Arts Olympus Page 2

Then out of the blue, another phone call. Would you like to take the puppets on a world cruise next year on the new ship? It appeared that our work in the field of American Puppetry was once again getting noticed. Since we couldn't take the movie puppets on the boat due to probable filming next year, we decided to look back at several of the incredible shows that The Olde World Puppet Theatre has created over the years.

What came to mind was Mardi Gras in Oz, an off-broadway style show we did years ago, utilizing seven foot tall body puppets and rolling sets creating a very disco-styled flashback version of the Wizard of Oz using Eduardo "Meco" Menardo's beautiful 1979 disco album. Although the original show was built in less than two months and on a very limited budget, it never failed to please the crowd-- after all who doesn't want to journey over the rainbow one more time.

Since we had video of the last performance of the show, we decided to drag the puppets out of mothballs, and redid the sound track so that the video could be shown to stir up interest in it. Now we had two movies to show, and two different sets of puppets to display, and two very different posters to create.

Just how the general public was going to react to a life-sized Wicked Witch of the West and a Scarecrow strolling down the main decks of the Queen Mary remained to be seen.

So Meco's Mardi Gras in Oz was uploaded to YouTube as we prepared for our journey. A new seven-page treatment was created as well to show just what the new production could be, using the old film as a sort of sounding board.

Amazingly enough, with extremely careful packing, the entire now elaborate production of movies, puppets, sets, luggage, and workshop materials all fit into the van, with no room to spare. With great excitement and anticipation we headed south for our own journey over the rainbow.

Upon arriving at the Queen Mary dock three days later, we were struck by a rather odd sight. Smack dab in the middle of the parking lot for this great ship was an entire renaissance village, complete with street lamps, buildings, gardens, and all. It was as if we had just stepped onto the main street of Belvuria from our brand new film, Witch Key.

Needless to say, we took a lot of pictures and had a very pleasant stroll through the village, admiring the details of the buildings and settings, all the while pondering why it was created and for just what purpose. Most of the buildings seem to be vacant, which formed another great mystery to be unveiled later.