Puttin' on the Mask at Le Theatre de Marionette

Pammy backstage at Le Theatre de Marionette in Dallas, Texas in 2000 with a genie mask for the marionette play Alladin and His Magic Lamp. The mask was designed and made by, you guessed it, Pammy and I.


WHASSUP!!! Raymond Banda, the lead puppeteer and a very funny guy, in the costume for the Genie minus the mask. The costume was designed and made by the multi-talented Tina Gromova.

During our time at Le Theatre de Marionette, we sometimes called upon to play characters in the show. This usually meant double, triple or quadruple duty depending on the show. Sometimes it meant you were operating a puppet on the bridge above the stage then hurrying down to raise or lower a drop or pull a prop off the stage. Sometimes you had to do all that plus going onstage, as was the case in the Alladin show, as the genie.

Even though the photo shows Raymond in the genie costume he wasn't the only one to play the part during the month-long run. That honor was shared by Raymond, Pam and myself. It's a challenge to move around backstage at a puppet theatre but even more so while wearing that kind of costume because everything is in miniature and in the dark. Not to mention the fact that the space betwen the proscenium and the bridge/flats, where the Genie sometimes entered, was better suited to three foot tall marionettes and not for full- sized humans in a billowy genie costume and mask.

Nonetheless, we persevered and finished the run, a little better off from the experience...I think. At least we were more in tune with the Force so we could puppeteer with our blaster shield down over our eyes. Cool!