I performed The Horse Who Forgot at a birthday party today. A local woman contacted me a while back to see if I could come and put on a puppet show for her daughter’s 5th birthday and of course I jumped on it! Over twenty kids were in attendance and, when I arrived to set up, they were all racing around on scooters and bicycles. Perfect way to expend some energy before sitting down with cake and a puppet show! After I set up the puppet theater–I love my puppet theater!!–I wandered around to see what all the families were doing. The birthday mom was smart and had set up different activities for the kids to participate in: face tattoos, paperbag puppet making, an indoor soccer enclosure, and a basketball court.
Once the kids had all run and scootered around for a bit, she had them all sit down in front of the stage where I had set up the theater. I helped to serve cupcakes and snacks and then the show was on! There was lots of giggling as each puppet–horse, duck, lamb, dog, and frazzled older lady–appeared on stage. After the show ended, I came out and introduced a few of the puppets and then asked if they’d like to go behind the theater to see how the magic happens. That was met with wild enthusiasm and they all had a chance to stand behind the theater with puppets and have their moment.
Birthday parties are fun to begin with but once you add some puppets into the mix you can’t go wrong!