Portland’s City of Hamburgers on the Menu in Big Apple

This post is authored by contributor Nicole Krueger.  You can keep track of what Nicole is up to on her wonderful blog Books and Bards.

DISCLAIMER: Nicole Krueger is professionally affiliated with Inkwater Press.

Imagine a plateful of hamburgers and hot dogs springing to life, dancing and cavorting to the tunes of a live “oom-pa-pa” band.

The creators of a new Brooklyn arts organization did.

Using rod puppets of hamburgers and hot dogs, the nonprofit poetry and theater group Alphabet Arts has adapted the children’s book City of Hamburgers, published a year ago by Portland’s Inkwater Press, into a puppet show, which will debut this weekend in two Brooklyn neighborhoods.

City of Hamburgers, written by Simpsons writer Mike Reiss and illustrated by Xeth Feinberg, tells the story of an imaginative boy named Jeffrey, who asks his German grandmother to describe what it was like growing up in the city of Hamburg. She recalls her youth as a Hamburger and her eventual marriage to a Frankfurter.

“The characters in City of Hamburgers are begging to be puppets,” said Kirsten Kammermeyer, a puppeteer, arts educator and co-founder of Alphabet Arts. “You want to see that little girl burger jump up and down and see her insides separate into the different burger toppings. You want to see the burger lady on the beach take her ‘top’ off.”

The show came about after a chance conversation with Rutgers professor Pheroze Wadia, who suggested Kammermeyer and her friends create a puppet show based on a book his grandkids loved. With a generous donation from Wadia, they formed Alphabet Arts and delved into the book with relish.

“A story as good as City of Hamburgers deserves to be brought to life through an art form as rich as puppetry,” said Amber West, a playwright, teaching artist and co-founder of Alphabet Arts. “We’ve adapted the story into a script but have left some room for improvisation and experimentation during the rehearsal process to develop the characters and bring out some of the important themes of the story, such as acceptance of differences, ‘interracial’ relationships, and what it means to become an American.”

The book, with its laugh-out-loud illustrations and clever wordplay, recently won ForeWord magazine’s bronze “Book of the Year” award.

“Probably 90 percent of everything for this show is made from scratch, including our ten-foot, two-panel wooden puppet stage,” Amber said. “We’re hoping to tour City of Hamburgers to other kid-friendly venues in and beyond New York in the future and to develop a post-show hands-on workshop in which our young audience members will create ‘puppet poems’ connecting their own stories, words and designs to themes in the play.”

Following is a Q&A with Amber West and Kirsten Kammermeyer:

Tell me about the genesis of Alphabet Arts.

Amber: Kirsten and I met in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she studied theater and I studied poetry. Kirsten started to do puppetry through her educational theater work with Kaiser Permanente, and through a found object puppetry company called Lunatique Fantastique.

As I came out to see Kirsten’s shows, I was really amazed by the art of puppetry, by how much is possible through this art form. Like most people, I thought puppets were something more akin to toys, and should mostly be used for light or comedic theater and material appropriate for children. But Kirsten was doing shows about issues like clergy sexual abuse and learning to live with polio—serious subject matter for adult audiences. I was also struck by how much poetry and puppetry have in common in terms of lyrical density, emotional intensity and compaction.

I really enjoyed collaborating with Kirsten and wanted to do more in the future, but she moved to New York, which put things on hold for a couple years. In 2006, I moved to New York as well and met Sarah Engelman, who had actually gone to school with Kirsten in San Francisco. As far as I can tell, Californians magnetize towards one another when lost in New York’s concrete jungle. Sarah and I share a passion for music, and she’s a very talented producer and event planner who has managed huge music festivals all over the country and abroad.

The three of us are still getting to know each other’s strengths and learning how to work with each other as a team—and to juggle working on our art in addition to full-time jobs, graduate school, etc., but it’s going really well so far. Alphabet Arts feels like a natural evolution or formalization—a way of putting a name to—collaborations that have been happening for some time.

Kirsten: Every process is different because every show is different. We are building everything by hand in our apartments, and with virtually no budget, so that’s a huge challenge. Some of the main challenges have been wanting to make things durable and quality-looking within our small budget, but also trying to keep in mind that we can make improvements to things like our stage in the future as donations come in and our budget grows.

Amber: We’ve consulted a lot of people for help with doing things we didn’t know how to do, and we’ve had an amazing group of volunteers (mostly friends) who have helped us. Our community of friends, neighbors, and artists has really come together on this, and City of Hamburgers has become a real labor of love. People are donating time to the project because they believe in it and want to do something positive for kids in the community. We feel very lucky and thankful for all the encouragement, support and help we’ve received from the community.

Are there any challenges unique to this particular show?

Kirsten: Like most adaptations, it’s challenging trying to find the balance between staying true to the story and making it work for the stage. This particular story lends itself really well to theatrics with its fun imagery and colorful characters. I guess the most difficult part is trying to make a 2-D character into a 3-D character while maintaining all of its qualities. I also found it challenging to find my own mark for the puppets. I sought out a lot of help for this, and so far I’m really happy with how they are turning out.

What is it like being a puppeteer? What do you enjoy most about it?

Kirsten: It’s fun! I like giving life to something that wouldn’t normally be alive—breathing life into an object and giving it character. There are certain things puppets can do that actors can’t. Having a background in acting, I find it more satisfying to be able to act through an object as opposed to actually doing it myself. This is because I can’t always do exactly what I want—what’s in my head—by myself, but if I know what I want I can make a puppet that can do it exactly the right way.

Everybody loves puppetry and has done it in one way or another. Who didn’t used to give their broccoli voices?

What do you think it is that fascinates people, particularly children, about puppets?

Kirsten: When a lot of people think about puppets, they naturally think about kids, especially since we grew up in a world with Sesame Street, Big Blue Bear, Fraggle Rock and the Muppets. But the funny thing is that I personally didn’t start thinking about puppets as a true medium until I was 23. The first show I saw as an adult was by Liebe Wetzel, and all she used was her pointer and middle fingers on both of her hands to make them walk and interact with each other on stage. It was hysterical.

Later I did a show with her called My Dinner with Lunatique Fantastique. It was all done with vegetables and not at all for kids. It was a hit! I think the reason is that all people, young and old alike, are fascinated by an inanimate object that comes to life. My best dinner trick is making a napkin into a little mischievous girl or turning a scarf into a two-legged dancing fool. There’s something in it that triggers the imagination, something that comes naturally to most kids but is often forgotten by adults.

What are your plans for the future of this puppet show, and of Alphabet Arts?

Amber: Though our first show is a puppet play for children, we are also at work on some experimental pieces for adult audiences, such as an original, full-length piece blending my poetry, Kirsten’s puppetry and Sarah’s directorial vision. One of our goals is to explore the ways in which the mixing of various art forms both enhance each individual art form and create something new that is more expressive and perhaps more effective in communicating and connecting with audiences.

I’d also like to mention that we’re in need of donations from generous individuals willing to support our work. Once we’ve raised $1,000 through individual donations, we’ll be able to start applying for grants. (We’re already more than half-way towards that goal thanks to the generosity of Pheroze Wadia, Steve West and Sue Borchardt!) Donations can be made through our website. Thank you!