The Puppeteer's Apprentice

by Love, D. Anne

  During the eighteenth century London society embraced the puppet theater, and for many years the wealthy attended elaborately staged shows in elegant theaters while the less fortunate continued to enjoy street plays and open-air performances. But tastes in entertainment, much like tastes in fashion, are ever-changing, and by the end of the century the puppet show had once again fallen out of favor.

  History records at least two female puppeteers in England. In creating my fictional puppeteer, I borrowed a few traits from one of them, a young woman named Charlotte Charke who dressed in men’s clothing and for a time ran one of the most successful puppet theaters in England. Charlotte was the youngest daughter of an actor and poet named Colley Cibber. She began her theatrical career as an actress and in 1738 mounted an ambitious puppet show in London that included plays by William Shakespeare and ballad operas by Henry Fielding. Later, she took her theater on the road, performing in Tunbridge Wells, but the tour was unsuccessful and she returned to London and rented her show to a man named Yeates. Eventually, she fell on hard times and was forced to sell her marionettes and scenery, but she is described as a puppeteer of unusual intelligence, taste, and courage.

  Today, the ancient art of puppetry is kept alive through performances sponsored by puppet guilds and through exhibits in museums. Puppeteers of America, established in 1937, charters puppetry guilds across the country and sponsors a National Day of Puppetry each April. Their official magazine, Puppetry Journal, features the work of American puppeteers and puppet makers.

  The Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta, Georgia, carries on an active program of education and performance and maintains a museum and a reference library. The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry at the University of Connecticut at Storrs features the work of puppeteers and puppet makers from around the world and offers studies in the art and craft of puppet theater. In Italy the International Museum of Marionettes Antonio Pasqualino in Palermo conducts workshops and seminars for teachers and children, maintains a reference library, and mounts exhibits both there and abroad.

  My own fascination with puppets began when I was a child, watching television shows featuring marionettes. To me, the marionettes seemed to have distinct personalities of their own, and I delighted in their interactions with the humans on the shows. A few years ago, while browsing in a library, I came across a book about the history of the English puppet theater. Even before I finished reading the book, I knew I would have to write a novel about the world of the traveling puppeteers. The Puppeteer’s Apprentice is the result. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Cosman, Madeline. Medieval Word Book. New York: Facts on File, 1996.

  Dyer, Christopher. Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages: Social Change in England, 1200–1520. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.

  Gies, Frances, and Joseph Gies. A Medieval Family. New York: HarperCollins, 1998.

  ———. Life in a Medieval Castle. New York: Harper and Row, 1974.

  Goodrich, Norma Lorre. Merlin. New York: Harper Perennial, 1988.

  Morgan, Kenneth, ed. The Oxford Illustrated History of Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984.

  Speaight, George. The History of the English Puppet Theater. New York: John DeGraff, 1955.