Stellaluna, the enchanting story of a baby fruit bat who falls into a bird’s nest, is adapted from the beloved book by Janell Cannon. Poor Stellaluna tries to adapt to her new home but finds herself the odd one out, hanging by her feet and disgusted by those bugs Mother Bird brings home for dinner. What a relief to discover she is a bat! Now she can celebrate her abilities and differences rather than be ashamed of them!
Macaroni Kid had the opportunity to ask Nancy Aldrich, artistic director of the Tears of Joy Theatre some questions about the upcoming show Stellaluna.
1. What is the appeal to puppets?
Macaroni Kid had the opportunity to ask Nancy Aldrich, artistic director of the Tears of Joy Theatre some questions about the upcoming show Stellaluna.
1. What is the appeal to puppets?
As is always the case, we always ask ourselves, 'why is this story best told with puppets, as opposed to human actors?" For "Stellaluna," this is a story about birds and bats, which makes the answer easy. These are characters that are best represented by puppets, rather than people acting like animals. Generally speaking,the appeal may also be in the fact that puppets that are created for a show are specific characters, and audiences can relate to them just for who and what they are. The concept of 'suspension of disbelief' is more easily attained when the confusion of actor vs. character is taken out of the equation.
2. From a young age, kids begin to recognize the things that make them similar and different from others. Stellaluna provides a great message for kids to help them embrace their differences and also to treat others kindly. What kind of reaction do you typically get from children and parents about the performance?
The reactions we get during the performance tell us a lot: we can tell that the audience is relating to Stellaluna as well as the young birds. There are vocal reactions to the humor and sympathy. Stellaluna doesn't understand the new world she finds herself in, but does her best to fit in. Flitter, one of the young birds, doesn't understand why his blunt, impolite statements about how she differs from them are inappropriate, according to his siblings. His sister, Pip, and brother Flap, are more polite, accepting, and encouraging, but Flitter speaks more without filtering his observations, and may be closer to the voices in our heads when we observe differences.
After the show, audiences don't generally talk about the messages they may have gotten, but like the performance, adaptation and characterizations.
3. In what aspects is the show similar to the book Stellaluna, and how is it different?
Janelle Cannon's book is nearly a classic, and we did our best to maintain the sensibilities she included in it. I'm proud to say that she was delighted with our version enough to have us perform our show at the library in her home town, where she used to work, in celebration of the 16th birthday of "Stellaluna." It is different in that the characters became more developed, as needs to happen in a script for the stage. We also weren't able to recreate the wonderful illustrations of Stellaluna's attempts to try to be a bird.
4. We have to know, what is it like behind-the-scenes when a puppeteer is performing?
Before the show, there's the nervousness and anticipation of presenting this show to a whole new group of people for the first time. There's the heightened sense of knowing that anything could go wrong, and that we will do our best to deal with it and make sure the audience doesn't know that anything like a 'mistake' happened. In fact, Part of the fun of performing live is knowing that each performance is a unique experience. Only our Stage Manager knows for sure.
