How to Adapt a Puppet Script

How to Adapt a Puppet Script

by Todd Liebenow

One day a customer asked me the following question: “I love this puppet on your website named Becky, but I have a puppet script with a character named Susie. Do you sell a puppet named Susie?”In case you were wondering, you’re free to call your puppets whatever you want after you’ve purchased them. While this is a funny little story, it also brings up an interesting subject that of adapting material to fit your characters and ministry.

 

There are many books out there that are full of ministry puppet scripts.Some scripts may leap off the page as being great for your ministry.A lot more of them may seem like they could never work for you at least at first glance. For example, maybe you’re looking for a script for children’s church that deals with honoring your father and mother. You’ve found a great skit on that subject in a book. However, the script takes place at a circus, and your children’s church has an under-the-sea theme.Does that mean you can’t use that script? Of course not!That script that was written for two clowns in the circus could be changed to be about two fish beneath the waves.So, how do we look at a script with an eye for adapting it? Here are a few areas to consider:

Changing Character

It is not unusual for characters in movies to change drastically between the writing of the screenplay and the final film. For example, did you know that in an early draft of “Star Wars,” the Luke Skywalker character was a girl?So, if you’ve found a great script for two boy puppets, but it works better for you to do it with girl characters go for it!Think about what puppets you have available to use, think about what puppeteers you have available to perform them (after all, it’s tough for a grown man to do a ladies voice and vice versa).Change characters in scripts to fit the resources you have available and the skills of your puppeteers.

Many puppet teams have special characters that make regular appearances in their programs. A certain puppeteer usually performs that puppet and they know the character very well. They know how the character speaks and how he behaves. Just because you have an original character like this, doesn’t mean you have to write all of their scripts.It’s very easy to take a script from a book and change the dialogue to fit your character.Hopefully you know your characters well enough to what kind of things they would and wouldn’t say, so you can change the script accordingly.For example, maybe the script, as written in the book, has your character responding to another by saying, “awesome!” But you know your special character would not say that he would say, “righteous!”The message of the script will stay the same, even if the exact language used to convey it differs.

The Puppets are Actors

Even if you have special characters that you regularly use, they can often be used to play other parts.Let’s say your special character is a penguin puppet, but the script you are needing to perform is a retelling of the biblical story of Daniel in the lion’s den. Can a penguin play the part of Daniel? Absolutely!This technique is used in puppetry all the time.I was just watching a clip from “Sesame Street” (yes, I do still do that from time to time) in which Grover was playing a revolutionary war soldier serving with George Washington. He still has many of Grover’s regular traits and mannerisms, but he is playing a part.When using this technique, your puppets become the actors, and they are able to take on just about any role you can imagine.

Setting

One element of an interesting script is an interesting setting. Too often, puppet skits seem to take place in this strange world of the black curtains. Giving your puppets an interesting environment in which to live (a farm, a museum, an amusement park, a baseball field) can add a whole new dimension to your skit. But perhaps the setting of a skit you’ve found in a book doesn’t work for you or your audience. For example, many years ago we wrote a script for a group in Cody, Wyoming in which at one point the puppets decide to go hang out down at the mall. The group asked us to change that setting because, welllet’s face it, there just aren’t very many malls in Wyoming. The rest of the skit stayed the same, but the location changed. Maybe you’ve found a skit with a great message with puppets that are in the mountains skiing.Only problem is, your church is in Florida your kids can’t relate to skiing.So instead, you change the script so that the characters are at the beach instead.

Changes to a script can be big or small. What’s important is that the message comes through and that the skit fits your ministry situation. God has put a lot of talented people on this planet who have shared their writing skills with all of us. But God never intended you to perform their puppet skits exactly as they did otherwise, they would be directing your puppet team. God has given you creativity that will enhance those plays to be the very best they can be for the audience that your group will be ministering to.