TRAVERSE CITY — Mary Nemesek Peterson turned on a hair dryer in the Old Town Playhouse kitchen and aimed it at a glued seam on a shapeless piece of foam.
Peterson, who helped create costumes for Broadway's "The Lion King," was in town for a week to help for an upcoming production of "Doctor Doolittle."
Over the next few hours she would transform the foam into a seal head for one of the show's 20 or so puppets.
"It helps if you have some artistic skill," said Peterson, whose credits also include the Julia Roberts film, "Mirror Mirror," scheduled for release March 30. "A big portion of it is the willingness to do the work. This is tedious work. It's detailed work, sometimes heavy work, sometimes using tools. The magic of it is in designing it. You can learn construction if you really want to."
The March 2-24 show is the first joint production of the Old Town Playhouse and its Young Company, said puppet designer Kelly Curtis. It's also the first to make extensive use of hand and body puppets.
Curtis and her volunteer crew are creating the puppets from sketches and photos. Their tools: polymer clay, wire, yarn, colored markers, hot glue and contact cement, and more than 100 yards of foam and fabric.
"We use all the F's: felt, fleece, flannel, fur and feathers," said Curtis, whose budget is $1,500.
Creating lifelike puppets that are light enough for children to operate is the biggest challenge, Peterson said. The puppets range from a small duck to a giant pink sea snail to a three-person Luna moth. They'll "perform" using a variety of techniques, from simple hand movements to more elaborate pulley-and-stick systems similar to those used in Japanese shadow puppetry.
"The eyes of a puppet are what give it a life," said Peterson, whose secrets include rotating and flashing eyes. "When you look at websites that anthropomorphize things like houses and cars you're amazed at how little it takes to create a face. It's eyes first and then the mouth. If the eyes aren't alive, it has no soul."
Most of the puppets will be constructed of foam, using glued seams to create shapes, then covered with fabric. It's the same method used in many professional productions, though often the foam is injected into custom-made molds, Peterson said.
"One of the things we need to be mindful of for Broadway is eight shows a week, hopefully for a very long time. So there are issues of endurance and longevity," said the designer, who also worked on Broadway's "Tarzan."
Peterson grew up in Flint and studied textile and costume design at Eastern Michigan University and the University of Illinois. She chose theater production over fine arts in order to make a living, she said. Now she and husband David Peterson, a set and scenic designer best known for his work on "A Chorus Line" and "Young Frankenstein," work all over the world.
"It sounds exotic," said Peterson, who lives in greater New York City but visits Petoskey a couple times a year. "There are a lot of 14-hour days and there are a lot of times when you want to be home."
Wendy Roberts and niece Elise Curtis sat at a table opposite each other and worked on monkey and cow heads.
"It's play. I love it," said Roberts, a Northwest Michigan Works! employee from Traverse City. "I actually don't want to go to work any more. I just want to come here and play with puppets."
Nearby, artist Pam Ayres twisted pipe cleaners to create legs and feet for a colorful feathered macaw.
"I'm going to sculpt them out of wire, cover them with foam and wrap them with black yarn," said Ayres, of Leland, a sculptor who came to the workshop after her husband heard it announced on the radio.
Longtime OTP costume and props volunteer Diana Morgan wore a plastic storage bag tied at the shoulders.
"Every night I come from work and I get glue all over me," said Morgan, who was fashioning wings for a duck. "In my time here I've never done puppets. I had no idea it was going to be so interesting."
A musical by Leslie Bricusse, "Doctor Doolittle" is best known for the song "Talk to the Animals." It's based on the stories by Hugh Lofting and the 1967 20th Century Fox musical film.
The OTP production is directed by Kate Botello and features a cast of about 35, starring Loren Gardner as the kindly animal doctor.
Tickets are $12-$23 at 947-2210 or online at www.oldtownplayhouse.com or www.treatickets.com.
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