By Mark Marotta
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Elaine Woodall has the skills and the independence it takes to make dolls talk.

“They don’t talk. They’re like variety acts,” she clarifies.

Woodall has been a professional puppeteer since her late teens or early twenties and says that the amount of time it takes to master performing with marionettes depends on the degree of desire that an individual has.

“Somebody gave me a marionette for a Christmas present when I was ten years old,” recalls Woodall, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs. “I always played with dolls when I was younger. I liked dolls. Puppetry was just like moving dolls.”

Performing puppetry
Woodall performs her show, Elaine Woodall’s Dancing Marionettes, about a halfdozen times a year, mainly at schools and banquets. A resident of Ann’s Choice for about six months, Woodall recently gave a show to residents and children at the Renaissance Gardens health care neighborhood on campus.

Performances are about a half-hour long and usually involve about a half-dozen marionettes that dance to recorded classical music.

Making marionettes
Not only does Woodall perform with marionettes, she also makes them. “You have to,” she says. “There are a few professional people that I know who pay someone else to make a marionette for them, but that’s more than I can pay.”

According to Woodall, buying a marionette can cost a couple hundred dollars.

“Most of my friends are like me. We make our own. And we make exactly what we want,” she adds. “Each marionette is unique, of course.

“You start out with an idea in your head. Then I might make a sketch, a diagram.”

Then she gathers her materials. Woodall says she uses wood for her marionettes’ arms, legs, and body, and papier-mâché for the heads and perhaps the torso. She typically attaches seven to nine strings to operate each marionette.