UNDERNEATH THE TOP DOWN (The Scotland Show) HPT 1984

After the HIP POCKET THEATRE made their trip to Scotland to perform at the Edinburgh fringe festival, JOHNNY SIMONS wrote this delightful little fantasy play with music in which our local legend THE LAKE WORTH MONSTER is introduced to Scotland's LOCH NESS MONSTER. Nessie turns out to be just a wee little monster and was represented in the show by the puppet which I designed and made ( and ended up operating as well!Here with LAKE SIMONS).

The Real Loch Ness Monster also made an appearance as Dessie, Nessie's Mother. We used the Brontosaurous left over from KING KONG in 1981 with some green sparkles and lighting for this.

I also operated the rather large Scotish gentleman seen above and the other puppets were redressed from THE BILLY CLUB PUPPETS in 1979 ( in fact the Scotsman's head was made for the Laughing Sailor figure in my production of SLEUTH at the WICHITA COMMUNITY THEATRE two years earlier, so we really were Recycling things!).

We had just done THE MALTESE FALCON out at Oak Acres...all in Black & White with an all black stage...very Noir...so the audience was shocked at the rollicking overabundance of Plaid and the stage repainted in every vibrant color of the universe for this show!