Potlatch was wonderful

by Sandye Voight

Chuck and I had a wonderful time -- as usual -- at Potlatch, the annual Great Lakes Region puppet gathering at the beautiful Pokagon State Park, just this side of the Ohio border in Indiana.
We were the only Cheeseheads to attend this year. We missed you guys!

We also missed our honorary Cheesehead, Ginger Lozar, of Champaign, IL, who was stuck in the Newark Airport because of Superstorm Sandy (note: without an e).
Ginger was to have performed Saturday night, but couldn't get a flight out and ultimately rented a car to drive home. We understand she had been traveling in Turkey. Anyway, we volunteered to perform in her place and at the last minute hauled our "River Critters" stage to Indiana. No time to practice, but we'd done it a lot lately, just that there were two weekend Halloween performances in between.
I was a bit nervous, but we managed not to embarass ourselves. In fact, 1 minute into the show they started applauding our scrolling scenery, so we started to feel pretty good.

We were in good company.
Other performers included Rick Morse ("Sleeping Beauty"), Dunworth Puppet Productions ("Puppet Circus"), Nancy Sanders ("Jack and the Beanstalk"), Bob Brown ("Mother Goose Caboose" cabaret style marionettes made from stuffed animals), David Quesal ("The Story of Leo and Seymore" with Folkmanis puppets) and Guy Thompson (a rollicking Punch and Judy for the Sunday Punch Brunch).
The opening ice breaker was a flash mob of puppeteers in the lodge's fireplace room, near the dining hall. We assembled with hidden puppets each and then burst into singing "Rainbow Connection." Not sure there were too many civilians in the lodge to hear us! but it was fun.

Saturday, we sat in on a lighting workshop (then hurriedly searched our tree light boxes to make sure we had blue and yellow gels for our performance that night!). It was a bit technical for me, but there was a lot of discussion about working with the new LED lights and issues about dimmers when we won't be able to get incandescent bulbs anymore.
I also took a make-take with Peggy Melchior and got some patterns for a simple butterfly puppet that could be adapted as a bat, bird or pteradactyl.

Regional News

Here is some of the actual news that we learned at the guild and regional meetings:

• The 2014 "mini-festival" (as they're calling it), will be in Detroit, probably at the end of July.
• The Detroit Institute of Art reached out to the Detroit Puppetry Guild and asked to host it. That's expected to help keep expenses down.
• The national festival in Philadelphia this summer will operate on the Potlatch model -- performers and workshop presenters will not be paid.
• Dave Herzog, our regional director, is challenging each guild to sponsor a Potlatch scholarship next fall for a young person -- even if it is only the $50 registration fee. (anyone 16 and younger would need an adult guardian).  Also, guilds could sponsor P of A memberships for young people.

• Terri Klinghofer of Indiana has volunteered to become the region's new treasurer, a position that also will include being the Potlatch registrar, for the sake of convenience.

Tidbits from the guild reports:

• Chicago: Young people are not joining but the guild tries to keep them informed about events in the hope that they will become involved.
• Detroit: Meets 4 times per year in museums and libraries, plus a summer picnic
• Columbus: Meets once per month from September through May.
• Central Ill.: Six core members and gaining. Puppeteers critique and support each others shows. The University of Illinois' Youth Literature Festival has become a major joint event with puppeteers.
• Western Michigan: Building parade puppets together for the Saugatuck Christmas parade.
• Indiana: Blooming Laps, a shared equipment space in Bloomington offers the use of expensive equipment, such as sanders and robotics-making stuff and the expertise of creative people who know how to use the equipment.