BareBones Productions' annual Halloween puppet show is a family affair

Longtime volunteer artist Ewart Martens tinkered with a piece of rubber, trying to wrap it around a white plastic tube and a metal wire. This combination of previously used materials eventually became a monster claw.

"Every once in a while we will buy something, but this is something that we used last year and we're reusing it," Martens said.

He stretched the rubber, then paused to look out at the sea of chaos unfurling in front of him inside In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre on E. Lake Street in Minneapolis.

Dozens of volunteers collectively worked at makeshift craft stations to bring more than 25 large-scale puppets to life. These creations will debut at BareBones Productions' annual Halloween Extravaganza, a cult favorite in the Twin Cities. Large-scale puppets, people on stilts, an orchestra that includes 16 musicians and two co-directors, and fire performers strut their stuff as the weather cools off.

BareBones honors the "circle of life by celebrating its seasonal arc of death in the fall." This year, directors Jäc Pau and Walken Schweigert chose the theme of "When Calamity Strikes" as a way to explore the relationship between technology, climate change and genocide.

"We're bringing these disturbing things to life," Schweigert said. "There is one really giant puppet that we refer to as the Loomer, which is sort of functioning as our version of Orwell's Big Brother, if you will.

"I think that is a way for us to personify the menacing parts of technology and the overbearing and dominating aspects of technology as well as its connection to imperialist wars."

BareBones has been in multiple locations during the past 30 years, from the Midtown Greenway to Hidden Falls Regional Park. Every year the puppets are built at a new site, whether it's a rented empty storefront in Seward or this year, at In the Heart of the Beast.

Family affair

Building large-scale puppets doesn't happen overnight. In October, BareBones had 11 puppet-build sessions as well as weekly rehearsals. The chaos of a BareBones puppet build is like a cross between a prop shop explosion and a community gathering of longtime and new friends alike.

Masked and unmasked volunteers stretched rubber, painted mushrooms, tinkered with lights, discussed next steps for 20-foot puppets and crouched beneath huge puppets.

And after more than 30 years in operation, BareBones has become something of a family affair.

Many of the volunteers now building puppets as young adults grew up going to autumnal-oriented BareBones and the MayDay Parade, known as the rite of spring. This next generation of Minnesotans is creating the puppets that soon will parade about Powderhorn Park.

Magdalena Holtz, who uses they/them or she/her pronouns, hung out at the mushroom-making station with their mom, Brooke Dierkhising. Their plan was to create at least 25 mushrooms and possibly as many as 40.

Holtz was 7 years old when they went to their first BareBones show. As a bachelor of fine arts student at the University of Minnesota, they realized they wanted to get involved with BareBones again. So Holtz started volunteering and is now an intern.

"Mushrooms are acting as a symbol of transformation and …" they said, pondering the rest of the sentence. "Overcoming evil," added Dierkhising, who was holding some circular wires, trying to figure out how to make them into a mushroom.

Toward the back of the stage at In the Heart of the Beast, a massive five-person blue heron puppet towered over the scene of creative merriment.

The heron was the creation of large-puppet artist Orren Fen, 17, who uses they/them or she/her pronouns. Fen is in high school and has been making puppets for most of their life. They grew up just a few blocks away from In the Heart of the Beast and attended the MayDay Parade as a kid.

"Our show is in Powderhorn Park this year, and there is a pond in that park and there's a heron who lives in that pond," Fen said. "Over the years, I don't know if it's one heron or several and they fluctuate, but there is almost always one present in the park. In moving to this new space, this creature felt centered as this one being in the park."

Artists Fletcher Wolfe and Martin Ridenour, who both use they/them pronouns, had been working on a two-person puppet of a white-and-brown patterned dog for about a month.

"We're the dog pack, woof woof woof!" Ridenour and Wolfe said, barking in unison.

They named it Laika, after the Soviet space dog that was shot into space in 1957 and died in orbit. Laika's death circles back to the theme of grief, always centered in BareBones.

Wolfe carefully painted Laika's nose a deep shade of brown, and Laika looked like a real dog, but to stay on theme, they needed to make it more technology-oriented.

"It's supposed to be a robot dog, as well, so the eyes light up and the legs will be more three-dimensional, and add some silvery elements," Wolfe said. "I might just paint all of the bamboo silver and call it a day. We've been asked to turn it into a cyborg dog, much to our chagrin."

BareBones' Halloween Extravaganza

When: 6 p.m. doors, show at 7 p.m. Thu.-Sun.

Where: Powderhorn Park, Mpls.

Info: barebonespuppets.org. Mask-required section available, mask-optional section also available.

Cost: Pay what you can; no one will be turned away for lack of funds. Reserve online at barebonespuppets.org/2024-show or buy at the gate.