Heartstrings: Remembering Larry Schmidt, Master Puppeteer

By C.J. Hirschfield

Commercialization and gore are key components of American Halloween these days. But one Oakland artist was committed to providing an alternative experience: a free, site-specific, Halloween-themed, family-friendly marionette show in the driveway of his family’s triplex in the Glenview District.

Larry Schmidt’s whimsical “Driveway Follies” has delighted many thousands of people over the last 11 years, and, I’m proud to say, has employed the talents of at least eight Children’s Fairyland puppeteers. We are all mourning Larry, a kind and generous soul who died at 66, of cancer, on January 18.

Larry Schmidt, founder of Driveway Follies. Photo by Rick Paulas.

Larry was a third-generation Californian, born in Berkeley during what he called “the coattails of the Golden Age of Marionettes.” He loved these articulated puppets with their moving eyes and mouths. Larry’s grandmother was a puppeteer who performed in churches and in low-income Oakland communities. “That’s where Larry’s altruism and commitment to Oakland came from,” says Randal Metz, director of Fairyland’s Storybook Puppet Theater.

Larry grew up during television’s early years watching “Brother Buzz” and “Howdy Doody,” both of which featured master puppetry. As a child, he naturally gravitated to Fairyland, which boasts the nation’s longest-running puppet theater, and where he could see a wide variety of shows.

The artistic team behind Driveway Follies. Larry Schmidt is in the back row, second from left; Fairyland puppetmaster Randal Metz is third from right.

At Fairyland Larry met Tony Urbano, who was then the director of our puppet theater and who went on to fame in Hollywood, creating puppets for films such as “Men in Black” and “Short Circuit.” Tony’s marionettes “just blew Larry away,” says Randal.

As a teenager, Larry performed for children's birthday parties. He received a degree in fine art from Oakland’s California College of the Arts, made costumes for the Oakland Ballet, and joined the San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild, where he was mentored by Fairyland’s own long-time puppet master Lewis Mahlmann and other local luminaries. He studied Indonesian mask dance and performance, and built marionettes for a production of Stravinsky’s “Firebird.”

"The Skeleton and the Roundabout," from "Driveway Follies."

In 2007, some years after he inherited the family triplex, he began performing “Driveway Follies.” The show requires seven puppeteers and has a four-night run, culminating on Halloween night.

“Not many people do the kind of ‘vaudevillian puppetry’ that Larry did,” says Randal. It involves juggling, marionettes that break apart and come back together again, and one puppet turning into seven.

What made “Driveway Follies” such a hit with audiences of all ages? “The show works because it features short vignettes with beautiful, colorful puppets—and all of them do the unexpected,” says Randal. It also features delightfully witty music from the 1930s through the 1950s that helped tell the story.

A "Driveway Follies" poster designed by Oakland illustrator (and friend of Fairyland) Michael Wertz

For years, Larry paid his performers and designers out of his own pocket. Recently, the Follies had finally started to receive funding from individuals and organizations, including the City of Oakland and San Francisco’s eccentric Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence.

Larry is survived by his many puppets and by his life partner and inspiration, Carl Linkhart.

Efforts are currently under way to keep Larry’s amazing show going; to learn more, go to the Driveway Follies website. And do yourself a favor and check out videos of “Driveway Follies” on YouTube. “The Skeleton and the Roundabout,” in which animals jump off a carousel, turn into skeletons in black light and fly away, is my very favorite. It is guaranteed to remind you of what makes Oakland so special, and why Larry Schmidt will live on in our hearts.

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C.J. Hirschfield has served for 17 years as executive director of Children’s  Fairyland, where she is charged with the overall operation of the nation’s oldest storybook theme park.