Driveway Follies marionette present is a Halloween custom

On a cold Friday evening, members of the Driveway Follies marionette puppet present gathered at Two Pitchers Brewing Company, and Lovely’s in downtown Oakland for a bingo fundraiser supporting their ghoulish Oakland group. 

Followers of the Follies—some wearing Halloween costumes—gathered on the brewery’s patio to play a recreation of bingo hosted by Catman of West Oakland and have an opportunity to fulfill members of the crew who make whimsical Halloween magic with the assistance of intricate and colourful marionettes—puppets whose actions are managed from above by strings. 

Whereas Catman was calling out bingo numbers, a number of puppeteers walked among the many crowd, displaying off their expertise by manipulating the marionettes to bop throughout the tables. Subsequent to Catman, Augusta, the puppet, was telling jokes. Curious children approached Augusta in awe, asking her questions earlier than working again to their tables. 

Each Halloween weekend since 2007, Driveway Follies has entertained households with its puppet exhibits, carried out within the driveway of Follies founder Larry Schmidt, who passed away from cancer in Jan. 2019 on the age of 66. Schmidt’s companion, Carl Linkhart, nonetheless lives on the property and continues to host the Follies yearly since Schmidt’s passing.

This 12 months’s present contains Mysterious Mose, one of many 5 acts that might be carried out on Oct. 30 and 31. There might be six shows per night, working 25-Half-hour every, starting at sunset. 

The group is at present comprised of six puppeteers: Ria Rodriguez, Adrienne Suzio, Fred C. Riley III, Randal Metz, William Lewis, and Jacqui June Whitlock. Riley III started his profession as a puppeteer within the early 90s and serves because the group’s creative director. Some would possibly know Metz from Kids’s Fairyland, the place he’s the director of the Storybook Puppet Theater, the oldest, continually operating puppet theater in the country. Rodriguez additionally works on the children’ theme park, and Suzio was a puppeteer there till she joined the Follies. 

Different members of the Follies embody stage supervisor Sharon Arnett, apprentice stage supervisor Emily Shores, and the present’s usher Griffin Cloudwalker.

Driveway Follies grew to become a nonprofit in 2018, co-founded by Betsy Baum Block and Michael Gabriel, and members raised funds for this 12 months’s performances by internet hosting fundraisers round city, just like the one final Friday.

“The cash that we make doesn’t actually cowl the time that we spend engaged on the present,” stated Rodriguez, who has been with Driveway Follies since 2015. “A whole lot of it’s a labor of affection. The group round us and people who grew up with the Follies actually did step as much as assist us placed on a present.”

Rodriguez performs the function of Augusta, the present’s “ghost host.”

“I get to spend my Halloween season telling horrifically dangerous jokes to kids and attempting to get grownups to giggle,” Rodriguez stated. She can be in command of designing the enamel pins and different merch that the group sells at its fundraisers. 

Her co-puppeteer Suzio was recruited to hitch Driveway Follies by Schmidt after the founder took in certainly one of her performances on the Storybook Puppet Theater in 2015. “Larry [Schmidt] got here and noticed me carry out at Fairyland and was like, ‘Come on in!’” recalled Suzio.

When Schmidt handed away, Suzio additionally took on a part of the executive function of serving to to run the group’s nonprofit. “I’m an enormous Halloween fan, so this was the right mixture of issues for me,” Suzio stated. 

Along with their expertise at Kids’s Fairyland, Metz’s longtime friendship with Schmidt offered Rodriguez and Suzio with a possibility to hitch Driveway Follies. Suzio is now not with Fairyland, however Rodriguez stays there because the artistic director of Kids’s Fairyland.

“Adrienne [Suzio] is doing an incredible job scheduling new fundraisers, which we’ve by no means executed earlier than,” Rodriguez stated. “It’s permitting us to place new paint and strings on puppets and conserving us all going.”

Shedding Schmidt in early 2019, mere months after wrapping up their 2018 sequence, took a toll on the whole crew. On the time, they puzzled how it will be doable to proceed with out him. 

“Most of the puppeteers had identified Larry for many years, so after his passing, it was exhausting for us to placed on that present face and hold going,” Rodriguez stated. “However we additionally knew that he would need us to proceed this present that he’s given to the group. He was the center and soul of the whole occasion.”

For Riley III, the shock of shedding Schmidt nonetheless lingers to today. “No one understood how critical it was at first,” he stated of Schmidt’s most cancers prognosis. “All of it occurred so quick.”

Puppetry wasn’t about making a dwelling for Schmidt, added Riley III. “He was doing it purely for the love.”

Schmidt began work on many puppets that had been by no means completed, stated Riley III, and there have been exhibits of his within the works that may by no means see the sunshine of day. The present group now not creates any new characters, selecting as a substitute to rehash outdated items and recycle them each few years.  The older items, stated Riley III, “are, to me, extra quintessentially Larry. So I’m attempting to get these again in.”

Since changing into creative director in 2019, Riley III has saved Schmidt’s legacy near his coronary heart. 

“What I at all times have in my head is that it’s not my present. It’s Larry’s. Each choice I make is what I feel he would do,” he stated. “There’s a solid member within the present that I personally went to rent. However I do know that Larry would have employed them.”

Placing annually’s present collectively requires lengthy rehearsal hours and time spent making certain that each marionette is in pristine form. No less than 5 puppeteers are wanted to deal with the marionettes at every efficiency.

“Trick puppetry is simply spectacular. The puppet doesn’t simply stroll throughout the stage—it grows two toes, or it falls aside right into a bunch of tiny little puppets,” Rodriguez stated. “The trick marionettes within the present are simply mind-boggling.” This 12 months’s present features a parade of trick marionettes.

For Rodriguez, Suzio, Riley III, and the opposite members, Driveway Follies is about embodying Schmidt’s love of puppetry and preserving the artwork kind for generations to return. 

“We get that chance at Fairyland, after which we get the chance to bolster it with Driveway Follies and share an artwork kind that’s not as seen anymore,” Rodriguez stated. “It’s kind of this dying artwork in a whole lot of methods, and we simply need to make it possible for it stays true to itself and true to Oakland.” 

Correction: Ria Rodriguez is the artistic director at Kids’s Fairyland.