The day after I cancelled the memberships, the emails and questions started dropping into my inbox. Why did you cancel? Would you be interested in a meeting with the drama teacher? What could we do better?
It felt a little too late. With surreal communities like puppetry, you need to encourage and inspire. Leave the negativity at the door. The time for questions is before someone walks out, not after.
As you read this, you're probably seeing the irony — given some of what I've written in this journal. Fair enough. I'll take that one on the chin.
Being an outcast of the outcasts. It's a position. Probably not one I would have chosen. But one I've become more comfortable with in recent years.
I look around at the community that has, for the most part, neglected me, and I ask myself what I once saw in it. The answer, when I sit with it honestly, is the passion. The raw, impractical, slightly deranged passion that these people carry.
The very few who have made it into a career. The ones who have actually managed to survive off the back of it. For the most part, every puppeteer I've ever met has a real job. They do this as a hobby, a compulsion, a weekend obsession they can't quite shake.
Then there's Jive and Monty. For them, it's their life. Monty now retired. Jive still hobbling around the back of a Punch and Judy stage.
The true movers and shakers.