Building puppets takes time, but for me it really takes an idea, and a deadline. So while I’ve been building pieces of puppets and planning ideas, I finally had a reason to complete a new puppet. My daughter had a talent show in which she wanted to perform, and with that we brain stormed some suggestions.

Having seen Magical Moonshine Theatre’s slam Forbidden Puppet Cabaret, I was inspired by their performance of “I Get a Kick Out of You”.

From this inspiration, I set to work looking for an older classic that my daughter could sing and could have some cute puppet interaction. Not sure why but West Side Story’s “I Feel Pretty” came to mind and felt like it had a lot promise. My daughter and I set to work coming up with the concept, notes for the performance, and general design of the puppet.

My daughter and I thought she could sing the song from West Side Story in an Avenue Q style where she could perform with a large puppet, and be visible. The Puppet would be an “Ugly” puppet who despite her appearance would feel pretty. Finally, we had the pleasure of seeing DLUX Puppets Alice in Wonderland, and that settled it for us.

It wasn’t until construction that we found what may have been a old inspiration back in my mind. There was an old Muppet segment done a couple times with I Feel Pretty. The nice thing is while its the same song and its a puppet, at least the performance and our puppet will be very different.