Find your place in a troupe
Perhaps you want a regular creative adventure with people you enjoy. Perhaps you want to build a professional life in puppetry or video. Community and Company Puppeteers learn together, with room for beginners, experienced performers and the people who love making things work behind the camera.
Community Puppeteers
Make puppetry part of your life for the pleasure of creating, learning and contributing to the Village. Develop characters, make stories and videos, and work with your troupe without needing to pursue a professional career.
Company Puppeteers
Bring a professional ambition to that same work. Help prepare a troupe for potential touring engagements, while developing skills you can also use in a career of your own. Paid work depends on readiness, funding and available opportunities.
What you share
Both follow the same 24-step rune path: puppet and character work, storytelling, collaboration and the responsibilities of keeping a troupe going. Performance and Bard/Engineer video work go hand in hand, with television-style puppetry helping you learn to make a story work on screen.
We convene a troupe whenever eight people are ready. Your interests help shape the work you do together. With five or more Company Puppeteers, it becomes a company troupe and joins the co-op’s register for potential touring work. While opportunities develop, there is plenty to rehearse, create and film.
Your rune path, one step at a time
A rune marks a practical step in your learning. The path is divided into three Aetts, each containing eight steps. Your troupe guide helps you choose the next activity, reviews your work with you and confirms when you have met the requirements. You can see the whole route below; you do not need to know how to do it all before you begin.
Aett 1 — Getting to know your puppet and your troupe
- Fehu — Formation
Meet your troupe, get to know your Village Character and agree a first contribution with your team. - Uruz: Safe Handling
Learn to prepare, carry, operate and put away your puppet safely and comfortably. - Thurisaz: Voice Found
Find a clear, sustainable character voice and practise listening and responding in a scene. - Ansuz: Wardrobe Sorted
Choose, fit, organise and care for your puppet’s clothes. - Raidho: Craft Deliverable
Design and make something useful for the troupe, then test it and improve it with feedback. - Kenaz: Habits Kept
Use The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People to build habits that help you work well with your troupe. - Gebo: Person Understood
Explore On Becoming a Person and practise listening with care to a partner. - Wunjo: Primary Sheet Begun
Begin a record of your main character’s voice, movement, motivation and place in the story.
Aett 2 — Making stories and taking them to an audience
- Hagalaz: Circle Held
Help lead a welcoming troupe circle where people can contribute and agree what happens next. - Nauthiz: Secondary Chosen
Choose a second performance character and try how that role complements your first. - Isa: Knowledge Shared
Teach a small skill or share useful knowledge, then help someone else try it. - Jera: Table Read
Read a script together, follow cues, listen to the other characters and help resolve unclear moments. - Eihwaz: Script Written
Write a short skit, try it with the troupe and revise it after a table read. - Perthro: Bard in Training
Shape and tell a story, practising its opening, turning point, ending, voice and timing. - Algiz: Touring Debut
Take part in a public regional-tour engagement, including preparation, your agreed role and the team debrief. - Sowilo: Bard on the Road
Adapt a story for a touring venue and audience, then reflect on what worked.
Aett 3 — Sharing responsibility and showing your skills
- Tiwaz: Steward’s Turn
Take your turn at a shared troupe duty and make a clear handover to the next person. - Berkano: Repair Kept
Complete an agreed repair and help keep the troupe’s puppets and equipment in good order. - Ehwaz: Second Engagement
Complete a second training-tour engagement, applying what you learned from the first. - Mannaz: Attendance Held
Take part in at least five of seven monthly sessions and keep a record of your contributions. - Laguz: Creating Shown
Develop, test and present a creative contribution to a troupe production. - Ingwaz: Performing Shown
Rehearse and perform an agreed scene, showing your character choices and ensemble skills. - Dagaz: Responding Shown
Give thoughtful feedback on a performance and show how feedback helps you improve your own work. - Othala: Connecting Shown
Complete both character sheets and review how your learning and contributions fit together.
Your guide will explain which requirements apply to your programme and arrange performance and supervised practice with you. Touring steps are training milestones; they do not promise a paid booking.
Come make something with us
Bring a story, a skill you would like to share, or something you have always wanted to try. Leave your email and we will help you explore where Community or Company puppetry might fit in your life. You are welcome to ask questions before choosing.
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Want to meet us first? Come Meet the Puppets! We would love to hear what interests you.