Puppetry for Clowns: 2 Day Intensive Course

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Puppets provide the onlooker with an infinite number of potential stories and the audience can always see the magic in the spaces around us if we allow them to. This unique 2 day course led by Caroline Partridge is designed for clowns, and performers of all kinds, with a desire to learn about puppetry, how to use puppets and objects imaginatively and effectively in their practice - as well as how to develop and add texture to their performance and/or clowning skills with puppetry techniques. 

The course includes hands-on work with newspaper, objects and puppets, games and a lot of laughter...

 

Day 1: (11am-5pm) Participants will learn the core principles and techniques of puppetry, with an emphasis on working with energy and presence. We'll focus on the notion of the puppeteer as a conduit or translator, rather than as a 'manipulator'. 
Through games and practical exercises you'll work on understanding and strengthening your relationship to the puppet and your collaborators, and how to identify what the object or puppet wants to tell you. 
Similarly to clown and mask, we'll practice the power in playing with one thought at a time, and how we translate that to the audience with clarity of gesture, authenticity and intention.

 

Day 2: (12pm-6pm) You'll continue to learn how to recognise and release the energy inherent to the puppet or object, and how to allow stories to unfold without forcing a narrative. You'll use playing in 'major' and 'minor' with objects to learn how to 'split focus'. You'll work with objects in improvised rituals to investigate what can happen in the moment. You'll explore how to communicate clearly with and without words, the power of focus and intention, and how to stop overthinking to be truly present and connected as you play. 

 

Participants are encouraged to bring in objects or puppets that they are already working with, or would like to work with.

This is a physical course so dress for movement and wear loose comfortable clothing. If you have any medical issues that might affect your full participation in the course, and you feel comfortable disclosing, please let us know before the start of the class. This is an inclusive, safe and playful workshop where participants are encouraged to challenge themselves and take risks.

 

Caroline Partridge is an Olivier nominated actress and puppeteer. She has been teaching puppetry for the last 25 years and developed unique methodology that focuses on the importance of energetic connection in both technique and performance. She has worked as a stage and screen actress, puppeteer, devisor, improviser, storyteller and maker for several large and small scale companies including: Improbable, The English National Opera, The Metropolitan Opera House, The LA Opera, Wildworks, Little Bulb, The Little Angel Theatre, The National Theatre Studio, Soho Theatre, Battersea Arts Centre, Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, M Shed, Artsdepot, The Red Room, Desperate Men and Clerkin Works. She can be seen on the big screen in the Searchlight Pictures comedy 'The Roses', alongside Olivia Coleman, and in the West End as Aunty Drosselmeyer in ‘The Nutcracker’ with Olivier award winning theatre company Little Bulb. Her television work includes series regular in the CBeebies BAFTA award winning series ‘Gigglebiz’, Polly Granger in the Amazon series ‘Pan Tau’, and will be appearing as Barbara Stubbs in Series 4 of CBBC's 'Jamie Johnson FC' in summer 2026. In 2021 Caroline was the recipient of full Arts Council England DYCP grant funding which enabled her to expand her practice as a solo artist, and develop a podcast series 'The Perception Podcast' which ran for two years: she and her guests explored how we fulfil our true potential and live authentically in a compromising world. Caroline has been titting about all her life but was formally diagnosed as a clown last year - and is currently working on her own clown show ‘Caroline Partridge: Shit Robot’ which she will take to take to the Edinburgh Fringe.'