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Boombah from "Galli Galli Sim Sim" (Sesame Street India). |
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Ed Christie with two of his creations for “Carnival.” |
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Christie builds puppets for the world, no strings attached
Most people never start out to become puppet designers and Ed Christie is no exception. But a serendipitous internship at Jim Henson’s Muppet Workshop in New York during college took his love of musical theater and his skill as a sculptor and blended them into a career as one of the most successful puppet designers of his generation.
Christie now lives in Truro with his partner, Howard Karren, but he is still designing amazing puppets for the Sesame Workshop’s traveling shows including many international productions and he has a hand in Broadway and off-Broadway shows as well.
His work is going to be displayed at a special exhibition at the Provincetown Art Association and Museum, 260 Commercial St., opening from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Dec. 5, and continuing through Jan. 25.
Four puppet stages are being constructed by local artist Breon Dunigan to house the various puppets that will be shown in the exhibition, “Rods and Monsters: the Puppets of Ed Christie.”
Rods refers to the sticks that are used to animate certain puppets. Other types are hand puppets, finger puppets, marionettes, ventriloquist dummies and full body walk-around characters like Big Bird.
There also will be a large photomontage of many of his characters. Puppets on display include one from the China show, one from Belfast, Ireland, and two from Russia, along with 16 puppets created for “Carnival,” the Lincoln Center production based on the Leslie Caron movie “Lily.” Christie also built puppets for “Doonesbury: the Musical.”
Christie was attending UMass. Amherst when a friend got an internship with Henson. Christie soon followed and his affiliation lasted 25 years and grew until he became vice president in charge of the New York puppet workshop.
Christie is currently a freelance puppet designer under contract to Sesame Workshop, which grew out of the Henson organization and largely deals with the international traveling shows for Sesame Street. Those shows, though trading on the recognizable elements created by Henson, also add a local component, and to Christie, that’s the best part.
“That’s what I enjoy the most, creating indigenous characters,” says Christie. “India, Bangladesh, they want characters they can call their own.”
In the old days Henson would create a script and then talk to his puppet designers about what was needed and, within the confines of a Sesame Street-style character, they would create the new puppet.
For the traveling shows it’s a different matter. Christie says in addition to talking with the local producers he does a lot of research into the folklore of the country before coming up with his ideas. The final design starts with brainstorming about the kind of character that would fit the storyline created for the host country and then adding the various local elements.
“Egypt wanted to focus their Sesame Street on girls education, which is not great. They tell me the main character is a girl and I ask them if they are thinking humanoid, monster or what? Then I do a lot of drawings and send it off to the producers.
Sometimes they pick pieces from one concept and put them together with other drawings to get what they want. Christie calls it a Mr. Potato Head mix-and-match approach, but it works.
Once the main characters are decided on the rest of the “cast” has to work in relation to those characters. For instance, older characters need to be taller. And there needs to be a visually pleasing mix of colors working together in any scene. And sometimes producers want a really big walk-around character in a full bodysuit like Big Bird.
“Bangladesh got a tiger in the Cookie Monster vein,” he says. “It’s furry and goofy looking, a tiger monster. India gets a lion. In Belfast they got an Irish hare and China got a blue pig.”
As an aside he says that China wanted all its characters in primary colors. They got a yellow Big Bird, the blue pig and a red monster all their own.
India’s lion, Boombah, is pink and delivers Punjabi rap.
To make characters for Russia, Christie looked into that country’s folklore and found it had spirits for almost everything from the kitchen to the forest. That collaboration resulted in his favorite character, Zeliboba, the spirit of the forest. He’s cuddly and blue and resembles a large moving mulch pile, Christie says.
Right now he’s working on a project for Israel that centers on an American character that comes to visit.
And though he’s usually behind the scenes, Christie says every puppet maker has to have stage experience so he knows what needs to happen when the puppets are in use and what the on-stage human actors need to do.
“I have limited experience performing but I assisted on Sesame Street and The Muppets,” he says. “But in ‘Carnival,’ I was an actor, on stage. And I had to train all the lead actors to be puppeteers. It was intensely fun. I kept saying to myself, I can’t believe I’m doing this.”
artseditor@provincetownbanner.com
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Dec 4th, 2008