VeggieTales Live is the road show for DreamWorks’ cartoon characters for young children. The musical review features inflatable vegetables, some measuring up to 9 feet tall. Our team worked on full restoration of the figures including hard (carbon fiber faces) and soft surfaces (interior liners and exteriors), articulation devices, and operation systems. We also provided innovative props and storage devices. “These characters have never looked nor worked as well since they were first built”. –Chris Wall, Big Idea Entertainment.

Dolly Parton’s signature program, Imagination Library, provides books for children from birth to school age across TN and beyond. Dollywood Amusement Park features plays for family audiences from the classic books provided by their partner, Penguin Publishers. Artistree has taken outlandish characters from the page to the stage. Collaborating with writers adapting the books, we work on the best uses of puppetry in the context of the story. We design and construct the figures, and finally direct actors in puppetry movement for performance. Four productions have featured articulated figures from trains to chickens to….well…Gruffalos!

Educational Theatre Programs (ETP) based in Atlanta, GA provide wellness directed programs using puppets for Kaiser Permanente, a health provider, which has found theatre and puppetry to have significant success communicating a message. Artistree was contracted to replicate puppet characters and design and build a set for the touring group. The work entailed pattern drafting in foam, and specialty fabrics, dying the cloth to match, and improving on articulation devices. Scenic elements, new to the program, were designed to be lightweight, durable, space-efficient, and highly inventive in the device incorporated to bring about scene changes. “We never could have even imagined the solutions your team created for our company.” –Larry Davis, Director ETP.

We need a Giant! Nashville Ballet had envisioned an adaptation of Jack and the Beanstalk set in the Tennessee hills for their family ballet. The twist in the story, the giant was a samurai and the beanstalk was kudzu, a vine imported from Japan that has taken over the south. The giant, Oni, is 12 feet tall, operated by a single dancer totally concealed from the audience and weighs about 35 lbs. He lives to come to stages across the state to show young people that giants are possible, and likely.

The downtown library in Nashville houses one of the most active puppetry programs in the nation. Over 8000 people monthly visit the dedicated theatre within their halls, to see puppet shows from four collections. Artistree has designed and built the puppets for five productions presenting traditional folk tales from diverse cultures around the world. We have provided the library with many marionettes, a technically challenging enterprise in the construction of puppets. We have also devised productions that used multiple types of puppets, bringing a new view to staging techniques. We blurred the lines between scenic units and puppets in the production of “The Stonecutter”, an all time favorite with Nashville audiences.