JUNE 2000

The last meeting of the year before the Summer break was also a Bon Voyage party for David Sleeper, who is moving to Naples Florida in September. We had some special guests at the meeting as well--members from the Go Fer Dollies Doll Club who meet regularly in St. Paul.

The meeting started normally, President Vicky Kline had the day off and VP Brenda Noyed presided, at the bidding of King Paul who was crowned last year. See if you can pick him out.

Show and Tell:

Rich Lundberg showed us some props that he had built for one of his new shows.

And Kurt Hunter demonstrated a sock marionette, performing a song by the old time French performer Maurice Chevalier. The puppet and the number were a hit at the O'Neill Conference in Connecticut, from which Kurt had returned.

This actually happened later, but the picture works better here.

Joann Thyen, a member of the visiting doll club from St. Paul, was one of her group who shared some of the puppets and marionettes in their collections.

So far, everything was going normally, at least by our standards, when there arose from the audience an insurgent band of puppets and their operators, who were intent on deposing King Paul, and putting one of their own on the throne, making him King David, not to be confused with the one in the Old Testament of the Bible. King Paul was suddenly a commoner.

Meanwhile, the program went on. With the new king in a front row seat, Karen Backes directed a rehearsal of one of her shows, "The Ugly Duckling."

Backstage was a fully packed group of performers recruited both from the TCP members present and members of the Doll Club.

One rehearsal and then the show was presented.

And here they are. Hard to imagine that many people behind the stage, but they were all there, and behaved very well. For some members of the Doll Club this was their first experience as puppeteer performers.

The only people not backstage were King David and Karen Backes. Karen was suspected of being the real power behind the coup that removed the rightful king from power. The rightful king, by the way was biding his time, and also shooting video of the show.

Oh! And Look!

Justice prevailed. When newsletter editor Diane Rains arrived she played a key role in restoring King Paul to the throne..which was actually just a folding chair. But this is a low-budget monarchy.

The green character, who had a part in the coup, now groveled and swore his allegiance to the rightful king. It was forgiven, but will probably never be fully trusted.

As a late entry in Show and Tell, Diane brought up the lavishly decorated proscenium that she had created for her Punch and Judy stage. Many clever touches and jokes to be discovered in the side images.

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