Son of Ghepetto (Not the Little Wooden Head)

Sketch for the first full marionette I designed, carved and assembled for Le Theatre de Marionette's production of "The Little Mermaid".




Tickets for the Little Mermaid show at Le Theatre de Marionette for the 2ooo season. I just wanted to show you these tickets because even a little theatre in a mall in Dallas goes to the trouble of printing nice looking tickets.




The finished puppet hanging in repose backstage after one of our shows. I wish it was a better picture but all I had was an Instamatic that was used for taking pictures of the birthday kid for the day.

Most of what I know of puppet repairs and building I've taught myself during our tenure at Le Theatre de Marionette. While there we learned to operate marionettes but quickly learned that there was no one on staff that had the knowledge to repair or build any new puppets.

As time went on I slowly taught myself how to repair broken puppet noses or replace an arm or carve a hand too damaged to repair. I had learned some of the basics of wood carving from my father, Alberto Sr., and applied it to carving marionettes but also read up on the subject and watched instructional videos. I also had the good fortune of having some of the best puppet builders and performers in the country just a phone call away and also minutes from our home.

When the opportunity to make a marionette from scratch finally came I felt pretty confident. It was for "The Little Mermaid", a show which they had built a few years earlier but were missing the protagonist, the sea witch Ursulla though they still had the land- walking, two- legged land version. Not having any photo reference of the original marionette I set out to design a new one. I produced several sketches, one which you see above was that was selected by Mr. John Hardman, the theatre owner and producer. I seem to have lost the other sketches somewhere between our "moves".

I modeled the face and hands on the "land-walking" version sculpting the face in clay then making a plaster mold to which I pressed plastic wood into for the final positive of the face. The rest of the puppet was carved from basswood using hand tools given to me by my father. Thanks, Dad. I painted it with acrylic paints and the costume was made from dyed muslin and burlap. It worked really well for the run of the show and never required any repairs. All in all, it wasn't too shabby for my first one. Now I have to learn how to build a theatre to house all our marionettes and assorted costumes and props as well as do shows. Man, do I need to win the lottery or what?!