Puppet Kaos - where Kelvin Kao plays with puppets and tell random stories

This past weekend, we did another three performances. Two nights, and one matinee. Around half of the cast are people that did the previous show in May and the other half are people that just finished their classes at Puppet School. I thought that was a good mix, and we have some very capable performers.

Here’s a video of Lady Gaga’s “Born This Way”, as performed by the very talented Keith Ferguson.

http://youtu.be/rkmgSOOZRUI

Isn’t that fun?

Really, at this point, I was just there to have fun. Since I already did the show in May for four performances, this felt more like performances #5, #6, and #7 as opposed to a new show. And from experience, I knew that I could trust it to work out fine so I was very relaxed the entire time, possibly a little too relaxed. I knew exactly how much time we had for costume and puppet changes and so on, so I never felt rushed about anything. And really, I felt like I was just hanging out with friends. There just happened to be people watching.

And we had a very nice theater to perform in. The audio was set up so much better and there was an actual backstage. And we had really good people running tech. The lighting and sound was just run so smoothly. As someone that’s seen and done many student productions throughout college, I have lots of appreciations for this. The crowd was small (since we only did one week of marketing) but they were so enthusiastic that they sounded like a bigger crowd than they really were. Having a mix of old and new materials allowed us to do a lot more ambitious things, since we already had a foundation to build on.

One of the new number we added this time was Michael Jackson’s Thriller. Because of that, we had to learn this:

http://youtu.be/AVvnBiBYcvY

It was a fun challenge, since I am not, and have never been much of a dancer. But the dance instructor in that video got a series of videos that really broke down every single section of the dance and I was able to learn it through lots of Youtube watching and practicing. It actually turned out to be quite fun. Some of the stuff I learned I was able to apply to another song I was performing. So, hm, I probably learned more about dancing than puppeteering having done this show. Hm, didn’t expect that. And I am starting to pay a lot more attention to how people dance now. I also lost weight.

And I want to thank everyone for coming, whether you are here to support me or our mutual friends: Jay, Edmund, Angela, Clara, Alan, Terri, Heidi, Natalia, Kyle, Jenn.

And finally, this is a video of an exercise / practice from class (I think… I wasn’t in that class) of a song that ended up in the show. The version from the show was better, of course, since the video was from a few months earlier and things have since been polished more.

Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/SHAhwL5URcU

Comments(4)

Isn’t that a cool picture?

Last May, we did a puppet show called Puppet Jukebox. And now, we are bringing it back for another weekend of performances. So here it is, the sequel: Puppet Jukebox II: The Return of The Gaga.

It will be the same format. We are going to walk you through the history of music in the last century. We have a mix of people who have performed in the first one, such as myself, and a new group of graduates performing together. We have a mix of songs from the previous show and some new numbers. The theater is better, and the stuff we are doing is more ambitious. And it’s going to be fun.

So, if you are in the Hollywood area, here’s the info:
Opening night: December 10th, 8pm
Matinee: December 11th, 3pm
Closing night: December 11th, 7pm
at the Hudson Theatres
6539 Santa Monica Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90038-1548

For more info and tickets, visit http://www.puppetschool.com/pj/tickets.html

Here’s a video from the last performance:

http://youtu.be/9Mq_eMAoJFY

Comments(6)