Puppeteers and Poetry

On Friday Oct. 1 I had a repeat performance of "Sad Hotel" - a
combination of poetry reading with musical accompaniment and
songs on poetry by Anne Sexton. Jens (the pianist and composer)
and I had one last rehearsal on Thursday night and then took the train
to Magdeburg together the next day. We met Barbara (the actress
reciting the poetry) at the train station and took the tram to the theater
immediately. What I didn't know, was that the theater wasn't just any
theater, but a puppet theater! Most people probably think of
marionettes and kids when they imagine a puppet theater and indeed
that is how most puppet theaters (including this theater) earn most of
their money. But Puppet Theater can be much much more than what
most of us imagine. The Magdeburger Puppet Theater does
productions for kids during the week and productions for adults at
night and on the weekends. They are premiering a biographical
production on the life of Anne Sexton Friday, Oct. 8, 2004, which is
why we were asked to come and perform there. The director of the
theater was doing some web research and stumbled across the notice
about our performances in Heidelberg in May. He wanted to give the
Magdeburgers the opportunity to learn a little more about Anne
Sexton and had us perform and had someone give a lecture last
night. Take a look at their website:

http://www.puppentheater-magdeburg.de

They were so friendly and helpful and also extremely interested in
what we were doing. It was interesting doing it in a real theater. The
Prinzhorn Museum in Heidelberg was a bit more live acustically,
which was really nice for the musical aspect of what we were doing.
But the Puppet Theater was really good for clarity of text. It was
interesting to experience the drastic difference of the two spaces.
Plus the Puppet Theater has a whole team of people who were there
to help us with lights and sound. It was heavenly!

They are doing their Anne Sexton production in Stuttgart on October
13 and the end of October. I'm going to go to one of the shows and I
would highly recommend it!