Starting their own business was as easy as pulling the strings on a puppet for Deborah Ben-Eliezer and her partners. Well, maybe not all that easy.
Ben-Eliezer, a professional actor who lives in San Francisco, formed the Puppet Players some 18 months ago with the help of Nell Ester Friedman, a musician and dedicated student of Torah; Jen Miriam Kantor, writer and master puppet-maker; and Sara Nicoletti, an artist who creates sets, props and puppet fabrication.
The result of this collaboration has been a multimedia Jewish theater group — one that not only performs but also educates — integrating puppetry, creative storytelling and actual puppet-making into the curriculum of schools and synagogues.
Ben-Eliezer handles the business end of things, as well as lending her theater and dance talent to the troupe. For seven years she had her own dance-theater company, which also ran a summer program for kids in San Francisco’s Mission District.
“About a year and a half ago I dissolved that partnership and got into the puppet thing,” she said. “Our story is about how a group of four women can functionally create something that people will enjoy. And people love puppets.”
In order to accomplish the shared goal, Ben-Eliezer and her partners created a business model, working under an East Bay organization called Epic Arts. This nonprofit umbrella allows them to write grants, and has also helped them to formulate a one-year plan, a two-year plan and a long-range plan to map where they wanted to go with the project.
Chochmat HaLev, a Berkeley meditation center, also was instrumental in helping to create a cohesive audience base by donating performance, rehearsal and storage space. In return, the Puppet Players perform free previews of all their shows for Chochmat HaLev. “We’ve had an amazing attendance,” Ben-Eliezer said.
So what’s down the road? Next summer will see the launch of the Puppet Players performing arts summer camp in Berkeley. The two-week daylong program includes classes in movement, drama, puppetry, music, improvisation and crafts. The session will end with a live presentation for family and friends.
It’s not only child’s play. Ben-Eliezer and company want to expand their reach to adults. “In America, we think puppetry is just for kids,” she explained, “but, if you look at the rest of the world, it’s just as popular with adults. It’s such a low-paid thing, people tend to dismiss it but we’re trying to raise the bar.”
While current shows like “The Miracle of Hannukah” and “Ester’s Journey” tend to focus on Jewish themes, the team wants to do more cross-cultural programming. A show using the poetry of Indian mystic Rumi is in the works.
“We want to be able to have solid bookings and expand our base of operation from the East Bay to the Peninsula and San Francisco and the entire area,” Ben-Eliezer explained. “And there are always more holidays. That’s the wonderful thing about the Jewish tradition.”
It’s a pretty ambitious goal for a troupe whose first show was on a cardboard box in the street in front of a yoga studio, but it sounds like they’re part-way there.