The puppeteer mimics the various voices, manipulates the puppets in intricate movement, directs the orchestra and sets the mood.
(Actors manipulate the puppets to convey the animals' souls).
The show has a cast of eight, including the actors who manipulate the puppets, in 40 roles.
Kate Brehm and Cathy Shaw, who also wrote the script with Ms. Liss, manipulated the puppets on long sticks and provided voices, believably gruff and squeaky, for their small charges.
They hide behind a wooden screen while wading waist deep in the 7,500-gallon 7,500-gallonpoolto the puppets with underwater rods and wires.
The tiny, delicate puppets are paired off with performers who both manipulate the puppets and sing the roles.
The puppets themselves, built by Mackinnon and Saunders, were typically about 17 inches tall and animated on sets built three to four feet off the ground with trap doors that allowed animators access to the sets' surfaces to manipulate the puppets.
I mean, I knew [Shari] was manipulating the hand puppet but, yet, I thought the thing was a real character".
Soon they have to confront a world-threatening conspiracy, masterminded by North Korea's Kim Jong-il, manipulating the useful idiots - the puppets, if you will - on the moderate showbiz left.
