🚀 go-pugleaf

Index Number: 26965

[This is from the Amputee Conference]

In a message to Sheila Fava <12-14-92 19:52> Wayne Briggs wrote:

WB> ...attention are you doing any semi-pro or amaturer acting now ?
WB> Bet you could do some great plays related to humans who are
WB> challenged in various ways.

    I did some off-OFF B'way plays when I was working as an art therapist in
 Hartford.  It was fun to be the costume designer and occasional thespian.
 Then I moved to a psych hospital in Washington, DeeCee, did some Art Therapy
 and more off-OFF B'way stuff.  You'd think I'd learn there's some higher pay
 in working ON-B'way!  Did I learn that money can't buy poverty?  Noooo.

Ever hear of "Kids On the Block"?  They are a group of kid PUPPETS with
 various disABILITIES (and a few puppets who think they are disABLED -- like
 the puppet who has four older brothers.  Gosh!  I had seven older brothers and
 didn't feel unduly threatened.  Now, if there had been eight brothers....)

So, I am a puppeteer.  These puppets are not the little "Punch'n'Judy"-size
 puppets.  These puppets are the size of an average 12-year-old and they must
 stand on a table with the puppet operator (dressed in black) behind them.  The
 puppets perform at schools -- because the student of today is the employer of
 tomorrow.  Children relate to a non-threatening puppet better than they relate
 to an adult.  The puppet teaches the child not to be afraid of the person with
 a disABILITY and that these puppets (all kid puppets) have probs as well as
 friends, support and family.

I am the hands of the two-person-operator deaf puppet, 'Mandy Puccini'.  She
 has become a very popular puppet (but not as popular as 'Mark Reilly', our
 Cerebral Palsy puppet.  'Mark' is very outgoing!) because she knows sign
 language, teaches the students to sign a song and goes to a special school.
 She is somewhat oral and the Moderator of the show is a good interpreter.
However, 'Mandy' cannot go off on a signing tangent because the Moderator is
 not -that- good of an interpreter.

We do shows for PTA's but only if the parents bring their kids to the PTA
 meeting.  Reason?  Adults are -incredibly- reserved at question-and-answer-
time...while kids will ask ay kind of question ...and that breaks the ice for
 the adult.  We are not councilors and have encountered some stickey wickets at
 those puppet shows.  They are fun to do....I can act with other puppets and
 inter-act with them and I enjoy talking about them.

Goll-eee....you've gone to as many schools as I have.....

I will be away from my computer from December 20th til after the Holidays.
 You would think my friend would invite me to -BOISE_IDAHO- for the 4th of July
 celebrations.  Right?  Did she?  Noooo.  I am already going into hyperthermia
 and computer withdrawal!  The thought of minus-four-degrees up there leaves me
 galvanized!  Well, I will dig out the musty thermals....Mush, you huskies!

Happy Holidays, Wayne....

                    ---Sheila

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