Puppet Lab

Puppet Lab runs at Live Theatre on Mondays this November, a five-session course in core puppetry skills led by Will Steele of Life and Limb Puppets. It's a collaboration between Life and Limb and the theatre, and it's open to up to 15 participants, so it's a small group rather than a big class.

The sessions take you from basic exercises through to improvisation, and the whole thing is designed to give you the skills you'll need for puppetry auditions, both here in the North East and further afield. Life and Limb's own trained puppeteers have gone on to roles at home and abroad, so the course is built around the kind of work that actually gets you in the room.

There's a bit of context that makes it worth knowing why this is happening now. Puppetry is seeing a growing demand for artists and an increasing presence on stage, yet it's still a distinct skill set that isn't widely taught in the region. This is one of the few places around here where you can actually pick it up properly, rather than just messing about with it on your own.

It runs on Mondays the 2nd, 9th, 16th and 23rd of November, with a fifth session to round it out, all starting at 5:30pm. The venue is Live Theatre on Broad Chare, NE1 3DQ. The cost is £150 for the full course.