Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers

I hope everyone enjoyed their memorial day weekend. We spent a bunch of ours out and about at BBQ's and enjoying the weather. We also got the opprotunity to see the Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers at the Brookline Puppet Showplace theater. The Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers are based up in Bar Harbor, Maine and consist of three siblings Erik, Brian, and Robin Torbeck. They performed their original piece titled "everyone loves pirates".

The performance was all done with mouth and rod style puppets. The story based around two little kids that went fishing and ended up catching a treasure map. The children decide to go for the treasure but little do they know the are being chased by three fearsome pirates. This story is an amazing tale for both children and adults. The characters are all well defined and the story is jam packed with hilarious situations, great puns, and fun for the whole family. My personal favorites are Lobster Boy and the Jet Ski Guy who refers to everyone as "guy". Well if you hear that Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers are performing near you it is worth every penny to go.

After the Perfomance we saw, we sat and chatted with the Torbecks for a while exchanging puppet stories, building tips, and chatted for a while about their stage show. They invited us to come back the next day and watch the show again from behind the curtain. We couldn't pass up that opprotunity. Stephen and myself watched the show a second time from behind the curtain. In my opinion I wish I could watch all shows that way. The did some very innovative things in their show to make it all work and the transitions from one scene to the next are seemless. When you go to watch the show there is a great moment that we couldn't figure out till we were backstage. In the production after the kids dig up the treasure there is a scene with the two children and the three pirates and some how they grow and extra hand to be able to carry the treasure away. We found out how they did this but we'll never tell.

All in all some great people all around and if you get the chance please go and see their show. Well we are excited about seeing them again and the regional puppet festival in July.

For More info on Frogtown Mountain Puppeteers go to http://www.frogtownpuppets.com/