Cookie Monster takes on FRUIT

Most people, who grew up with Sesame Street associate Cookie Monster with eating only cookies. Now things at Sesame Street have taken a turn in the last few years, since HIV was first talked about on 'Takalani Sesame' in South Africa. Now even Cookie Monster appears to have discovered the joys of healthy eating, as you'll see in this hilarious interview with American Talk Show host Steven Colbert. At the end of the show, the kleptomaniac Monster embarrasses his fans. Check the ending out here! (Our thanks to Andrew at PuppetVision Blog)

Julie Taymor 'Theatre and the Imagination'

Probably best known for designing and producing the Broadway hit 'The Lion King', director and puppeteer, Julie Taymor started her life as a successful New York puppeteer and mime artist, who had a life changing experience when spending some time in Indonesia, studying Wayang puppetry, traditional dance and mask theatre. This week, while checking out the mind expanding website TED, I discovered a lecture which Taymor gave in 1998. Unfortunately it seems to be no longer on TED, but I found another copy on You Tube and it's really worth watching, so check it out here!

Taymor talks about her boundary-shattering theatre work - such as turning 'The Lion King' into an astonishing live musical and her journey that lead her to preparing to make a Broadway Spider-Man musical adaptation for the stage.

New TV Puppetry Course opens in Sydney

Our brand new Puppetry for Film and TV Course opened last week with a wonderful bunch of fifteen new students. So the work has begun to train another talented group of aspiring puppeteers into performing for the camera. The eight week course started with simple hand and ball eye focus and lip-sync exercises, before design and construction of the basic television puppet begins and the performance follows in a few weeks! You can see their progress thus far in the slide show here!

Short film of our latest TV Puppetry Course

Our April to June 2008 Puppetry for Film and Television Course has just been completed and an incredibly talented bunch of individuals participated. The quality of their improvisation work with the puppet on camera was awesome. I have uploaded a few extracts of the participants work and it's available to check out here!

We are now starting a new Wednesday evening course this week with a brand new group of aspiring puppeteers at the Wesley Institute in Sydney. If anyone is interested in any of these courses, please get in touch and I'll send you more information. Watch this space for more of this inspiring student work soon!