Special “Gingerbread Man” show for preschools AND birthdays!

They just need to bake!

I’ll be honest. I usually like to take my time when I am building a show, but sometimes things just come together fast. For the past several weeks, I have been working on a puppet adaptation of the story “The Gingerbread Man” for preschoolers. It’s a table-top show with rod puppets and object puppets.

Some people are not familiar with object puppets, so I’ll take a moment to elaborate.

Object puppets are just what they sound like: objects that you take and convert into a puppet for a performance. If you’ve ever made a pair of tongs talk to someone, then you used an object puppet!

I had a lot of fun developing this piece. It’s specifically for small audiences with a super-fast set up. It’s about 25-minutes long right now, and I have a few tweaks that would bring it to 30. The show is highly interactive with children moo-ing, baaa-ing, and clucking for all the animals. And there is a LOT of moving — I had quite the aerobic workout! I’ve also developed a post-show activity for teachers to do with their students that I am in the process of embellishing.

I was able to perform the show today for The Goddard School at Glen Allen, where one of the directors was kind enough to share some photographs. It’s a fun show, designed for smaller audiences. I look forward to sharing it with more young audiences!