What is a Guild? Thoughts in Progress by Guild President Michael Nelson
**

A new guild member recently wrote me the following:
*

"I'm excited to be a part of the Guild as it goes though what sounds like
some pretty big and interesting changes. I've been wondering what the point
of the guild is. This is the first time I've joined a guild and I'm not
entirely sure what the purpose is other than to have the opportunity to
fellowship with other puppeteers. I'm asking because I want to figure out
how and where I'd like to contribute as a new member."
* Below is my attempt to answer the question. When I was done I was not sure
if I was describing the guild, or possibly a puppetry center. What is your
opinion? What is the guild to you?

*To a certain extent I think the guild has been primarily a bit of a social
club for those with like interest. At the same time it has served to promote
puppetry to a modest extent, in that members have been able to serve as a
resource for each other, as well as encourage each other, and help each
other with techniques and materials and performance feedback. Also, the
guild has helped link newcomers to the art form, to other puppeteers and to
the various puppetry organizations in general. At times it has served in
limited capacity at promoting puppetry to an audience base, by participating
in days of puppetry, opening guild meetings to public and sponsoring shows
and workshops. Maintaining a website has also helped steer interested
parties to puppetry in Northern California.

To the professional puppeteer I think the guild has offered an opportunity
to help others with their interest in puppetry. Many of us received help
from the guild and its members when we were starting out, and see it as an
essential part of promoting the art of puppetry to help others with all
aspects of improving our art, from performance to building, etc. Performers
get to know each other and each other's work and can refer another puppeteer
when one is asked about a show that they can not take, or when one of us
gets sick or whatever and is looking for someone to take an existing
booking.

In the past I do not think the guild has offered much to the professional
puppeteer in other ways. Many performing puppeteers find that the meetings
and other activities of the guild compete with their time to earn a living;
it is hard to attend weekend meetings due to performances; it is hard to
find the time to serve on the board as a volunteer while one is trying to
run a puppetry business and develop one's own art. I would like to see the
guild help the professionals get work and opportunities to present our art,
and I think that the guild can do this. In the last several years I have
been hired to build puppets, perform and direct for 3 theatre companies that
do not normally include puppets in their shows. As puppetry has grown in
public perception, theatre companies are seeing the power of puppetry and
seeking to integrate puppetry with actors in their productions. One way the
guild could help to foster this is to increase the public perception of
puppetry in Northern California. I think that a concerted effort to get and
keep puppetry in the news and media would be most beneficial to professional
puppeteers in the Bay Area. To this end I am hoping to develop a strong
publicity arm of the guild, to keep guild activities and puppetry in the
public eye and mind.

I also would like to see our guild calendar grow to be the main resource for
locating puppetry performances in Northern California. This would mean
making it the most complete listing of puppetry events for many communities.
To do this, guild members and others would have to help by providing
information on upcoming performances. For some reason this has proved very
hard for guild members to do, even those whose incomes depend on performing
and audiences. I think once the calendar becomes a strong tool for marketing
puppetry, people will want to use it, but it is a bit of a catch 22 in that
it can't become that strong marketing tool until performers provide the
listings for shows to help get it started. Some guild members have said that
they don't contribute regularly to the calendar because they don't feel that
guild members come to their shows. I know that guild members come to our
shows when we list, and we go to listed shows when we can. I think one of
the best ways ALL guild members can support the art of puppetry is to go see
puppet shows. 1. We are in the guild because we like puppetry, so why not go
see shows? 2. It shows presenters of puppet shows that there is a market for
the shows and a desire to see them in the public so they will be inclined to
consider presenting puppetry again in the future. 3. You can learn something
about puppetry, even from a bad show.

In addition to the calendar, I think our internet presence could and should
be strengthened.

There are other ways the guild could help promote the kind of puppetry that
leads to jobs for professional performers, and I think we should look to
develop those as well. Of course one of the most obvious is getting our
professionals performing in the public eye. Performers know that to be seen
doing puppetry is the best way to get more work as a puppeteer. When we
don't have venues, we can not find our audience. I would like the guild to
use its many eyes and ears to find and catalogue venues in the Bay Area and
promote the idea of puppet shows to the curators of these venues. Having
members who support puppetry living in communities all over Northern
California is one of our greatest resources, one that we have not explored
or exploited. These are people that could and should be encouraging the art
form that they support in their own community. Another way of promoting
puppetry would be organizing or promoting puppetry festivals locally. Could
the guild organize a "roving day of puppetry" or "rolling puppetry festival"
like the Pacific Northwest is doing this summer, with guild members serving
as organizers and liaisons in their respective communities? Why not?

In addition, there has been discussion of puppetry education for young
persons interested in theatre and puppetry. I would like to encourage a
discussion among guild members of the idea of addressing this. One idea
might be to develop a guild puppetry education curriculum that guild members
could learn and be hired to teach in their communities. This both promotes
puppetry and gets performers meeting potential audience members and
purchasers of puppetry and services, while being paid. It is possible that
the guild could develop relationships with city recreation departments and
camps or schools to establish these connections.

I am very much in favor of the idea of the guild helping provide a venue for
non-commercial or undeveloped puppetry acts. The guild challenge (where
guild members develop a puppet skit around an idea or phrase for performance
at a meeting) could be this. I also like the idea of a puppet salon, where
performers could present works to the public, develop themes and ideas in
front of an audience and grow artistically in a creative and exciting
environment. This could also be a rolling event, with performances in
various communities in venues excited by the richness and artistic
risk-taking of the endeavor.
Another exciting area that the San Diego guild has developed is giant parade
puppets. These could be great guild group projects, with the guild
eventually having a cast of huge puppets that could be used in parades,
pageants and other events, calling attention to both the guild and puppetry
in a very dramatic way. How about a summer retreat where guild members get
together for a week and create giant puppets?

These are just a few ideas. What can you add to this discussion?

--
Michael Nelson