Weekend play... as in theater

Inspired by watching a documentary about the puppeteer behind lovable Elmo, Hazel decided to put on her own play. She already had a host of previously made paper bag puppets, so she just needed to take a day to prepare the backdrops. The big event was last night, although first she had the tough task of waking up Daddy from his post-dinner nap.

She also needed to perform this trick first. The five and under set has been performing "tricks" while riding their bikes and scooters. It looks like a real circus outside sometimes.

Our first stop was to purchase tickets. The front row seats were advertised at $23, but Hazel said if we paid with one real dollar and one real coin ($1.05), we could use play money for the balance. The play money she handed me added up to $197. She explained the high cost was because this was a fundraiser for the medical clinic in Walla Walla where she lives and takes her children. A later confession was that the money was actually for her bank. Really?

This backdrop was a soon-to-be burning building.

"Hound" discovered the building was on fire. He went in to warn everyone but was then sent to jail because dogs weren't allowed in the building. 

The jail bars were cut, so she could slide him behind the bars, although she didn't count on her backdrop stand falling down every time she touched it.

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On to the second act. "Monkey" got trapped in this house, which was haunted.

After escaping, he climbed up the Space Needle (it looks like a T, in front of the picture frame) to hunt for a meadow. 

The meadow backdrop took quite a long time to make. Rather than coloring flowers directly on the paper, she insisted I cut them out so she could then color them and paste them onto the paper.

Hound was released from jail and happened to meet up with Monkey at the meadow. 

The stars and their puppeteer. Stay tuned for more shows featuring some of her other puppets. 

This real scene played out this morning, in the neighbor's yard behind our house. I was lucky to catch this new family before they "vamoosed," as they were only there for about five minutes. The baby moose were quite adorable.