DAVID CURRELL

Puppets & Puppet Theatre is essential reading for everyone interested in making and performing with puppets. It concentrates on designing, making and performing with the main types of puppet, and is extensively illustrated in full colour throughout.

Shadow Puppets and Shadow Play is a comprehensive guide to the design, construction and manipulation and presentation of shadow puppets, considered by many to be the oldest puppet theatre tradition. Traditional shadow play techniques, together with modern materials and methods and recent explorations into theatre of shadows, are explained with precision and clarity, and illustrated by photographs that include the work of some of the finest shadow players in the world. Topics covered include an introduction to shadow play, its traditions and the principles of shadow puppet design; advice on materials and methods for constructing and controlling traditional shadow puppets and scenery; step-by-step instructions for adding detail and decoration and creating transculent figures in full-colour; detailed methods for constructing shadow theatres using a wide range of lighting techniques; techniques of shadow puppet performance and contemporary explorations with shadow play; and instructions for making animated, silhouette films with digital photography. Lavishly illustrated throughout, Shadow Puppets and Shadow Play sets out detailed instructions for making and presenting shadow puppets by traditional methods and with the latest materials and techniques. Superbly illustrated with 420 colour photographs and helpful tips and suggestions.

This wonderful book is packed with a range of quick, inexpensive ways to make the main types of puppets using objects that are spare, scrap, recycled or easily accessible. With imagination and creative flair, it explains the principles and techniques that can transform a plastic bottle into a hippopotamus hand puppet or a few cardboard rolls into a dancing marionette. Alongside the practical information, it also gives staging advice so that your puppets can perform as living and believable characters. This is truly a book that will bring the magical world of puppet theatre within reach of everyone, whatever their time or resource limits.

Making and Manipulating Marionettes is a comprehensive guide to the design, construction and control of string puppets, a craft and performance art that has fascinated audiences for over two thousand years.Topics covered include: An introduction to the marionette tradition and the principles and practicalities of marionette design Advice on materials and methods for carving, modelling and casting puppet parts Step-by-step instructions for the construction of human and animal marionettes using traditional techniques and latest materials Detailed explanations for marionette control, stringing and manipulation Secrets for achieving a wide range of special effects and traditional acts, tricks and transformations

Puppets & Puppet Theatre is essential reading for everyone interested in making and performing with puppets. It concentrates on designing, making and performing with the main types of puppet, and is extensively illustrated in full colour throughout.