On the weekend of October 17-1⁸, PuppetART Theater (a Knight Arts grantee) held the PuppetLAB Festival, two nights of original puppet performances, some of which have been in development for more than a year. PuppetLAB is a program that runs from June-October, with the goal of developing new puppet performances, and the five performance teams whose proposals came to fruition over the weekend should feel extremely proud of their efforts.

Steve and Cameron from “The Firefighter Project.” Photo courtesy of Carrie Elizabeth Morris

Friday night featured the premiere of “The Firefighter Project,” a culmination of the yearlong investigation conducted by director Carrie Elizabeth Morris into the realities of firefighters in Detroit. Recorded interviews provide much of the foli and narrative backbone to the piece, which employed the tradition of Japanese Bunraku puppets – half-scale puppets that require multiple puppeteers to control.

The many performance art personas of Bailey Scieszka. Photo courtesy of the artist

Accompanying that performance was “All the Brown Butterflies,” a performance piece by Bailey Scieszka in the role of Old Put the clown, seeking to bring new life to a Joumana real doll (in a cheeky nod to the relentlessly self-promotional lawyer of same name).

The birds of Dreamland Theater. Photo courtesy of Dreamland Theater

Saturday night followed up strong with “The Singing Clock” by Andrew Mitchell and Naia Venturi of The Dreamland Theater, a birds-and-the-bats story, also featuring a boy and a clockmaker, set to musical narration and told with marionettes and shadow puppets in a bi-level stage. Next was “One Star Bright” by Colette Czarnecki, who seemed to draw much enlightenment and joy from the collaborative process of assembling this piece with her fellows. Finally, the festival closed with “A Clam Stripped Bare in the Moonlight,” a play by Horatio Clam featuring Benjamin Filler, Doc Waffles and Stephen Barcus.

A sneak peek at “One Star Bright” by Colette Czarnecki. Photo courtesy of the artist

Indeed, each of these pieces was highly collaborative, with live musical accompaniment, puppeteers, costumers, set-builders and other specialists too numerous to list here–a triumph of puppetry, performance and process. Kudos to PuppetART, and the hard work of everyone who contributed to this fine spectacle!

PuppetART Theater: 25 East Grand River, Detroit; 313-961-7777; www.puppetart.org