The LET Award

The LET Award 

During the winter term I applied for the LET Award (http://lesenfantsterribles.co.uk/the-let-award/). The LET Award is organized by the theatre company Les Enfants Terribles. A world renowned company that specializes in puppetry. The award offers a place in a theatre at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, professional mentoring and a £1000 cash injection into the winning play.

I entered our play under the company name "Mid-Atlantic Productions" and with not a doubt in my mind that we would not get anywhere close to winning I pitched the play as a technologically driven production that will use robotics. I clicked submit and thought nothing more about it, not even telling my crew as to not get their hopes up. Well to my surprise on the 25th of January I received an email telling me that our production and nine others had been short-listed for the LET Award out of over one hundred applicants. 

Prototyping 1

Prototyping 2

The showcase in which we show a ten minute snippet of our production was on Monday the 6th of February a short week and a half away. Luckily my production crew were in place and we set to work. We cast the parts internally within the crew to save time, chose the ten minute snippet and got rehearsing.

Rehearsal Conductor Puppet

Rehearsal Fox Puppet

Temp Costume

Sound mixing

This of course had ramifications. My deadlines for a working animatronic had to be push back as this was too good and opportunity to miss. Our team was able to mix a full soundscape, design the lighting, plan costumes and block out the entire 10 minutes in just under a week. For the remainder of the rehearsal time we reviewed and polished the performance.

Emma, Aiden, Erin, Mila, Cormac, Amelie.

The performance at the awards went well and garnered a great reaction for the audience. We were all very proud that we pulled it off. Through this opportunity it not only put our team to the test and gave us a chance to meet others in the industry but also learn a lot about the animatronic itself. Seeing the puppet in action has taught me an a great deal about the character of the animatronic and how I can and need to apply that to the mechanics of the final version. The gesture, speed, actions and presence of the puppet was felt in our performance and I now know how to emulate that through robotics.