Evaluation : The Tragic Tale of Melissa Mchiney McNormous McWhale

Evaluation Of Final Performance : The Tragic Tale Of Melissa Mchiney McNormous McWhale.


When the performance started the I feel as though the timing of my pose was precise because I anticipated it and I used the physicality of my body to create levels so that others could be seen and really exaggerated my pose so that the audience could see the character I was impersonating. However I was disappointed with how I executed my movement when we had to freeze when Zayn turned around. The point of this was to manipulate Melissa’s intelligence (Zayn) and Mock her for being different and although that did come across as what we were doing - toying with her. I could have taken advantage of my body more and be more creative with my movement as much as I was in rehearsals. I also believe this is to do with spacing aswell because the positions and movement is quite random I feel like people kept changing the positions that they were doing so the blocking was not implemented into out performance because we changed it everytime. So I didn’t have much spacial awareness and I had to quickly freeze before the turned by around so it wasn’t exactly clean.
I noticed that at one point when Melissa finally catches us out and we run around, when we stop I stop behind Melissa and therefore now can not be seen by the audience.
       We created small scenes to represent the persecution of Melissa, I found that at the beginning of my scene, you couldn’t really tell what was happening, the timing was a bit off because I get picked up by Remel and put back on to the floor by the time I get to the floor Ryane and Leigham are supposed to be there standing in front of me in there abstract form but they weren’t so I had to improvise a bit. Coming to the end of the scene the lighting wasn’t on us enough but maybe that helped because it showed the darkness of persecution and at that moment I was on the floor being brutally kicked. So literally being kicked when I was down.
       In my opinion the partner work was really effective as I remember in that moment taking on all the emotion I imagined my character would have. I embodied her fear and became the victim, so reflecting back I used that fear and translated it through my movement emphasising my physicality. One thing I feel could have been improved was the dynamics of that particular scene. Because we were all doing the same movement as an ensemble we should be all positioned evenly, it would look more powerful and provoke more awareness to our theme.
        When I was being dragged by Zayn as one of her children I had to say my lines while being dragged and watching it back I feel like at first it wasn’t visible that I was talking, however people became more aware once they heard the strain in my voice because I was being dragged.

Avenue Q & Jim Henson Research

James Maury Henson , born September 24th 1936 and passed away May 16th 1990, was an American artist who achieved world wide fame for creating ' The Muppets' and 'Fraggle Rock'.

Jim Henson made the pioneering leap from the traditional hard materials of theatre puppetry to the flexibility of fabric and foam, transforming the art form for the new medium of television.

 In the 1960’s Jim created a team to help create his vision of desiging a unique look and style to endless characters. Jim encouraged his colleagues to explore and invent things that could seemingly be possible for example a dog flying a kite. 

In the 1970’s Hensons workshop had creatrd hundreds of characters for Sesame Street and The Muppets. Jim began a partnership with British illustrator Brian Froud, with help of artisans Jim created a new entity he named Jim Henson’s Creature Shop. The group was soon onto cutting edge of effects innovation and they were set to take on groundbreaking Henson projects like Labryrinth.

The innovations of the London Creature shop and the New York workshop came together in the 1980’s with the development of Fraggle Rock.

The Muppets were created by Jim Henson and his wife Jane Henson in 1955, they are an ensemble cast of puppet characters known for their self-aware,burlesque style of variety sketch comedy.

The Muppets originated in the short-form television series Sam and Friends, which aired from 1955 to 1961. Following appearances on late night talk shows and in advertising during the 1960s, the Muppets began appearing on Sesame Street in 1969. The Muppets attained celebrity status and international recognition through their breakout roles in The Muppet Show (1976–1981), a primetime television series that garnered four Primetime Emmy Award wins and twenty-one nominations during its five-year run.

Disney acquired the Muppets in February 2004, allowing the characters to gain broader public exposure than in previous years.^[1][2][3]Under Disney, the Muppets achieved revitalized success, starring in two films - The Muppets (2011) and Muppets Most Wanted (2014) - as well as a short-lived primetime television series on ABC^{[4][5][6][7][8]} and a reboot of the Muppet Babies animated series. - Wikipedia

Kermit the Frog is Jim’s most well- known creation, his debut was in 1955 and he acts as a protagonist in most Muppet productions , most notably Sesame Street. Henson himself originally performed Kermit until his death in 1990. Worldwide Kermit is no longer seen as a puppet but as a person, he even has his own developed character biography. Kermit relationship with another muppet character, Miss Piggy, his volitile diva girlfriend. Increased his popularity wildly as people tuned in to witness the couples petty disputes. There relationship began in 1978 and ended finally in 2015 as the public felt Kermit was being abused by Miss Piggy. 

Miss Piggy and Kermit Interview

Avenue Q is an American Musical in two acts, with music by Robert Lopez and Jeff Marx. Avenue Q  is about the coming of age parable, its themes addresses the issues an anxieties we all face when becoming an adult. The characters reminisce about how when they were younger they were told all their dreams would come true but as adults they feel inadequate and that they have wasted their lives.

Avenue Q's cast consists of three human characters and eleven puppet characters who interact as if human, Sesame Street-style. The puppets are animated and voiced by puppeteers who are present, unconcealed, onstage. Puppets and human characters completely ignore the puppeteers. The same puppet may be operated by different puppeteers in different scenes, and the actor voicing the puppet may not be the one animating it. To minimise distraction, the puppeteers wear plain gray clothing in contrast to the human characters' colorful costumes. One puppeteer sometimes voices two or more puppets simultaneously. Conversely, the so-called "live-hands" puppets (see Puppets) require two puppeteers—again, in full view of the audience.

The show draws inspiration from and imitates the format of children's educational television shows Sesame Street and The Muppets. Marx interned at the program early in his career, and all four of the original cast's principal puppeteers—John Tartaglia, Stephanie D'Abruzzo, Jennifer Barnhart and Rick Lyon—were Sesame Street performers (D'Abruzzo returned to Sesame Street after leaving Avenue Q^[9]). Three of the puppet characters are direct recognizable parodies of Sesame Street puppets: Roommates Rod and Nicky are a riff on Bert and Ernie, while Trekkie Monster bears the distinctive voice and disposition of Cookie Monster, though not his obsession with baked goods. (The production officially disclaims any connection with either Sesame Workshop or The Jim Henson Company.)^[10] 

^{- wikipedia.}

The difference between Avenue Q and The Muppets is that Avenue Q is more adult humoured and the dilemmas 

the characters face in that play compared to the simplistic dilemmas in The Muppets are more realistic and therefore

relatable to a older audience. The show includes profanity in the dialogue as well as sexual intercourse between puppets

it addresses adult themes such as pornography and schadenfreude therefore inappropriate for child viewing. 

The ironic humour emerges with age and highlights the innocence of being a child and seeing things for how they appear compared to being an adult and seeing the same thing but now a darker subliminal meaning behind it, making it entertaining for adults because it's wrong and ridiculous as it's being executed by adults.

The show also employs a real-life celebrity as a fictional character within the story. Gary Coleman, the juvenile actor who played Arnold Jackson in the 1980s American sitcom Diff'rent Strokes and later sued his parents and business advisers for stealing his earnings during that time period,^[11] is portrayed (by a woman in most productions) as an adult, who happens to be the building superintendent in the run-down Avenue Q neighborhood to earn as much money as possible to keep on living.

Marx and Lopez said that they originally intended to offer the Gary Coleman role to Coleman himself, and he expressed interest in accepting it, but did not show up for a meeting scheduled to discuss it.^[1] Coleman later threatened repeatedly to sue Avenue Q producers for their depiction of him, but ultimately did not.^{[12] - wikipedia} 

The Night Circus Reflective Blog :1

Working As An Ensemble:

Working as ensemble is only effective if everyone does the exact same thing. Throughout The Night Circus we have a lot of movement which involves all moving cohesively at the exact same time. This requires vigilance, precision and timing, last year we experienced this type of training when doing the Chorus Line which took alot of time to get exactly right.

“your curiosity got the better of you, as curiosity is wont to do, you stand in the fading light, the scarf  around your neck pulled up against the chilly evening breeze, waiting to see for yourself exactly what kind of circus only opens once the sun sets.” 

As this is said the class move in unison completing a series of movement to follow the narrator exactly as things are being said it also emphasizes Edward’s position as the person who is being spoken about. In my opinion what I found challenging was movement memory, mostly the smaller things such as looking right or when I should extend my leg. How I resolved this was by rehearsing outside of lessons with others who knew what they were doing so that I was prepared for the next lesson and could now strengthen my movement and more precise.

The Night Circus Reflective Blog : 2

Our Interpretation Of The Night Circus:

In this lesson, we were introduced to The Night Circus. However we hadn’t yet been told the story, we were just given different concepts and scenarios of events. We had to then work as a group to devise a short scene of what we invisioned when thinking about the scenario. 

The first and my favourite scene we had to create a magical water fountain. I had the idea to incorporate a mermaid into our scene but change the general interpretation of what people believe mermaids to be, which is kind and heroic. In some modern stories mermaids are said to have angelic singing voices that lead ships astray to a watery death.

Malachi went on all fours and I hid underneath him as the mermaid. The rest of the group created the fountain by joining their hands together to produce an arch representing the falling of the water. Sian played the character of a walking by stander, using my own knowlege I thought the mermaid should lure the bystander closer by singing mesmerising tune, as the by stander came closer she sat down on Malachi’s back and I reached for her hand, when I saw she trusted me, I pulled her into the fountain and slid underneath Malachi to the other side -taking the place as the by stander and the fountain entrapped the bystander as the new mermaid, as she tried to speak all she could do was sing the once lovely tune which was now her terrible fate. This was like our take on ‘The Little Mermaid’ and seeing a different perspective of things. 

What worked well in this lesson was the creative flow of ideas because everything was devised, the ideas were limitless and anything was possible if we could successfully execute it with an explanation for what we were trying to portray and how it links with the concept of the project. I really enjoyed this lesson and I didn’t think anything was challenging because it was our chance to express the way we think and show Inez that we understood the task given.

Avenue Q Reflective Blog:1

In this rehearsal, we had to block our performance on the stage in the theatre as the space is much bigger than the spacing in the drama studio therefore will look different as we have to fill the stage.
From memory we did a full run through of the performance using our own idea of where we think we should be; when we should, be keeping in mind the change of space. After this Inez helped give us direction and positioning so that each song transitioned into each other smoothly, this is so that we do not lose the audience's focus, because if we do it means they've lost connection with the story we were telling them and they would not understand the following scenes. What worked well was we took direction well and quickly adapted to the space given understanding we only had a limited amount of time to do this. Including the full run through of Avenue Q, we had to add incorporate tech as, so we had to be patient whilst Tyler went through each song and logged what lighting should be used at which point and on which person. The only thing that was a cause for concern was our vocals and harmonies in some of the songs. For example ' I Wish I Could Go Back To College', this is because some people did not know the harmonies in the boys group which then threw the other boys off and then in the girls group lower and higher, we kept singing each others harmonies or the same harmony, even though we have rehearsed it many times. In my opinion harmonies can sometimes be challenging because it only takes one person to sing the wrong note and its ruined, but if done correctly is effective and sounds really good. To resolve this we all gathered around the piano for some help from Tom to ensure we all knew what our harmonies were. To implement vocal theory I had to make sure I was singing the right harmony so that I didn't throw my group off or conversly help remind someone the right harmony they should be vocalising. I also needed to make sure I was projecting my voice and singing with clarity and character.

Avenue Q Reflective Blog :2

Directing and Choreographing Movement

In this rehearsal we were told to independently devise choreography to the opening song to Avenue Q, as I had no main role I took the opportunity to help direct things because I could see the performance externally as a audience would. What worked well was that I could use the genre of the play to my advantage to be as creative an as playful as possible. In my opinion it reminded me of our take of Beauty and the Beast that we performed last year.So I had to keep in mind that everyone had to be doing some sort of movement not just the main characters because we would be being watched at all times. What challenged us was we found it difficult to work cohesively, I think this is because we were under a time limit to have this choreography completed and every one wanted to implement there ideas to the peace but we had little time to incorporate and execute every ones. This evidently caused time being wasted and distraction from the piece. How we resolved this dilemma was by starting from the beginning with what we had and quickly trying the idea which was most preferred and if it didn't work then we would use the other idea. This rehearsal was not really much about singing but about working together and implementing our knowledge of Musical Theatre as performers and using the stage and all we have been taught to produce a second year level performance.

The Night Circus Reflective Blog :3

During lessons and outside of lessons, myself and Malachi have been dedicated to achieving and executing a strong lift for the perfomance.

We did have lots of trials and tribulations and also changed the lift many times and attempted different ways of achieving the lift but we finally achieved it in the end. What worked well was that we both trusted eachother enough to work on the lift because it can be very dangerous and we needed to remain confident and focused. We also watched videos on youtube of professional contemporary practitioners to gain inspiration of different lifts we could try. The first lift we tried was simple I had to hold on to Malachis leg as he raised my legs and I was hanging upside down. However we wanted to adapt this lift so that we could challenge ourselves.

 To adapt the lift I had to use my core to lift myself up so that I could sit on Malachi’s shoulder. The problem that rose with this was that I struggled to be consistent with lifting myself. I found it challenging to pull myself up quickly. 

Because of this we decided to revert back to the original lift. Some time after, we had to incorporate Edward into our lift because we discovered he hadn’t had anything to do in this time. They tried to lift me and then put me on their shoulders so that I could do a backflip into standing, but again this became a problem because the lift wasn’t balanced, my weight on Malachi and Edward was not equal. As the performance was drawing near we had to make a decision on which lift has proven to be more successful and use that one the in performance.

As a class we had to all help lift Gerromme so that we could create the illusion of him magically being lifted into the air without being seen and disappear without being seen. The first lift was Gerromme being raised to the guy then dropped onto the arms of four people. I was one of the four that had to catch him. The first problem was that the distribution of weight was uneven. The four people were not positioned correctly in a way that would be safe for everyone and Gerromme, to resolve this we decided to kneel down so that we would all be receiving Gerromme at the same level. The issue we discovered with this was the drop was too forceful and didn’t look neat. 

We then changed the lift again so that Gerromme would appear to be flying, as a unit we all helped raise him, move him from one side to the other, whilst extending our bodies.After this we lowered him into the cluster as if he disappeared. This was the most effective lift as it was the safest and was also more appealing. We implemented physical theatre into this lift by using our bodies to create an abnormality, we extenuated our bodies and rocked whilst Gerrome rocked to help translate to the audience what is actually happening and the reason for our movement.

Avenue Q Reflective Blog :4

This rehearsal was our last rehearsal for singing before our performance, the problem was that an exterior production which involved members from our class were also rehearsing for a upcoming performance. This effected the rest of the class as we could not do a full run through of Avenue Q as people were missing from the lesson. What made it worst was that we had to do this rehearsal in front of first years as a little preview, I felt upset about this because it wasn’t showing our best and as the olders in second years you will automatically want to set an example. With that being said the class pulled through, we did the best we could, filling in for the missing people, but we mostly choreographed some movement with Inez and blocked the staging for the songs so that we knew what we were doing and could tell the rest of the class when we saw them next.

What worked well, is it showed that we could work as a team and support eachother so that we didn’t embarrass ourselves. We had to remember that our audience hasn’t seen this production before and therefore would be none the wiser. Avenue Q is playful and fun, so it helped to relax more and just perform even though we knew what was wrong.

The Night Circus- Written Requirements

What is Physical Theatre?

A form of theatre which emphasizes the use of physical movement, as in dance and mime, for expression. - Google.

Physical theatre can sometimes appear as dance. The performers use the physicality of their bodies to immitate settings and props and characters - displaying a storyline to the audience.

Physical theatre skills consists of lifting, carrying, building shape and physical objects. It is often performed in a abstract style using movement in a stylised and representational way.

Practitioners such as DV8 are well known for using physical theatre to explore complex aspects of human relationships and social cultural issues. Their work is often described as existing crossroads where dance, sound and drama meet.

Some forms physical theatre combines dialogue and physical movement, for example a major company in physical theatre , called Frantic Assembly use this technique. They use a substantial  amount of dialogue for the play but the impact and effect is a result of the movement used.

The Night Circus:

The Night Circus is a fantasy novel written in 2011. The author of the american novelist is called Erin Morgenstern. The story tells us of a mystical circus called “Le Cirque des Rêves” (The Circus Of Dreams). This particular Circus appears without notice and leaves without warning. The Circus has fans who refer to themselves as dreamers - they are intrigued by this circus so much as if they are in a trance. However the story truly unfolds when their is civil rivalry within the circus. Two powerful magicians groom two protégés to go head to head on stage to prove the better performer therefore proving the better teacher. The competition continues, with no sign of finishing, no sign of losing and no sign of a winner being determined. The competition begins to effect other performers and spills into peoples personal lives , provoking anger and revenge. No one can leave the circus.

When I think of The Night Circus, I invision couple driving down a long, dark ,deserted road and their car breaks down on the road side. Alongside the road is a deep forest, filled with endless trees. The couple think they’ve noticed a flickering light within this forest and think it’s help. So they venture into the darkness, until they stumble across a balloon - just floating in mid- air, with no owner, but silence. The girl goes to grab the ribbon attached to the balloon and without warning the circus appears in front of them in full effect. However they are the only ones at the circus, their are no other people trying to go to the circus, the gates open. The couple nervously head towards the gates, they were scared but they were so deep into the forest there was no way of finding their car, they prayed this would be the aid they needed. They took a step inside and the gates violently closed behind them. The circus disappears.


How does the movement help to tell the story?

Just like Frantic Assembly, we used dialogue combined with movement. Although the narration told the story, we showed the story. We didn’t allow the audience to think for them selves, we wanted them to engage into this mystical tale. The music helped create an atmosphere in the room, it sets a tone of mood because of it’s eerie effect it tell the audience something daunting is going to happen. The lighting helps with the speed of things. This circus is dark and mysterious, full of hidden secrets, the lightening captures key parts of our movement therefore bringing the darkness to light. It keeps the audience interested as they don’t want to miss anything. It sets a schedule for us as performers to know where we need to be when we need to be in order for the performance to be effective for example : “then comes the light” the light is cued and we immediately raise our heads to look, this is effective because it makes it more believable. We narrated the piece ourselves, we had to use our best scary story telling voice, for me, I tried to keep my voice quiet but clear, because I felt that it implemented the impression that I was telling a secret or a warning of a terrible tale. It also helps the audience to stay concentrated and understand the movement, otherwise it would just be a elaborate piece, with lifts and running and abstract movement they wouldn’t understand.

Avenue Q Reflective Blog : 3

In this lesson, the girls and the boys were split into two and were given the task to independently learn a solo song, one for the boys and one for the girls. The girls were given “ Fine, Fine Line” a song from Avenue Q sang by Kate Monster and the boys were given “Schadenfreude” sang by Gary Coleman and Nicky.

In my opinion a problem I faced was trying to learn the lyrics around noise. A technique for myself is sitting in silence, reading it through line by line and repeating eachline then adding the next to it, so that way its memorised. However a group of girls were learning the same song, using their own techniques and across the room the boys were rehearsing aswell. It through me off a little bit and I began to worry I wouldn’t have learnt the song well enough on time to perform in front of Tom.
How I resolved my problem was by asking to leave the room so I could focus properly.

When it came to performing the song, I was a bit nervous and I think that got the better of me. My feedback was that I started off strong and was getting the words right, but my vocal projection let me down and towards the end of the song I was too quiet. For me, I think that I was probably so focused on getting the words right that I became uncertain of what line was next which led to me being quiet. However I was in the top 3 to be the soloist, which I am proud of. It just shows me next time I have to just go for it and push myself, I have to implement vocal projection and clarity.

The Night Circus Annotations

I thought there'd be no space to annotate on the paper, so I will try to annotate following the pictures above.

Paragraph 1:  A group of the class run on to stage and use the physicality of their bodies to form a tent like shape, indicating the arrival of the circus to the audience, acting as the narrations says.

Paragraph 2: The shape unfolds and encases three people within it, using their bodies to form a wall around them. The people who appear trapped, use their arms and legs to try to push through the wall .The wall represents the trees.

" Black and white.." the rest of the performers enter the stage and create a fence by linking arms. There are three lines, therefore creating three levels.

"colourless world" as an ensemble we lift our heads up staring directly at the audience, as if something has been awoken. 

Paragraph 3: Here a series of actions and movement happen. For example Edward pulls my hair back. This is all fast. I move away from the group and run towards Malachi, he lives me to his neck and turns around enabling me to back flip into standing. The connection here is that we are the distraction. "painted or powdered or treated with some other circus trick."

Paragraph 4: we do movement as an ensemble following word after word. 

Paragraph 5: We turn to stage right in cannon. A clock is created front stage and those that were backstage act as the ticking of the clock and walk around the now formed clock, then exit the stage.

Paragraph 6: Everyone runs back on to stage and stands still, back turned away from the audience. A spotlight falls on Edward as he fidgets. The rest of the group follow the narration creating a series of movement in unison. 

Paragraph 7: Ticket booth is created. "Closed and barred" A gate a formed to represent the circus being closed. 

Paragraph 9:Everyone runs onto the stage to form a cluster.

Paragraph 10: We look up at the sky as a unison, this is so we are on time with the lighting.

Paragraph 11: We form the tent again, Lanya and Ryanne walk between us. The cirus is now open.

Avenue Q: The Origin of Puppetry Part 2

Masked Theatre: A mask hides part or all of the face. ... Commedia dell'arte, a traditional Italian form of physical comedy, uses masks and often they appear in Elizabethan and Restoration comedies, where a character might use one as disguise. In Greek theatre the actors all wore exaggerated masks to communicate character.

In my opinion puppets prove to me most effective and appealing to children, properly between the age of 6 months - 7 yrs old because that are at that age where there minds can be entertained by puppets and even when they are old enough to understand puppets and how they work they still grasp the playful imaginative side to things. In comparison to adults where our brains switch off if it has no relevance to things that appear in our lives.Puppetry is viewed as an ideal vehicle for presenting moral messages about childhood concepts such as bullying. Puppets are also used in play therapy as a safe way for traumatized children to explore their fears.

Types Of Puppets:

A human arm puppet or two-man puppet is the larger puppet controlled by two puppeteers (one for the head and mouth, another for the arms.

 A marotte is a simple puppet featuring only a head or body that is placed on a stick, with some examples featuring one moving arm or a mouth that can open.

Body puppets, also known as carnival puppets, are very large puppets that are used for street spectacles or large-scale theater, such as the live production of “The Lion King.”

Two unusual types of puppetry use bunraku puppets and shadow puppets. Based in Japan, bunraku puppetry is performed with a nearly life-sized wooden puppet that is illuminated with focused light. The puppeteers dress in dark colors but can be indistinctly seen by the audience, lending a shadowy presence to the production. In shadow puppetry, the puppeteer is not seen. Instead, a silhouetted figure is illuminated with a light source, producing shadows that are viewed by the audience.

Avenue Q : The Origin of Puppetry Research.

The History Of Puppetry :

Puppetry is a form of theatre that involves the manipulation of puppets, often resembling a human figure or mythical figure that is controlled by a human - puppeteer. The puppeteer uses movements of their hands, arms, or control devices such as rods or strings to move the body, head, limbs and in some cases the mouth and eyes of the puppet.

Puppetry is artistically expressed through the form of story telling , during the production of the performance the puppeteer may or may not be visible to the audience. When the puppeteer is seen the audience find the performance more comical and feel more included in the performance, because it is already revealed that the puppets are fake and a story is being told, therefore the puppets are just accessories to the story, they work as a translator.

Cultural variations of puppetry developed independently worldwide, in places such as Japan, some particular puppets became international icons in the age of television for example Jim Henson's Muppets.

Punch and Judy is a traditional well-known British puppet show, featuring Mr. Punch and his wife Judy.  The performance consists of a sequence of short scenes, each depicting an interaction between two characters, most typically Mr. Punch and one other character who usually falls victim to Punch's slap stick. These small shows can still be seen at some funfairs. The Punch and Judy show has roots in the 16th-century Italian commedia dell'arte. The figure of Punch is derived from the Neapolitan stock character of Pulcinella. He is a manifestation of the Lord of Misrule and Trickster figures of deep-rooted mythologies. Punch's wife was originally called "Joan.

Puppetry as an art form is believed to have its roots in ancient cultures, more than 3000 years old. It is sometimes claimed that puppets were used in the theatre arts even before the advent of human actors. The earliest puppets probably originated in Egypt, where ivory and clay articulated puppets have been discovered in tombs. Puppets are mentioned in writing as early as 422 B.C.E. In ancient Greece, Aristotle and Plato both made reference to puppetry. -

https://www.theaterseatstore.com/history-of-puppetry

The Vietnamese created the unique tradition of water puppetry, in which wooden puppets appear to walk in waist-high water; this was originally developed hundreds of years ago as a response to the flooding of rice fields.

Contemporary Puppetry:

In the 20th century, puppets began to be used in an experimental way in Europe and the United States, whereby the target audience was aimed solely at adults. In productions spurred by this movement, a performance might combine actors and puppets or use actors as if they were puppets. Some productions also combined puppetry with mask theatre, juxtaposing masked performers, puppets, and other objects inside a minimalist visual world onstage. Today, an event described as puppet theatre may not include rod puppets, marionettes, or hand puppets, depending on the intended message and the audience.

In medieval Italy, marionmmmm