At Oswestry Makes festival on the 4th of October at Oswestry library we held a workshop for kids to make shadow puppets. We set up in the area by the entrance of the library so our theatre was on display to all visitors to the library. We had changed the format of the workshop at the last minute as unfortunately we had not enough booked on. So instead of cancelling we decided to run for free as a promotional venture.
The response from staff and library users was “wow” and “amazing” to the look of the New but vintage inspired theatre.
As the children started to come in we enticed them in by offering them a puppet and letting them play with them behind the screen. Within no time we had a small crowd of kids playing with the puppets and getting them to interact with each other behind the screen. As one of our puppets was already a wolf the kids chose that we should make little red riding hood. Then suddenly we had a mass of approx twenty children making all the characters from little Red riding hood, props and scenery. Two older children led a performance reading the story from the library, while the others and their puppets acted it out. Younger children used the instruments to make sound effects. It was absolutely amazing to watch. They all swaped around so everyone who wanted had a go with their puppet.

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As more children joined in they naturally played and performed even those very shy had a go. We then developed their puppets by adding a moving part and then there own stories began to flow as they played behind the screen and explored how we could change the shadows size. I managed to get a few photos but not all of those wonderful puppets the kids made. Here is the few I did get and the evaluations hung on the Emerald Tree.