Thank you very much to the following supporters for your kind patronage:
Beeston Family
Lee Crowley
Fflur, Kevin & Maven
Melanie Fulker
Kim Huynh
Margie
Jenny Mulkearns
Elizabeth Strakosch
Torin
Nikhilā Williamson
Katie York
Larrikin Puppets has experienced growth and success beyond its wildest dreams and, for that, we will be forever grateful. We love the impact we’ve made so far on children of all ages all over Queensland and New South Wales through our live puppet shows and puppetry performance workshops. A sustainable puppetry arts business is almost unheard of in this day and age. We get that. We also get that we’re lucky to have a thriving arts business. In fact, the harder we work at the art of puppetry, the luckier we get. 😉
But the current cast of cute, colourful characters are starting to get a bit antsy. They long for something more. They desperately want to talk, dance, sing and interact with more children – children in Australia and all over the world. They also yearn for some artistic freedom!
Children’s Music Album: Throughout 2019 and 2020, we worked on a children’s album of music featuring our puppet characters! Working with puppeteer (and musician) Brett Hansen’s former Headkase bandmate Dylan Kreis, the music is fun, full of dance moves and crazy puppet voices. These fun songs can now be heard on Spotify and Apple Music, and are performed each week at our live puppet shows – thanks to the support of our patrons.
Musical Theatre Production: Between 2018 and 2022 we worked super hard on a large scale puppet musical theatre production called “Hijabi Girl“, based on a book by Hazel Edwards and Ozge Alkan. Thanks to donations from our patrons, puppets and sets were built, and child actors were hired to voice the roles for the puppet characters. This in-theatre production premiered in August 2022 at the Kingston Butter Factory’s Butterbox Theatre.
TV Musical Project: Since 2017, we began character designs and planning on a TV pilot and live performance project with Brett’s two awesome brothers:
– Todd Hansen – twice ARIA-nominated musician as drummer with global rock/metal phenomenon King Parrot.
– Dale Hansen – electronic media extraordinaire and proud father of two.
Getting our own TV gig has been our biggest challenge. But as we have continued to perform puppetry on various film and TV projects produced by others (such as music videos and TV guest spots), we’ve come to know many great film and TV practitioners along the way, and have met with a studio who is keen to collaborate with us. Scripting and creative development is continuing as at April 2023.
Making quality original puppetry performance art – puppet building, scripting, songwriting and dance choreography – that supports child development is super expensive. But with plenty of public support, we know we can do it! Why? Because learning through reading, talking, dancing and singing is where it’s at. In fact, 90% of a child’s brain development happens in the first 5 years and, in the first few years of life, more than 1 million new neural connections are formed every second.
The experts at Harvard University say:
“…providing young children with a healthy environment in which to learn and grow is not only good for their development—economists have also shown that high-quality early childhood programs bring impressive returns on investment to the public.”
This means supporting Larrikin Puppets is not only wonderful for parents or carers with children, but for anyone who wants to see children across Australia and around the world experience high learning, behaviour and health outcomes.
Your support will give Larrikin Puppets the artistic freedom to:
- write, film and produce an original TV series for children focusing on joy, play, love, kindness, compassion and empathy.
- write more original children’s music.
- build new original puppets, sets and props.
- create original live shows for children with themes around multiculturalism, social inclusion, the environment and kindness/anti-bullying.
But we need to raise funds for complex puppet and set builds, so your financial support is fundamental to making this happen.
Supporting Larrikin Puppets on Patreon will bring you and your kids joy, laughter and learning PLUS you’ll receive behind the scenes inside scoops into this crazy, colourful world of fuzzy puppets. Together let’s talk, play, sing, dance and interact with fast paced puppet fun!
