The Castle

Old Dog Theatre

Three puppeteers manipulate K, on on the head/body and left hand, on on the feet and one on the right hand. One puppeteers hold the ‘ground’, a suitcase, beneath K keeping it spinning in motion as K walks on the spot.

K the puppet travels behind K the person

Above is a short clip of our rehearsal of the wall scene in The Castle. The puppet K climbs the suitcase that represents the wall being described in the monologue performed by the actor K.

Directed by Trevor White

Design and Puppetry Direction by Alex Milledge

The Castle was developed by Old Dog Theatre for Edinburgh Fringe 2019. As the designer and puppetry director, I collaborated with the company members to develop their puppetry performance skills, many of whom had never worked with puppets before.

Feedback from audiences and reviewers at Edinburgh Fringe was overwhelmingly positive for the puppetry and design and the K puppet has inspired several other similar style puppets in my work since.

K the puppet was developed through workshops at the Little Angel Theatre and Peter O’Rorke.

Images by Ruth Phillips

K stands on the wall looking down at the world

K travels through the snow to the castle

As a company we used performers bodies as a way of lifting the puppet off the ground and connecting the puppet to the other characters played by the performers

Process

In rehearsals with the changeable suitcase set, boxes standing in for the additional suitcases we decided were needed

Barnabus puppet costume and Amalia costume

Costume designs for various characters and costume fittings with company members

We used a rehearsal puppet without finishing to develop puppetry skills amongst the company whilst I developed the finished puppet.

The puppet of Barnabus was a coat with a simple skeleton inside it but that was visibly empty. The puppet was manipulated by two puppeteers both working an arm of the puppet and one controlling the hat which indicated the head.

Puppet designs for puppets in the production and puppets that got cut from the show

Rehearsals in costume with the rehearsal puppet K

Early auditions working with foam puppets

Drawing up plans for the simplified touring set

My personal notes based on the feedback from the company on the changes that needed to be made to the final version of the puppet

A sketch of the internal structure of k the puppet

The frames on wheels finished and stained with the crates that worked along side the suitcases to add hight

There were several other puppets in the production but the fast pace nature of the show meant many needed to be in and out in a short space of time. I worked with the puppeteers to animate items of clothing that became the characters.