The Demon being Head and Hands spanning 30 feet across the whole upper procenium and mounted to an electrically controlled gantry ( used for setting the spot lights ) which swept out and up across the audience. Pretty Spectacular...and a Royal Pain to pull off!
The components of this last puppet were HUGE and required as many hours to produce as all the other pupets combined. The Head was 10 feet wide and 9 feet tall, and each hand spanned 12 feet and was 10 feet high. Even with the all foam rubber construction these parts were bulky and difficult to operate so high in the air.
At the top is my initial sketch, breaking down the dimensions...and at the bottom the actual scaled patterns. I would place these sheets in the Art-O-Graph ( an optical projector used to reduce or enlarge a drawing onto a surface for re-scaling) and then draw each pattern onto Kraft paper in actual size. Then the patterns were traced onto the foam rubber sheets, cut and glued together ( with thick wire support included where the piece needed to be molded to shape.)
As I've said THE PUPPETMASTER was a very unusual and dynamic showcase for my talents as a designer and puppeteer and Those who were lucky enough to get tickets will never forget what they saw at the CARAVAN OF DREAMS in downtown Fort Worth. I'm proud of the work I did.
If you would like to see this show and others from THE HIP POCKET THEATRE visit
http://www.youtube.com/user/HipPocketMemories
Next time I'm going back to CASA MANANA ... but not during the era I was employed there.
I've come across a small archive of material which my mother saved that deals with Broadway Legend MARY MARTIN ( before she was famous), a couple of Dancing Brothers and a Beauty Queen from Weatherford, Texas, BILLY ROSE, FANNY BRICE ...
and the Original Casa Manana from 1936.
It's quite a story...and I thought I would share it....
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