Big Puppets Story Telling

Bigfork Almanac of the Seasons

Some big puppets are being made by Bigfork students for the community’s Wilderness Days parade and will star in The Almanac production on stage at The Edge Center later in June. What The Almanac is about and what these fourteen-foot characters do has yet to be decided. That is the next step in this special “devised theater” event by The Edgewild Players.

Devised or collaborative theater is usually developed by the performers as will be the case with The Almanac. The first step is on June 4th with two audition/brainstorming sessions from 2PM to 4PM and 4PM to 6PM where anyone can join in and help with virtually anything they would like to see shown on-stage.

Come with your stories, tall tales, recipes, local history, anecdotes, music poems or ANYTHING at all. All contributions will be considered. The themes will develop around the four seasons of the area like any almanac should. Participants can be any age, can participate in anyway they want and just enjoy the experience. Devised theater is just what it sounds like. The action, script, topics and results are created in the process.

The June 4th sessions will just be the start. From June 5th through the 8th, the ideas from the brainstorming sessions will turn into the action of the play. Participants will help build, write, sing and develop a finished product on June 9th which is the Bigfork Wilderness Days celebration. The puppets created by students will be in the parade as a warm-up to the June 21 to 24th performances.

Theresa Linnihan, a New York puppet master, teacher, and performer is already teaching and supervising the making some of the puppets by students in 3rd through 6th grade. But, if the developing story needs different ones, they will be made to order. This process is a truly “blank canvas” and The Almanac will be the art we put on it. If you have ever had a story you want told, a song you want sung, history you want recorded, poem you want read, here is a chance to get it done..

The results of all this will be four performances of The Almanac at The Edge Center stage June 21st to 24th with performances at 7PM and Sunday at 2PM. If this sounds different, that is because it is…we don’t know what will develop, but we know it will be lots of fun…come join in.

This event is for the pure fun of community theater. Age does not matter or experience. This is a good chance to learn and work at something you may never get a chance to do again. Sound like fun? Come to Bigfork on the 4th and find out.