About this Event
Puppet Around and Find Out: Improvised Puppetry. You grew up with puppets. Sesame Street. The Great Space Coaster. Maybe even those wonderfully weird Grocery Outlet ads. Now it’s your turn to bring one to life.
In this playful, hands-on workshop, you’ll learn the fundamentals of improvised puppetry, including focus, puppet manipulation, character creation, and how to make an audience completely forget there’s a human operating the thing.
Puppetry is also a surprisingly great way to level up your improv. By exploring how a puppet moves, reacts, communicates, and develops its own strange little personality, you’ll discover new ways to use your body, make stronger character choices, and get out of your own head. Like mask work, puppetry gives you permission to become someone, or something, completely different. Expect experimentation, spontaneous scenes, physical comedy, weird voices, unexpected characters, and a lot of play.
And yes, you get a puppet. Each student will receive either a small hand puppet with Oobie eyes or ping-pong-ball eyes with elastic to take home and keep. Come play. Get weird. Make something come alive.
Class Details
Dates: Four (4) Sundays starting 10/4; the final class will be a performance.
Time: 7:00 pm–9:00 pm
Location: Unexpected Productions – Issaquah
1315 NW Mall Street, Suite 4, Issaquah, WA 98027 (next to the Gaslamp Bar and Grill)
Maximum Students: 16
Cost: $270
Prerequisite: Improv 100 or equivalent
Meet Your Instructor: Elizabeth West
Elizabeth West is an accomplished improviser and puppeteer with more than two decades of experience combining the two art forms. She has performed improv with Unexpected Productions since 2000 and began performing puppetry in 2004, when she staged the first incarnation of Puppet TV, then known as The Cotton Gin.
A lifelong puppetry enthusiast whose fascination began with Jim Henson's work, Elizabeth has developed extensive experience in puppet performance, character creation, manipulation, and construction. She has built puppets for Wizards of the Coast and The Saturday Knights’ “Count It Off” music video.
Elizabeth is also the creator and director of No Strings Attached, Unexpected Productions’ improvised puppet show for grownups, where her expertise in improvisation and puppetry comes together onstage.
Drawing on years of experience as both a performer and puppet artist, Elizabeth teaches students how to make a puppet feel alive, develop strong physical characters, and use the freedom of puppetry to become more playful, expressive, and confident improvisers.
What to Bring
This class involves movement, so please dress comfortably and bring a bottle of water.
Cancellation Policy
We are unable to offer refunds.
Event venue & nearby stays
1315 NW Mall St, 1315 Northwest Mall Street, Issaquah, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.