Roger Mara's Workshop

During our trip to Seattle we had hoped to visit with Roger Mara, a puppeteer friend of ours that had been diagnosed with cancer. Sadly he passed away before we arrived. Roger was an amazing and talented puppeteer and puppet builder. His early death was a great loss to the puppetry community. When Patrick and I were just starting out, we often looked to Roger for help and advice. Drawing on his years of experience, he taught us how to run a successful and professional puppet company. While up in Seattle, Elizabeth Luce, his long time friend and collaborator kindly let us tour his workshop, so that we could see some of the new puppets he created since relocating to the Pacific Northwest. Over the coming days I'll be sharing some of Roger's puppets with you. I hope his work inspires you as much as it inspires me.

Rob D'Arc

Rob started in puppetry as a walking puppet stage for Knott's Berry Farm, and a puppet "boothie" at the Renaissance Pleasure Fair. In 1987, he founded Kidstuff Puppet Theater in Riverside, California. For 14 years he coordinated all elements of production, and created and performed over 30 original shows.

Rob currently tours with his puppet shows and his neo-vaudevillian act, Professor Humbug's Flea Circus, which can be seen on sunny weekends at Seattle's famous Pike's Place Market.

Click here to read his whole bio.

Friday Fun, The Fox Lantern

This puppet was designed and built by Sam Hale for The Fox Lantern. The puppet show playd July 29 - August 20 at the Centenary United Methodist Church in Little Tokyo, Los Angeles. Sam designed and built the puppets for the show with additional puppets built by Mirna Lozano & Jonathan Alvarez. The puppet show set in feudal Japan told its story non verbaly with table top puppets, and shadow puppets. It was directed by Leslie K Grey, and featued the performing talents of Same Hale, Michael Oosterom, Eli Presser & Janet Song. Original music was composed and performed by George Abe.