Robert Rogers, a full-time professional puppeteer, poses here with one of his many creations. (Provided Photo)
Puppeteer Robert Rogers has put on shows in China, Taiwan, Colombia, Tunisia, the Czech Republic, and Canada – and this summer, he’ll be putting on a show in Owego at the 35th Annual Strawberry Festival at noon on Saturday, June 20 at the Courthouse Square near the gazebo.
Rogers said that he got into puppetry as a youngster growing up downstate: “I was a kid who really loved puppets. It’s hard to describe why, but some kids love baseball, some kids love music, some kids love NASCAR … I loved puppets.” He added, “When I was growing up it was different because the kind of puppets I would see on TV were puppets from the theater. It wasn’t Muppets and there was no CGI stuff, so I could go to the theaters with my parents and see the same puppets I was seeing on TV.” In a way, it was like Rogers could meet his favorite TV stars.
Despite his early love of puppetry, it wasn’t immediately apparent that Rogers would make it into a career. Throughout his teenage years, he made puppets and sometimes got paid to perform at birthday parties. However, in college – at the Tisch School of Fine Arts at New York University – Rogers majored in film production. He said, “I wanted to be a film director.” Unfortunately, what he wanted to do turned out not to be as fun as it seemed. He said, “Once I got to film school, I realized I didn’t really like the nuts and bolts of filmmaking. Making a film is very tedious.” He did like the screenwriting part of things, though, so he thought about being a screenwriter. Then, after graduation, he got a job as a puppeteer – and the rest was history.
After working for someone else for a little while, he decided to branch out on his own – a move that has been vastly successful for him. As a full-time puppeteer, Rogers does anywhere from two shows a week to two shows a day. When asked about the range of venues in which he’s performed, Rogers said, “I’ve been in some pretty fancy ones but you know sometimes it’s the out of the way place where you really connect with your audience that makes it kind of memorable. So I could tell you I’ve performed at Lincoln Center, but also I performed in a garage of a firehouse out in Long Island. I’ve been in so many different kinds of places.”
Although he’s been to shows all over the world, Rogers and his wife – a SUNY Cortland professor – now reside in Castle Creek.
Being a puppeteer doesn’t just involve operating puppets – it also involves making them. Rogers explained that most of his puppets are made out of latex. He said, “I sculpt them out of modeling clay and then I make a plaster of Paris mold and then when the plaster dries I take the clay out and put the molds together and fill them with a rigid latex. So I’m making casts.” Some of the puppets hang from strings, some are connected to wooden rods, and some Rogers puts his hand in directly. “There are all sorts of ways to bring them to life,” he said.
In the decades that Rogers has been in puppetry, he’s made hundreds and hundreds of puppets. Now, he said, “I have a wall full of trunks of puppets that go back 35 years.”
In addition to making his own puppets, Rogers also writes his own material. Some of it is based on classic tales – like Pinocchio – but some of it is original.
At Strawberry Fest, Rogers will most likely be doing a marionette show. He said, “I think I’m going to be bringing a show called The Adventures of Orlando Furioso.” The character is based on a knight from an Italian epic poem. He said, “I’ve been doing it now for several years and … it’s a real crowd pleaser because kids like it and adults also.”
