Puppet masters keep niche art form alive

The Finger Players, Paper Monkey Theatre and puppeteer Bright Ong are taking puppets to a wider audience

- Charmaine Lim

Niche as it is, puppetry has found its place and flourished within the theatre scene in Singapore.

Avid theatregoers may already be familiar with The Finger Players, whose works have won multiple Straits Times' Life Theatre Awards.

The third edition of its Puppet Origin Stories series further explores the history of Cairnhill Arts Centre.

Bilingual puppetry company Paper Monkey Theatre expanded its No Strings Attached international puppetry festival with open calls for the first time, bringing in talent from South Korea, Indonesia and the Philippines.

After two shows on the West End as a puppeteer in Idiots Assemble: Spitting Image The Musical (2023) and My Neighbour Totoro (2024), Bright Ong now sets his sights on making South-east Asia the powerhouse of puppetry.

The Straits Times highlights the people working hard to take the art form to a wider audience, proving that puppets are not only for children but can also be powerful means of storytelling.

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PAPER MONKEY THEATRE

Puppetry festival No Strings Attached returns for its seventh edition at Goodman Arts Centre from Nov 29 to Dec 1.

This is the first time since Paper Monkey Theatre started the festival in 2017 that it has put out an open call for puppeteers from other South-east Asian countries to be part of the festival.

The line-up includes puppeteers from Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea and Malaysia.

Opening the festival on Nov 29 is Ta Lent Show Theatre from Thailand, a duo that also performed at Esplanade's Flipside in June.

Benjamin Ho, artistic director of Paper Monkey Theatre, which started in 2008, says: "Call me silly, but I don't really want to make No Strings Attached into a big festival. It's meant to be something cosy and intimate."