Welcome to our Featured Play Spotlight. Looking for teen characters who actually feel like real people and not stereotypes? Start with Master of Puppets by Jeffrey Harr.
The guidance counsellors of Ambrose High have decided to speak to senior class couples about the power of communication.
Joanie and Chuck are at the top of Mrs. Slattimore’s list. She wants Joanie to see she wears bossy pants and Chuck already has a mom. When the couples don’t seem to be “getting it” Mrs. S. pulls out the big guns – truth puppets. That’s right, puppets who tell all.
Master of Puppets is derived from Jeffrey's full length Stereotype High. We love this play because it takes the notion of the "stereotypical teen" and blows it wide open. The teens in Stereotype High fight tooth and nail to reinvent themselves. We’re talking three-dimensional characters who make decisions, make mistakes, and try to change.
Because Stereotype High is a full length, and our folks are often looking for shorter works, we wanted to also individually publish some of the vignettes like Master of Puppets. Check it out!
Let's hear from the author!
When I wrote this play, I was teaching high school seniors and this was a common problem--two kids who were dating and one of the two was this overbearing control freak and the other, a passive go-with-the-flow type. And at the time, we had a guidance counselor who was the kookiest, coolest lady in the world. She inspired Mrs. Slattimore's character--that counselor who's just a LITTLE too involved in student affairs, but always had her heart in the right place.
When it comes to relationships in high school, sometimes both of you are better off apart.
The most important visual in the play is those two kids sitting at the desk with hand puppets, fighting, while their counselor is watching like it's the best movie she's ever seen. The puppets are hysterical, but when she pulls out a soda and popcorn to watch them go at it, it's too funny.
My best production advice is to workshop different puppets and different voices for the puppet to get something that's as funny as possible and is natural for the actors. A lot of practice with those puppets is important too--it's not nearly as easy as it looks!
Student performers know exactly what it's like to argue with a friend/boyfriend/girlfriend and, worst-case scenario, to have unwanted adult help! It has to be supremely frustrating to have to air out your grievances to a nosy adult. There's no question that kids can relate. And, of course, the very second you put a puppet in a student performer's hands, you're off and running. EVERYONE loves playing with a puppet.
Chuck is the bomb. He's legitimately one of the least aware characters ever, and completely unaware that he's so unaware. He's just living sentence by sentence and as soon as he's given a puppet and told that he can be completely open and honest through the voice of this puppet, he just goes. And it's awesome. He's liberated. I would LOVE to play him.
When Chuck says it's harsh that Joanie calls him a "meathead," she says, "No, not really. Harsh would be to say that my cat has a better chance of passing algebra. Of course, Fluffy wouldn't have to take it three times, but whatever."
by Jeffrey Harr
The guidance counsellors of Ambrose High have decided to speak to senior class couples about the power of communication.
by Jeffrey Harr
High school is full of stereotypes – or is it?
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