Advice for Audrey II theatrical puppet build...

[griffey]

Hello all!

I've been chosen to direct a local community theater production of Little Shop of Horrors, and we've no budget to rent professional puppets. Which means we build!

I've build a ton of props, but I've never specifically built puppets, much less 9 foot tall ones. I would love any and all advice on this front, keeping in mind significant budgetary limitations. We've got talent and time but little money.

There are 4 total puppets to be built. Pod 1 and Pod 2 are hand puppets, and are doable with foam and paint mostly. Pod 3 is typically done as a "wearable" upper body puppet where the lower jaw is an arm and the upper jaw of the pod is the upper body and arm of the puppeteer. Pod 4 is the big boy, and has to be large enough for actors to be "eaten" by it live onstage...so we're talking a minimum of 4 feet wide, and 7-9 feet tall depending. This one has a few different build styles that fall into two general camps: either a very large wearable that uses a backpack and aluminum struts to support the top jaw, while the bottom jaw is actuated by the puppeteer with their arms OR a central support of some sort that the puppet rests upon, and the puppeteer controls the puppet with levers.

For the largest pods, I'm considering using half-inch PVC as the skeleton, over which we attach as cheap a foam layer as I can find, and then spray glue fabric over the foam which is then painted via airbrush. I'm worried about both heat and weight, although we can mediate both in different ways.

I would love ANY advice at all. Is PVC pipe entirely wrong for this? Would some form of bent aluminum be better? What sort of foam should I use, or should I find another material (plastic door screen?) to cover the skeleton? Hinges? Best source online for large fabric orders? Help!

 

[signeddiamond]

I have had local productions start and stop there path into this musical so often that I have given it a fair amount of thought. Really I personally hate the big pod in a pot design that everyone does. It's exhausting for the performers and all that effort barely communicates on the outside as the head bobs and the mouth opens.

This is the design I've been waiting to do. I would fluff this one up and have it be the final puppet but have the vines and neck be swappable with much shorter ones for a puppet 3. Easy on the actors, novel to the audience, and incredibly expressive without being complicated. Personally I would have something like the vines come around the person on the trapdoor to obscure them while the head came down to eat but that's just me. It's a beautiful elegant design I wish got more attention.

Essentially this kind of design would cost you a big wooden box (only 4 sides of a box really), some used foam that can be pulled from discarded mattresses and some fiberglass molded around some vase or whatever you have laying around. The rest is just paint, leaves, and enthusiastic puppeteers. Maybe have them wear black though...

 

[griffey]

I have had local productions start and stop there path into this musical so often that I have given it a fair amount of thought. Really I personally hate the big pod in a pot design that everyone does. It's exhausting for the performers and all that effort barely communicates on the outside as the head bobs and the mouth opens.

This is the design I've been waiting to do. I would fluff this one up and have it be the final puppet but have the vines and neck be swappable with much shorter ones for a puppet 3. Easy on the actors, novel to the audience, and incredibly expressive without being complicated. Personally I would have something like the vines come around the person on the trapdoor to obscure them while the head came down to eat but that's just me. It's a beautiful elegant design I wish got more attention.

Essentially this kind of design would cost you a big wooden box (only 4 sides of a box really), some used foam that can be pulled from discarded mattresses and some fiberglass molded around some vase or whatever you have laying around. The rest is just paint, leaves, and enthusiastic puppeteers. Maybe have them wear black though...

I would love to see what Pod 4 looks like for this take...that song is done with Pod 3 at the end of Act 1, so I assume the puppet is different for their Act 2/Pod 4. I agree that's a super interesting design! I love the articulation of the vines/neck. Thanks for the suggestion, I somehow hadn't seen that take on Audrey II.

 

[signeddiamond]

I would love to see what Pod 4 looks like for this take...that song is done with Pod 3 at the end of Act 1, so I assume the puppet is different for their Act 2/Pod 4. I agree that's a super interesting design! I love the articulation of the vines/neck. Thanks for the suggestion, I somehow hadn't seen that take on Audrey II.

They did not have a puppet 4 for this production but I addressed that issue in my post. This one design can be quickly modified into a puppet 3 or 4 during the show.

 

[OzReturner]

A friend did a production of this in college. Puppet 4's lower jaw just rested on the floor, like it spilled out of the pot. The 1 performer inside was on their knees, arms out front, raising and lowering them for speech, keeping their torso stationary. Super lightweight. The actors getting eaten would crawl between the performers legs and out the back while the mouth was writhing around "eating." Not super convincing, but worked very well for a low budget college musical.

 

[PlanetAlexander]

Coincidentally enough, Adam Kreutinger (The Puppet Nerd) recently released a video going over his processes so far for some Audrey II puppets. I've yet to finish it but interesting stuff so far!

I was the prop coordinator for a small scale production of Little Shop last year. I didn't make the puppets; they were originally made by a local community theatre group, loaned to us. With the help of myself, some of the cast/crew and a local puppeteer/puppet maker, we did some repairs on these puppets to make them... usable.

The third and forth puppets were primarily made from pool noodles, cut in half and stuck together with hot glue. Made for a great texture, but wasn't very durable, or easy to repair. The third puppet required a puppeteer (wearing a ghillie suit) to hold the puppet around and over his head, using his hands to operate it opening and closing.

The fourth, large puppet was a little insane... The bottom jaw sat on a lever that one puppeteer opened and closed, and the top jaw rested on a hinge, but was moved with a pulley system attached to the front of the mouth. There was enough room inside for an actor to climb through, and a mat inside of it for them to land on comfortably.

They wouldn't have lasted very long in a professional, extended run, but for the rehersals and six shows we did, they made it through!