It’s not hard to imagine how the first shadow puppet was made. Someone noticed if you stood between the fire and a surface an interesting shadow would be made. And we’ve been using shadows to tell stories ever since. At Spare Parts Puppet Theatre we’ve used shadow puppets in a number of ways.

Your hands can place one of the most important roles in puppeteering. In this short video Spare Parts Puppet Theatre’s Associate Director, Michael Barlow demonstrates a variety of hand puppet techniques.

Body Puppets are so much fun! The puppeteer attaches the puppet to their body and uses an array of movements to bring the puppet to life! Miss Lily is a marvellous Body Puppet who loves to use her body to do her favourite thing, dance!

Not all puppets have strings and not all string puppets are the same. Spare Parts Puppet Theatre’s Artistic Director, Philip Mitchell demonstrates a variety of string puppets.

There are varieties of rod puppets in almost every corner of the world, from Wayang Golek in Indonesia with its rod controls to each of the hands, to the marotte puppets with a single stick, which can be found in Africa, Brazil, South America and Europe.

Puppetry is about transformation. With object theatre we turn everyday objects into characters! Why not try making your own character with an everyday object? We would love to see what you come up with!