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.

The Highs and Lows of Puppet Shows

By C.J. Hirschfield

Our puppet-theater director, Randal Metz, is also a respected historian of puppets and puppetry. Recently, while researching the history of puppeteers in California, he came across an article in the Puppetry Journal – the quarterly magazine of the Puppeteers of America – that caught his eye. It wasn’t about puppets or puppeteers: It was about shoes. And not just any shoes: the special footwear used by some height-challenged puppeteers to make them tall enough to do their job.

Puppeteers' shoes suggested by Nick LeFeuvre, via the Puppetry Journal