheers,
‘D’

No, I don’t believe it is (having been a student there myself, I know of about one or two people who managed to do the course in part-time hours – although ended up dropping out in one case - but never heard of anyone doing only one component). The way the course is structured it wouldn’t be easily doable anyway, since the components usually require you to mix in skills and work from other subjects, and the end-of-semester productions require undertaking a wide range of roles (which you learn in the other subjects). If you can stomach the length, I go into great detail about what the course is like here [link to be added] and how the puppetry component fits in.

[At this point, I discuss talking to Al Martinez Studios, who closed shop last year, and so is no longer relevant to this article.]

As you can see from the information provided on this website, getting started as a puppeteer in Australia isn’t at all easy. In fact, this is how I’ve come to post all these articles in the first place: I couldn’t find any information myself about getting started, and so began to collect links and resources over the years. Puppetry for children is well supported and easily found, but as an adult, it’s difficult to discover anything that is local. Whilst I know that there are many people who strive to make things better, and there is certainly no lack of passion or want of trying by local puppeteers, there doesn’t seem to be an improvement since I started looking into it half a decade ago. 

The fact of the matter is that formal training or small groups that meet regularly is not available, and as such the best and only way to get involved is to simply start learning at home. If you are looking to learn performance, then there are many video tutorials online; books to buy; and puppets to obtain and practice with at home. If you’re looking to learn building and design, then again, forums, books and patterns are the best way to begin. And in either case, there should be a puppetry company local to you who might enjoy your assistance as a volunteer: you might not do anything related to the actual puppets, but you will at least make contacts and see what the puppeteers do (and if you’re lucky, you might get a free ticket to a show or be allowed to play with the puppets). It’s not much, but at least it’s a start!