In 1991, the SFBAPG celebrated its 30th anniversary as a chartered guild of the Puppeteers of America. At that time, Lettie Connell Schubert wrote “An Incomplete History of the SFBAPG.” Now, in honor of the Guild’s 35th anniversary in 1996, Lettie’s history is published once again.
AN INCOMPLETE HISTORY
OF
THE SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA PUPPETEERS GUILD
by Lettie Connell Schubert (1991)
To understand the background of the Guild’s formation, we first go back to the 1930s and note that performing artists Blanding Sloan, Ralph Chesse, R. Bruce Inveriarty, and Enola Barker (who performed with Javanese rod puppets) each produced their own shows under a loose umbrella known as the “Marionette Guild” which lasted only a few years. This cooperative association no doubt helped build audiences for all the groups, but probably was unlike SFBAPG because the Marionette Guild was an association of performing troupes, while SFBAPG has been more a fraternal association of people with interests in puppetry on many levels. Chesse, Pauline Benton of the Chinese shadow theater Red Gate Players, Vivika Place (Heino), John Carter Ford, the Hestwood Brothers, Vera von Pilat, Otis Cobb, and Perry Dilley carried on puppet activities individually through the Depression years, with some lasting up to World War II. Not much is recorded during the war years; Benton had moved to New York, Dilley and many others had stopped performing or moved away, Chesse was in Southern California, and so the thread picks up again in the late 1940s and early 1950s when puppeteers and puppetry fans only met by chance at performances. Touring through were the Lessellis (Les & Ellie Heath), the Williams Marionettes from Washington (Robert and Edith Williams), the Kramer Marionettes, Jack & Jackie Shafton, Walter, Lee & Hilton Scott, the Mitchell Marionettes from Whittier, as well as many variety acts that played the Golden Gate Theatre and clubs: Pat Patterson with his pal Pirro, Roger Westley, Walton & O’Rourke, Sabin & her Personettes, and Johnny Faust. It was always a rare and wonderful experience in those days when you found someone else with a mutual enthusiasm for puppetry. Our friends and relatives did not always appreciate this curious passion. We needed others who shared this great interest we had, so …. we got together and formed the guild.
Among local performers in the formative ’50s were Jan Ballan, the Chattering Magician – who performed his hysterical “Punch’s Adventures in Turkey”, Ben Blake who designed handsome puppets, Ralph Chesse (marionettes), Lettie Connell (hand puppets), Marian Derby (hand puppets), Ralph Geddis & Francois Martin from the Carmel area, Ray & Betty Mount (hand puppets), Grace Wilder (hand puppets), Wolo (hand puppets), Bert Hansen of Oakland (no relation to either Steve Hansen or Sallie Hanson) who peformed Punch & Judy. Amateur/hobbyist groups such as the High Strung Theatre (Charlotte & Bob Black, the Dreschers, Lorraine and John Kraft, Barbara and Jack Mee, and Clyde Forsman who all shared an enthusiasm for folk dancing as well as marionettes) producing memorable productions of “Shake vs. Shaw” and “Archie & Mehitabel” in a beautiful little theater at the Blacks’ home. Lewis Mahlmann’s Lilliputian Players performed marionette versions of “Little Mermaid”, “Sigfried”, “Sleeping Beauty”, and “The Magic Blossom” (adapted from Midsummer Night’s Dream). The Lilliputian Players also performed hand puppet versions of “The Unicorn, The Gorgon and the Manticore”, “L’Enfant et los Sortileges”, and “History of A Soldier”, as well as a rod puppet version of “Blue Beard”. Also performing at this time were the Oznowicz Family Marionettes who performed at Yosemite and school assemblies. Young Frank Oznowicz did library shows and fairs. On the stage of the Opera House, Ralph Chesse and Lettie Connell collaborated with the San Francisco Symphony to produce the puppet sequences of Manual de Falla’s “Master Peter’s Puppet Show”. Later Lewis Mahlmann did a production of “Master Peter” with the Berkeley Symphony in the ’60s. Tony Urbano performed Ravel’s “The Mother Goose Suite” with the Oakland Symphony in the ’60s assisted by Guild members.
The Oakland Recreation Department had a summer puppetry program, and in 1953 inaugurated the Vagabond Puppet Theatre program which worked with a trailer theater resembling a circus wagon. Joyce Lobner began as director and the following year Lettie Connell assumed direction of the program and carried on through 1960. The Vagabond Puppets Theatre of the Oakland Recreation Department brought puppetry to thousands of children in addition to providing a fine training ground with many jobs for local puppeteers: Paul Miller, Robert Edward Darling, Dahl Delu, Sallie Hanson, Jerry Juhl and Frank Oznowicz, Ruth Sicular, Pearl Dailey, Bruce Chesse and Fred Jackson, Julie and Richard Greene, Earl Rhue, Blake Maxam, and Randal Metz. Children’s Fairyland of Oakland, which was a project of the Park Department (later the Park and Recreation Departments merged), contributed equally to the local puppetry scene and the Guild when it opened the Story Book Puppet Theater, involving current and former guild members as directors: Dorothy Hayward, Tony Urbano, Sallie Hanson, Luman Coad, Lewis Mahlmann, Randal Metz; and talented paid assistants and volunteers including Don Ingraham, Darryl Ferreira, John Gilkerson, Naomi Gilkerson, Jan & Kay Ballan, and most of the Oznowicz family. In the late 1950s there was a tremendous exchange with the two Oakland staffs and guild members doing voices, helping build puppets, sets and costumes, sharing ideas and techniques, writing plays for each other. Other Bay Area recreation departments sponsored classes and programs sporadically, but only the City of Oakland has supported puppetry on a regular basis for such a long time.
Television also provided work in the ’50s for puppeteers: Ralph Chesse’s Willie & the Baron was one of the first live local television shows – on KGO-TV, followed by his Brother Buzz on KPIX. Wolo & Aloysius performed for Red Goose Shoes on KPIX, followed by a spot on KPIX’s Morning Show. Lettie Connell was puppeteer on The Looking Glass Lady Show for KRON-TV, as well as Happy Holly commercials for the old White House Department Store. Later Connell inherited Wolo’s spot on The Morning Show when Wolo won the Westinghouse Coast Network’s competition and went to Hollywood to appear on the Panorama Pacific. Connell’s characters were Twinkle & George. Lewis Mahlmann appeared on Hop, Skip & Dance on KQED. Ventriloquist Bruce Sedley appeared on TV with King Fuddle as well as performing regularly at Fairyland. The late John Gilkerson and Denys Adida performed on the local tv show “Buster & Me” with Robin Goodrow, a quality children’s program sorely missed when it left the air.
Department stores provided venues for puppeteers. O’Connor & Moffat had shows in the early ’40s. A big well established shoe store on Market Street hired puppeteer Geri Barish to charm tiny customers. The Emporium hired Chesse & Co. for two seasons – “The Golden Egg of ‘49″ was produced for the Market Street Store. The White House Department Store showcased Lettie Connell in the ’50s in “The Adventures of Benny Bunny” and a three part hand puppet melodrama “The Man Who Hated Christmas”. Lewis Mahlmann performed at Macy’s. In 1956 Turnabout Theatre from Los Angeles opened on Mason Street under the Old Stage Door Theater in San Francisco for a run of several years. In 1956 Hugh Evans and Frank Bray opened Lilliput Theatre on Fillmore Street near Union in San Francisco and presented toy theatre (AKA juvenile theatre/model theatre/paper theatre) productions using beautiful enlarged versions of English traditional schoolboy plays.
This, then, was the rich mixture local puppet fans enjoyed. Charter Members of the Guild included: Jan Ballan; Mr. and Mrs. Lenard Colton; John H.Crafts; Lettie Connell; Marian Derby; Dahl Delu; Ray Fenton; Clyde Forsman; Sally G. Hanson; Sydney Kittinger; Hanna W. Lavin; Mary Patricia Lavin; Roberta G. Mack; Lewis Mahlmann; Barbara Mee; Frances Oznowicz; Frank Oznowicz; Mike Oznowicz; Patricia Whitehill; Talma-Zetta Wilbur; Wolo. Early Members were the Blacks, Luman Coad, Darryl Ferreira, the Gadburys, William Stewart Jones who was on the Board of Trustees of Puppeteers of America when the charter was granted, as was Lewis Mahlmann, and Tony Urbano. The San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild received charter #7 from Puppeteers of America on February 11 1961 mainly due to the efforts of P of A President, John U. Zweers of Pasadena and Vice President Lewis Mahlmann. Mollie Falkenstein of Laguna Beach was Regional Director ( at the time the Region included the entire Pacific Coast). The Guild had been meeting regularly since 1954, but its members had not felt the necessity of applying for a charter until some of the members accepted the responsibility of hosting the 1961 National Festival at Asilomar on the Monterey Peninsula. After much discussion, a majority of the Guild members finally voted to apply for the charter. Lettie Connell and Dorothy Hayward (of Children’s Fairyland) were to be co-chairs of the Festival, but Dorothy met and married Gil Oden (curator of Theatre Arts at the Detroit Institute of Art) and went to live in Detroit. Lettie, now Lettie Connell Schubert, was Festival Director.
Guild members had been organizing Puppet Fairs at Children’s Fairyland and other special events since 1956. However, to test its capabilities and learn the responsibilities of Festival giving, the Guild sponsored a Regional Festival in San Francisco in 1960. Ably assisted by Lewis Mahlmann, Marian Derby, Bill Jones, Pat Lavin, Roberta Mack and the Oznowiczs, Lettie Connell chaired the first California Regional. A banquet was held at the Opus One, an infamous restaurant in the heart of the Beat scene. Performances were given at the Little Fox Theatre on Broadway in the old International Settlement in North Beach. Workshop leaders were Ralph Chesse, Virginia Opsvig Kerr, Dr. Clarence Miller from San Francisco State, Shirley Eoff, Dion Chesse, Robert Edward Darling, Lewis Mahlmann and Lettie Connell. Participants from out of town stayed at hotels. The first festival realized a profit of $25.00 which became the basis of the Regional treasury.
THE FIRST MEETINGS
In 1954 or 1955 Oakland Librarian Inga Strehlow invited everyone interested in puppetry to attend meetings at the library. In addition to trying to form a cohesive group, she also led workshops in puppet making. Attending these early meetings were Pat Lavin and her mother Hannah, Lewis Mahlmann, Lettie Connell, Roberta Mack, and Mike and Frances Oznowicz. Later, part of the group met at Lewis’s home on Broderick Street and at Roberta’s home on Marina Boulevard in San Francisco. Soon the group was meeting on a regular basis, taking on new members as quickly as contact was made with others fascinated by puppetry. Some of the master puppeteers, Chesse and Wolo, did not join the Guild in the early years, but were available for advice and inspiration.
THE LOGO
The original logo was designed by William Stewart Jones. Bill also designed the original hand logo for UNIMA-USA at the request of Mollie Falkenstein, who was Secretary General at the time. Bill designed, and made, the original guild banner which, sadly, was stolen while it hung outside during a weekend meeting at Santa Cruz. His little character was redrawn in the 1970s by Bev Armstrong, and interpreted most recently by Elva Aiken as a pair of three dimensional figures carried in the parade at a National Festival at San Luis Obispo. Bev’s reworking of the design is to be seen on the Guild’s informational flyer, where our trademark is found in many forms of the puppet.
GUILD MEMBERS AS AUTHORS:
| Bruce Chesse | “Sponge-ees” |
| Ralph Chesse | “Marionette Actor” |
| Luman Coad (with Arlyn Coad) | a number of books on production, stages, rod puppets |
| Nancy H. Cole | “Puppet Theatre in Performance” |
| Kathy Foley | in theatre journals |
| Steve Hansen | an article in vol. 13 of “The Family Creative Workshop”, series 1975 |
| Grace Harp | books and plays |
| Lewis Mahlmann & David Jones | “Puppet Plays for Young Players”, “Puppet Plays from Favorite Stories”, “Folk Tales for Puppets” plus many plays in the magazine “Plays” |
| Lucy Morton | “Cloth Marionettes” |
| Michael Nelson | a series on tools and materials for the Puppetry Journal |
| Betty Polus (Elisheva Hart) | on lighting and shadow puppets |
| Lettie Connell Schubert | “A Manual of Hand Puppet Manipulation” and “Getting Your Act Together” |
| Judy Sierra and Bob Kaminski | many books on storytelling and shadow puppetry |
| Robert LeRoy Smith | “The Gun Control” and “Fast and Easy to Make Marionette” |
| Jan Van Schuyver | Educational puppetry books |
| Frances Oznowicz | contributed an article on puppet costume design for a special puppet issue of Theatre Crafts Magazine. |
| Wolo | wrote and illustrated a number of delightful children’s books |
| Lois Allen | was known outside of the puppet community for her award winning children’s books |
| Bob Biderman and Joy Magezis | Mystery and suspense books for adults Many other guild members have contributed chapters on various aspects of puppetry for the workshop manuals at national and regional festivals. |
| Many other guild members have contributed chapters on various aspects of puppetry for the workshop manuals at national and regional festivals. | |
PAST PRESIDENTS
Patricia Lavin, Lewis Mahlmann, Luman Coad, David Jones, Mike Oznowicz, Kitty Adams, Terry Ryder, Bruce Chesse, Lettie Connell Schubert, Betty Polus, Helga Cassady. Note from Lettie: No early guild archives have survived, so would former presidents not listed here, please write and fill in the missing years. Thanks, too, to the loyal and hardworking officers, especially the treasurers, newsletter editors and guild librarians.
GUILD MEMBERS WHO SERVED PUPPETRY BEYOND THE GUILD LEVEL
(as members of the Boards of Puppeteers of America and UNIMA-USA, as Regional and National Festival Directors): Bruce Chesse, Luman Coad, Nancy H. Cole, Willlam Stewart Jones, Ronna Casey & Joe Leon, who read papers at the Moscow Unima Congress, Rochelle Lum, Lewis Mahlmann, Michael Nelson, Mike Oznowicz, Lettie Schubert. Betty (Elisheva) Polus Hart is shadow puppet consultant and Lucy Morton was senior puppetry consultant for the P of A. Mickey Aronoff is the former education Director of the Scottish Masque and Puppet Centre in Glasgow and is now Therapy Consultant of the Puppeteers of America.
MEMBERS WHO HAVE ACHIEVED FAME BEYOND OUR PUPPET COMMUNITY!
| Dahl Delu | set designer New York, Minneapolis, Los Angeles-(“Cheers”) |
| Robert Edward Darling | opera designer and director Hollywood |
| Darryl Ferreira | actor |
| John Gilkerson | ballet designer, designer of Christmas windows, puppeteer of “Russell” on Buster & Me |
| Steve Hansen | The Puppet Man |
| Lou Harrison | composer |
| Bob Hartman | internationally known puppeteer |
| William Stewart Jones | art director KQED, Gumps’ windows, theater department SFSU, SF Opera makeup |
| Jerry Juhl | Muppet writer |
| Frank Oz (Oznowicz) | Muppet star, actor, movie director |
| Tony Urbano | construction and performing work in television, commercials, big shows, and films |
| These short descriptions cover only fragments of the talents of the artists listed. | |
JUNIOR MEMBERS
A number of talented youngsters literally grew up in the Guild. Frank Oznowicz was a little boy when we first met him. Jerry Juhl, Bob Darling joined as teenagers. John Gilkerson and Randal Metz came to Fairyland as children eager to soak up puppetry (John’s mother told me that she took John to see the Vagabond Puppets when he was a tot in a stroller). Steve Hansen and Sallie Hanson hung around the Vagabond Puppets when they were involved in the Teen Troupe of the Recreation Drama Department. Like Jerry, Frank and Bob, Sallie grew up and became part of Vagabond puppet’s staff. Later she shifted over to Fairyland’s Puppet Theater. The Guild was, and is, a unique place for fostering and encouraging young puppeteers.
EDUCATORS
Many of our members are educators and librarians who have included puppetry in the enriching work they do in educational settings: Kathy Foley, Richard Bay, Lou Harrison, Bruce Chesse, Joy Magezis, Mickey Maguire, Judy Sierra, Bob Kaminski, Rosemary Glenn, Bill Jones, Althea Sheehan, Jan Van Schuyver, Tia Smirnoff, Ruth Stotter, Denys Adida, Jack Fredricks, Carol Greene, the Huffs, Sandra Starr, Leola Wade, Dan Winkelman, Kathleen Merrill, Pam Brown and former and current Trip Trap Troupe members. Ralph Chesse taught at Marina Adult School where students included the young Tony Urbano and Lettie Connell. Chesse and Mahlmann taught puppetry at San Francisco State for several semesters. And the rest of us, the performers, the puppet makers, the fans, have all and each made a contribution to the Guild and the world of puppetry. This is something very special to be appreciated and treasured.
This has been only a brief history, viewed from one person’s memory. In gathering the material I was awed by what has taken place. We gathered for fellowship and to share an interest. We have made contributions. We have received inspiration, involvement, training. We have gained from giving. We have gained by receiving. We have made lasting friendships. May we continue to receive, to give, to contribute and most of all, to elevate the art of puppetry, as friends for the next 35 years.
Timeline: How the Guild Began
| 1954 | Meetings at Oakland Library. |
| 1955 | Group breaks away from Library to meet in private homes: Connell, Derby, Mahlmann, Mack, Oznowicz |
| 1956 | First Puppet Fair at Children’s Fairyland, Oakland, Dorothy Hayward, director of Puppet Theater |
| 1957 | First National Festival on West Coast held at UCLA
Second Puppet Fair at Fairyland, Oakland |
| 1960 | First California Regional for Puppeteers of America |
| 1961 | First California Regional Festival at San Francisco.
GUILD RECEIVES CHARTER – publishes Newsletter Patricia Lavin, provisional president, Luman Coad, newsletter editor. Guild project Play Competition held at Sigmund Stern Grove in the Recreation Dept. Cottage. Second West Coast National P of A Festival at Asilomar, Lettie Connell Schubert director. |
| 1962 | Guild Cooperative Show “The Ugly Duckling”, directed by Lewis Mahlmann. |
| 1972 | National Festival at Mills College, Oakland, Lewis Mahlmann, Festival Director. |
| 1975 | Regional Festival at Asilomar, Lettie Schubert, director. |
| 1979 | Regional Festival at the Leamington Hotel in Oakland, Ronna Casey, Julie Greene and Mike Oznowicz, co-directors. |
| 1984 | Regional Festival at San Mateo, Lettie Schubert director |
| 1985 | 46th Annual National Festival at Claremont, Lettie Schubert, director |
| 1990 | Regional Festival at Clark Kerr Campus, Berkeley, Lewis Mahlmann, director. |
| 1993 | National Festival at San Francisco State University, San Francisco: Ronna Leon, Mike Oznowicz and Lettie Schubert, co-directors. |
A note from Lettie: my apologies to the guild members who led or worked on Regionals that have not been included here. Every lead in researching this story has led to several more, but often I simply did not have material in my files for reference, and time has run out. Thanks go to Lewis, Luman, Charlotte Black and all the others I have pestered with telephone calls to help fill in the holes. I welcome correspondence with everyone who was part of the Guild history. PLEASE write and give me corrections, and share anecdotes of your involvement in the San Francisco Bay Area Puppeteers Guild and in puppetry in the Bay Area.