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Senior School Drama students at All Saints’ College brought puppets to life this week during the HotHouse Company Drama Residency led by Spare Parts Puppet Theatre. Through hands-on workshops, students explored the art of puppetry as a powerful medium for storytelling and expression and learned delved into the study of physicality and control.

Year 7 students experimented with different puppet styles, including hand puppets and marionettes, while embracing the challenge of conveying big emotions without words. The workshops highlighted the importance of multitasking and collaboration as students played games that required them to work in sync, focusing on the puppet’s gaze and coordinating movements to bring their characters to life.

Year 11 students took it a step further, tackling the complexities of operating large-scale puppets as a group. This exercise pushed them to exaggerate physical movements, work on breath control and focus on communicating emotions externally through the puppet’s form. By stepping outside of their own bodies, they gained a deeper understanding of how to convey emotion through physicality.

Puppetry demands over-the-top movements and exaggerated gestures, making it an effective tool for actors to hone core performance skills that can then be applied to their own bodies. Throughout the residency students embraced the challenges of puppetry, gaining insights into teamwork, body control and expressive storytelling.

By giving life to puppets, All Saints’ students are not only exploring new performance techniques but also unlocking new layers of their own artistic expression.