Graduate student Constanza Romero and Mallory Prucha, associate professor of design, discuss techniques for creating realistic puppets. Romero’s thesis explores the development of emotional support puppets, and their conversation focuses on the materials, construction methods, and structural approaches best suited to her unique puppetry style. In addition to the puppet design work, Prucha designed costumes and projections for The Pillowman.
Undergraduate student Abigail Rose works on the head of “Little Jesus,” one of the puppets featured in The Pillowman. For Rose, puppet construction was a new artistic challenge. She said the most difficult part of the process was troubleshooting design and construction issues while figuring out how to move each puppet from concept to completion.
To create the puppets’ underlying structure, the production team repurposed premade Halloween skeletons. According to Cassandra Trautman, costume studio supervisor, the production uses two types of puppets: handheld and attachment. Handheld puppets are operated directly by the puppeteer, while attachment puppets are clipped, strapped, or secured to the performer’s body and move in tandem with their actions. Most of the puppets are handheld, with the exception of the Little Jesus puppet, which is designed as an attachment puppet.
Kyber Zemlock, an undergraduate student who works in the costume studio, is creating puppets for the first time. Zemlock believes the biggest challenge of the process is the wide variety of materials involved. From hot glue, papier-mâché, and muslin to cardboard gift-wrap tubes and even repurposed Halloween skeletons, each material required a different approach and problem-solving process. The eclectic mix of materials also reflects Prucha’s artistic inspiration: the reuse of everyday objects, the childlike impulse to create and play, and the unsettling space where imagination can take a sinister turn.
Val Serna, a senior BFA acting major, is the performer entrusted with bringing the “Little Jesus” puppet to life. The largest puppet created, it is constructed from a wide range of repurposed materials. The creative team chose an attachment-style design rather than more traditional forms of puppetry, such as marionettes, which can appear overly realistic. Instead, they drew inspiration from Bunraku, a traditional Japanese puppetry form in which visible puppeteers work together to animate a single puppet. This approach aligns with the production’s stylized aesthetic while emphasizing the handcrafted nature of the puppet itself.
The Appleman puppet offers another example of the production team’s creative use of repurposed materials. Built on a premade Halloween skeleton, the puppet required approximately two and a half hours of modification, followed by another hour and a half of painting and decoration. The design reflects Prucha's interest in exploring the relationship between reality and storytelling, as well as the childlike impulse to create and imagine. The production embraces the aesthetics of handmade play, while also examining how that sense of wonder can become dark, unsettling, and distorted, a space at the very heart of The Pillowman.
Val Serna and the “Little Jesus” puppet in tech rehearsals.
Other themes explored through the puppet designs include the way children create toys from available materials, the blurred line between Michael’s reality and his brother’s interpretation of that reality, and the difficulty of distinguishing one from the other. The designs also draw on the idea of an authoritarian society with limited resources, incorporating the kinds of improvised materials and handmade objects that might emerge in such an environment. Together, these influences reinforce the play’s exploration of imagination, storytelling, and the uneasy intersection between innocence and darkness.